I came to AA a lifelong devout atheist. 9 years later I have a belief in a power greater (larger) than myself. Is that power God? I suppose it depends on how God is defined. The God of religion? Nope. Universal love and light? Closer. I believe that there is an underlying connectivity to all things. When I align myself with the loving Universe, I am much better off. So am I an atheist or not? To me it’s semantics and I don’t really care how I’m labeled (except, yes, “savage” is harsh — but that book was written in a very different era). I consider myself deeply spiritual. And now that I’ve withdrawn from the debating society (which took quite some time because my indignant pride was huge), I read the BB with peace and pleasure, and outside of the “He” and “Him” references, I see that it really is all-encompassing, and that there is a very wide hoop I can jump through, if I let go of resistance.