tweakabelle
Posts: 7522
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: Sydney Australia
Status: offline
|
quote:
Personally, it makes no difference to me whether or not you believe. You are free to do what you want as is everyone else.
Why is it so important to you to make such a big deal out of people who do believe? Honestly, you should seek help for your issues. They really have nothing to do with religion.
My! What a collection of wild assumptions, misunderstandings, errors of fact and gratuitous judgements. I’ll deal with just a few of them.
I wrote: “It is abusive to force a belief such as religion on a child or recovering addict, or indeed, any one who is not in a position to make fully informed free choices of their own. If you cannot grasp this basic point about personal integrity and autonomy, try replacing "a belief such as religion" with "sex" in the previous sentence.”
You wrote: "Exchaning[sic] belief in religion" with "sex" is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard and is a completely ridiculous analogy.
By your theory, it is inappropriate for parents to teach their children anything.”
Obviously you have completely failed to understand the point I was making. My objection is to the compulsory element of forcing religion on to children in faith based schools, or on addicts in recovery programs. I made this crystal clear several times. Yet you refuse to accept this. How you manage to conjure “it is inappropriate for parents to teach their children anything” out of this is simply magical. It does raise concerns about your comprehension skills (or, more accurately, lack thereof).
You write: “As for recovering addicts, from a psychological standpoint (something you are obviously completely ignorant about, among other things), an addict needs to believe they will recover (if they are in rehab, that's the goal).”
I have a professional interest in human behaviour and I regard addiction studies as one potentially rich source of insight into human behaviour. I have a personal interest in recovery issues as some friends and one family member are in recovery programs of various sorts. I'm not an expert nor do I pretend to be, but quite a long way from "completely ignorant" about addiction.
The point of rehab is not to learn “to believe they will recover” as you erroneously assert, but to acquire the skills to enable them to recover. As innumerable addicts manage to do this without the benefits of religious belief, it’s hard to make a case for such beliefs to be compulsory in rehab.
“Religion and faith gives them[addicts] hope that they will come out the other side. Faith helps give them the strength they need to keep fighting”.
Religion and faith are potential sources of hope and strength that some people find useful. They are not suitable for all people. Forcing them on all recovering addicts will simply increase the failure rate.
It has already been pointed out that AA is not a faith-based organisation, one of your many errors of fact. One serious problem with AA/NA-type approaches is their insistence on a ‘one size fits all’ approach. They fail to allow for the diversity of humans. There’s nothing wrong with offering religion as an option. But forcing it on people who aren’t in a position to make fully informed free choices of their own is, IMHO, clearly abusive.
Currently, in the field of recovery from opiates, a mixture of pharmaceutical substitutes (eg. buprhenorphine or suboxone) and CBT in harm reduction models are said to be the most effective approaches to recovery. This is disputed by some. The AA/NA-type 'disease' model, while still effective for some, is losing influence and has been for decades. It might be time to update your info in this area.
You write: “Look at yourself as an example: You are clearly an atheist (with deep anger issues). Going to a faith based recovery program didn't cause you to become religious did it? Your points are not only off base, but ignorant and ridiculous”.
Sadly for your wild assumptions, I am not an atheist. Nor have I ever been in a recovery program (unless I count recovering from a Catholic upbringing). If your posts here are anything to go by, anger appears much more of a constant in your life than an issue in mine. It’s a good idea to know what you are talking about prior to making judgements. That way you could avoid looking ignorant and ridiculous. Wouldn't that would be such an improvement on your current look? Who knows - given time you might even make an accurate judgement or two.
From where I sit, one of the better aspects of Christianity is its promotion of love tolerance and understanding. I note the complete absence of these virtues from your post. If you agree these qualities are important, you might like to reflect on that.
If you wish to engage with me, politeness and civility are minimum standards. If and when you demonstrate a basic familiarity with these qualities I will be happy to continue this conversation.
< Message edited by tweakabelle -- 5/3/2011 9:30:09 PM >
_____________________________
|
RE: Where have all the miracles gone ? - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread