I have been thinking – which according to many sponsors and sponsees is a dangerous activity for me – but anyway, here is the thought.
Our Program is a scientific Program. It might also be a spiritual Program, but it has all the attributes of scientific activity.
Let me elaborate.
One of the principles of the Steps is ‘repeated rigorous and demanding investigation and experimentation’ with life. We rigorously examine our lives and actions in inventories and then try out actions to amend our attitudes and perceptions of life. We experiment and then with sponsors and inventories we track the results of our experiments. Even when we make amends we are, in part, looking for information about the reality of our lives and attitudes by studying the reflection of our actions, this sounds like a scientific process.
Our new way of life demands rigorous honesty, the same honesty that is found in a scientific laboratory, uncompromising acceptance of facts and information, even when we don’t like it. If something works, we do it again, and when it stops working for us, we stop doing it.
And our Program life involves positing a theory, then testing it. We suggest to newcomers that they try our spiritual and altruistic way of life, and if it does not work they can always go back. Try this theory, apply it, then see if it works, if it does not then reject it as false and move on.
If it sounds, walks and quacks – you probably have a duck. Our Program has many scientific attributes, it could be framed as a scientific way of life.
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