Let's hypothesize what a "god" actually is

[Boss]

In conclusion (lol), THE most important aspect of any rehabilitation program above all else is having a strong support system. It is not necessary to one's sobriety to become spiritual or to believe in a higher power.

Such a claim has never been made by Boss on this or any other forum. This is complete fabrication from the mind of pacer.

If not Alcoholics Anonymous, what are the alternatives?

Boss has also never claimed on this forum or any other, that there are no alternatives to AA.

What we continue to see is a pattern from pacer. Interjecting his own imagined thoughts of what he believes to have read posted by Boss, but which are not actually on the page. Attempting to have rational conversation with people who suffer from such delusions, is pointless and not worthwhile.

These people need to seek mental help from a professional.

 

[pacer]

P.S. Here is a list of AA alternatives in alphabetical order including a short description and website address:

HAMS: Harm Reduction; HAMS: Harm Reduction for Alcohol A harm reduction program empowers people to choose their own goal—safer drinking, reduced drinking, or quitting. It engages people with realistic goals which they can actually accomplish, and does not label people as “diseased” or “alcoholic”. HAMS views excessive drinking as a maladaptive coping strategy. There are 17 “elements” of HAMS, which you can do in any order, are optional, you get to pick and choose which ones work for you. Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies intended to reduce the negative consequences of high risk behaviors such as overdrinking or drug use. Harm reduction is a nonjudgmental approach that attempts to meet people "where they are at" with their drinking or drug use. Instead of demanding perfect abstinence, this pragmatic approach is supportive of anyone who wishes to minimize the harm associated with a high risk behavior such as drinking or drug use. HAMS offers information and support via a chat room, an email group and live meetings--as well is the articles on their web site.

LifeRing Secular Recovery; Site Unavailable LifeRing is a network of support groups for people who want to be free of alcohol and addictive drugs. They are a group for people who have learned through experience that the only solution that works is to abstain completely. They see the power to get clean and sober inside each person. Through the positive reinforcement of the group process, that power becomes dominant in each person and enables them to lead clean and sober lives. They believe that there are as many different ways to get clean and sober as there are alcoholics and addicts. Therefore, their approach to recovery emphasizes learning through experimentation. The basic LifeRing philosophy can be summed up in three words; Sobriety, Secularity and Self-Help. The website provides information about the group, including frequently asked questions, publications, an online forum area for support, and links to local meetings.

Moderation Management; http://www.moderation.org/: Moderation Management (MM) is a behavioral change program and national support group network for people concerned about their drinking and who desire to make positive lifestyle changes. MM empowers individuals to accept personal responsibility for choosing and maintaining their own path, whether moderation or abstinence. MM promotes early self-recognition of risky drinking behavior, when moderate drinking is a more easily achievable goal. The website provides information about the organization as well as links to live meetings, online support options, and tools/publications for assessing and managing your drinking.

Pennsylvania Model; http://www.arcamidwest.com/penmodelrecovery.htm: Pennsylvania Model is the use of medication, such as Naltrexone, which has been shown to suppress the intense craving to drink or use, in addition to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Enhancement Therapy and/or Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Alcohol abuse is treated as a bio-psycho-social condition, rather than a “spiritual disease”, where the physical component is treated with medication, which eliminates the physical cravings, so you can then deal with the psychological and social components of the addiction, changing the way you think about certain things and the social habits you spent your whole life developing. Assisted Recovery Centers of America (ARCA) was the first in the nation to offer a non 12-step program of recovery using this model.

Rational Recovery; http://www.rational.org/: Rational Recovery is a worldwide source of counseling, guidance, and direct instruction on self-recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs through planned, permanent abstinence. The group believes that individuals are on their own in staying sober, so there are no meetings or treatment centers as part of the approach, nor is there any counseling, therapy, psychology or spirituality. The website provides information about the method (Addictive Voice Recognition Technique® (AVRT®)), frequently asked questions, free information for those trying to stay sober, as well as their families, and information about subscription based services.

Recovery, Inc; recovery-inc.org Recovery, Inc. is a self-help mental health program based on the work of their founder a neuropsychiatrist, the late Abraham A. Low, M.D. Recovery, Inc. offers its members a free method to regain and maintain their mental health and the program is designed to work in conjunction with professional mental health services. The website provides information and background about the group, links to resources for group members and professionals, forum boards for discussions/support, and a directory of the over 700 group meetings in the U.S. and several other countries.

Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS); http://www.cfiwest.org/sos/index.htm: SOS is an alternative recovery method for those alcoholics or drug addicts who are uncomfortable with the spiritual content of widely available 12-Step programs. SOS takes a secular approach to recovery and maintains that sobriety is a separate issue from religion or spirituality. SOS believes that sobriety must be a priority for its members and that they must accept that drinking or using, no matter what the circumstances, is no longer an option for them. The website provides more information about the organization, including the history and brochures about the group, as well as links to live meetings around the world.

SMART Recovery; http://www.smartrecovery.org/: SMART Recovery® (Self-Management And Recovery Training) helps people recover from all types of addictive behaviors, including: alcoholism, drug abuse, substance abuse, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, gambling addiction, cocaine addiction, and addiction to other substances and activities. They emphasize four main points: Motivation to abstain, coping with urges, problem solving and lifestyle balance. SMART views addiction as a bad habit. It does NOT view it as a disease, and therefore, there are no labels used, such as “alcoholics” or “addicts”. It stresses self-responsibility, self-motivation and self-discipline as the primary means of stopping substance use. SMART Recovery® offers free face-to-face and online mutual help groups. The website provides more information about the group, as well as links to the 300+ face-to-face meetings offered around the world, 16+ online meetings per week and their online message board for additional support.

Women for Sobriety; http://www.womenforsobriety.org/: Women For Sobriety, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women overcome alcoholism and other addictions. Their "New Life" program is based upon a Thirteen Statement Program of positivity that encourages emotional and spiritual growth. WFS believes that drinking or using began to overcome stress, loneliness, frustration, emotional deprivation, or any number of other kinds of harassment from which dependence and addiction resulted. They believe that this physiological addiction can only be overcome by abstinence, and that mental and emotional addiction are overcome with the knowledge of self that is gained through this program. Members live by the WFS philosophy: Forget the past, plan for tomorrow, and live today. The website provides additional information about the group, the thirteen statements of the program, and links to find groups in your area. They also have a “Men for Sobriety”.

16-Step for Discovery and Empowerment Model; Charlotte Kasl This is a holistic approach to overcoming addiction that views people in their entirety-mind, body and spirit. Created by Charlotte Kasl, Ph.D., this 16-step model helps people to develop ego strength which is seen as having a healthy ability to be introspective and to ask oneself the questions: “Who am I? What do I value, believe and want?” Addiction is seen as complex, encompassing social factors, physical factors, pre-disposition and personal history. This method believes that a major task in recovering from addiction is to validate the underlying, positive survival goals for safety, connection, pleasure, love and power that using used to accomplish, and then to find non-addictive and positive ways to meet those needs. The steps are about taking charge of your life, and rebuilding your self-esteem and self-worth. The steps are quite powerful.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/RHK90RB6134X6]Amazon.com: Know the Top 10 Best Alcoholics Anonymous Alternatives[/ame]

 

[Boss]

Again... I have never argued there was not an alternative to AA. I have never argued that religion or spirituality are required to beat addiction. I have never argued that only non-religious people suffer from addiction. I have never argued that religious or spiritual people are immune to addiction. These are apparently statements you have imagined reading from me, and now you are responding to the imaginary statements. Seek professional help. Seriously.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

if that were possible "they" would be deadly to any other life form other then their own..

Ever read the Bible?

Exodus 33 18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” 19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

yes MANY TIMES but that's irrelevant to the question you posed and the answer I gave.

No it isn't, God clearly told Moses that he couldn't survive even just looking at Him. If gods did evolve on a star, and have access to technology that allows them to land on planets, it would serve to protect not only the beings we call gods, but us.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Okay...I just can't get My brain around the idea that God has to be justified.............




to anyone...

why not? there is no evidence that god does or does not exist...to me that means everything god is credited with must be proven to be god's work and and explanation given to why... jus·ti·fy verb \ˈjəs-tə-ˌfī\
: to provide or be a good reason for (something) : to prove or show (something) to be just, right, or reasonable

: to provide a good reason for the actions of (someone)

: to position (text) so that the edges form a straight line

There is plenty of evidence. There is actually more evidence for the existence of God than there is for the existence of dark energy, yet you accept the latter simply because you see scientists as having a special understanding of the universe that is not available to other people.

In other words, you treat science as a religion, and see scientists as priests that are granted divine inspiration that is not accessible to laity because they haven't purified themselves properly.

 

[daws101]

God is something weak minded people need to believe in to keep them from going nuts. I say thank God for God.

Actually, it's the other way around. Weak minded people lack the ability to comprehend God and instead, establish their faith in the material world. This is why you generally see more alcoholism and drug addiction, depression and suicide, and assorted other social problems in non-religious people.

bullshit,,,,There is no criteria of certain groups of people being more prone to addiction than other groups. A person either has an addictive personality, or they don't.

Didn't say certain people are more prone. Studies have been done, cases of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression and suicide, are all more prevalent in people who lack strong spiritual faith as opposed to those who have it. This is why so many rehab programs (like AA) advocate spiritual faith.

Here are my posts from earlier, in case anyone wants to see how pacer and daws are misrepresenting my comments. I was also challenged on the part about AA advocating spiritual faith, so I decided to post this as well, just to further support my comment:

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become
unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steeps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.

So as you can see, I was also correct in my assertion that spiritual faith plays a large role in rehab/recovery programs.

Here is the link to the Wiki article: Religion and happiness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It points out several things which confirm my previous statements:

(Excerpt)
Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Center and the Pew Organization conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people. An analysis of over 200 social studies contends that "high religiousness predicts a lower risk of depression and drug abuse and fewer suicide attempts, and more reports of satisfaction with sex life and a sense of well-being.

And a review of 498 studies published in peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of them showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of perceived well-being and self-esteem and lower levels of hypertension, depression, and clinical delinquency.

Finally, a recent systematic review of 850 research papers on the topic concluded that "the majority of well-conducted studies found that higher levels of religious involvement are positively associated with indicators of psychological well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect, and higher morale) and with less depression, suicidal thoughts and behavior, drug/alcohol use/abuse.

Now as for daws and pacer's little third-grade schoolyard behavior, I can only surmise it is because they are not happy with being totally PWNED in every way and every orifice. I don't really blame them, this was a pretty brutal takedown. So we can simply overlook what they are going to spew forth from here, because that is always to be expected from losers.

no, you're not pretentious at all! cowardly too.
Definition of surmise (vti)
Bing Dictionary
sur·mise[ sur mz ]
make guess about something: to conclude that something is the case on the basis of only limited evidence or intuitive feeling
guesswork: a conclusion drawn on only limited evidence or intuitive feeling
your guesswork is erroneous...the only poster who is pwned and a loser is you...
the brutal take down is fantasy......

 

[pacer]

"The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." (Albert Einstein)

 

[daws101]

Ever read the Bible?

Exodus 33 18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” 19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

yes MANY TIMES but that's irrelevant to the question you posed and the answer I gave.

No it isn't, God clearly told Moses that he couldn't survive even just looking at Him. If gods did evolve on a star, and have access to technology that allows them to land on planets, it would serve to protect not only the beings we call gods, but us.

anything is possible in fantasy..
the conversation you mentioned was witnessed by no one....and cannot be corroborated
it's also one of the oldest story telling devices there is ...
in actuality if said gods did develop on a star they would be gaseous and incapable of building things and using tools...which they would not need anyway. their interplanetary travel would be of necessity limited to areas of high heat as any temperature low enough to make them into a liquid or a solid would most likely be fatal to them..

 

[daws101]

Okay...I just can't get My brain around the idea that God has to be justified.............




to anyone...

why not? there is no evidence that god does or does not exist...to me that means everything god is credited with must be proven to be god's work and and explanation given to why... jus·ti·fy verb \ˈjəs-tə-ˌfī\
: to provide or be a good reason for (something) : to prove or show (something) to be just, right, or reasonable

: to provide a good reason for the actions of (someone)

: to position (text) so that the edges form a straight line

There is plenty of evidence. There is actually more evidence for the existence of God than there is for the existence of dark energy, yet you accept the latter simply because you see scientists as having a special understanding of the universe that is not available to other people.

In other words, you treat science as a religion, and see scientists as priests that are granted divine inspiration that is not accessible to laity because they haven't purified themselves properly.

false! you just wish I did.
the rest of your answer is rationalization...
how is no evidence proving or disproving god...more evidence?
that statement is unequivocal....making your answer fiction.

 

[daws101]

"The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." (Albert Einstein)

What percent of scientists are atheist?
Answer:

98%

 

[Boss]

What percent of scientists are atheist?
Answer:

98%

Shows how stupid scientists are. Actually, when you consider that most self-aggrandizing Atheists lie and call themselves "scientists" when they're not, this number isn't surprising.

Ignaz Semmelweis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (July 1, 1818 – August 13, 1865) (born Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis) was a Hungarian physician of German extraction now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "savior of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%–35%. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards.

He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.
Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings. Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist's research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 47 after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after he was committed.

Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time. The theory of diseases was highly influenced by ideas of an imbalance of the basic "four humours" in the body, a theory known as dyscrasia, for which the main treatment was bloodlettings. Medical texts at the time emphasized that each case of disease was unique, the result of a personal imbalance, and the main difficulty of the medical profession was to establish precisely each patient's unique situation, case by case.
The findings from autopsies of deceased women also showed a confusing multitude of physical signs, which emphasized the belief that puerperal fever was not one, but many different, yet unidentified, diseases. Semmelweis's main finding — that all instances of puerperal fever could be traced back to only one single cause: lack of cleanliness — was simply unacceptable. His findings also ran against the conventional wisdom that diseases spread in the form of "bad air", also known as miasmas or vaguely as "unfavourable atmospheric-cosmic-terrestrial influences". Semmelweis's groundbreaking idea was contrary to all established medical understanding.

As a result, his ideas were rejected by the medical community.

At a conference of German physicians and natural scientists, most of the speakers rejected his doctrine, including the celebrated Rudolf Virchow, who was a scientist of the highest authority of his time. Virchow’s great authority in medical circles contributed potently to the lack of recognition of the Semmelweis doctrine for a long time.

Only belatedly did his observational evidence gain wide acceptance; more than twenty years later, Louis Pasteur's work offered a theoretical explanation for Semmelweis's observations—the germ theory of disease. As such, the Semmelweis story is often used in university courses with epistemology content, e.g. philosophy of science courses—demonstrating the virtues of empiricism or positivism and providing a historical account of which types of knowledge count as scientific (and thus accepted) knowledge, and which do not. It has been seen as an irony that Semmelweis's critics considered themselves positivists, but even positivism suffers problems in the face of theories which seem magical or superstitious, such as the idea that "corpse particles" might turn a person into a corpse, with no causal mechanism being stipulated, after a simple contact. They could not accept Semmelweis' ideas of minuscule and largely invisible amounts of decaying organic matter as a cause of every case of childbed fever— ideas which in the absence of a replicative biological mechanism, must have seemed no more chemically likely than homeopathy. To his contemporaries, Semmelweis seemed to be reverting to the speculative theories of earlier decades that were so repugnant to his positivist contemporaries.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So now, please forgive me if I do not take very much stock in the proclamations of "scientists" claiming things are not possible or dismissing possibilities because science hasn't "proven" them.

It was just over 100 years ago you fuckwits learned to wash your damn hands!

 

[Boss]

Not only did "scientists" fail to discover they should wash their hands after messing around in cadavers before operating on live patients, they literally locked up the man who suggested hand washing in an insane asylum where he was beaten to death. This all happened in science 150 years ago.

 

[daws101]

What percent of scientists are atheist?
Answer:

98%

Shows how stupid scientists are.

edited for whining!

 

[Quantum Windbag]

why not? there is no evidence that god does or does not exist...to me that means everything god is credited with must be proven to be god's work and and explanation given to why... jus·ti·fy verb \ˈjəs-tə-ˌfī\
: to provide or be a good reason for (something) : to prove or show (something) to be just, right, or reasonable

: to provide a good reason for the actions of (someone)

: to position (text) so that the edges form a straight line

There is plenty of evidence. There is actually more evidence for the existence of God than there is for the existence of dark energy, yet you accept the latter simply because you see scientists as having a special understanding of the universe that is not available to other people.

In other words, you treat science as a religion, and see scientists as priests that are granted divine inspiration that is not accessible to laity because they haven't purified themselves properly.

false! you just wish I did.
the rest of your answer is rationalization...
how is no evidence proving or disproving god...more evidence?
that statement is unequivocal....making your answer fiction.

Umm, what?

You are the one that made the false claim here, not me. Your claim that there is no evidence for the existence of God is wrong. You can repeat it as often as you want, it will still be wrong. That evidence might not meet your lofty standards, but that is only because your standards aren't actually standards, they are arbitrarily defined in such a way that you will never accept anything other than God bitch slapping you across the universe as proof of His existence.

You accept a scientist telling you that dark energy has to exist, even though there is absolutely no way to prove it, to test any theory that supports it, or even to find the smallest shred of evidence that would prove it one way or the other. At the same time you willfully ignore the fact that millions of people claim to have experienced God, that events have occurred that have no rational or scientific explanation, that people have changed their entire lives simply because they were touched by God.

This indicates that you have a double standard in assessing evidence. That, believe it or not, is your problem, not mine.

 

[daws101]

Not only did "scientists" fail to discover they should wash their hands after messing around in cadavers before operating on live patients, they literally locked up the man who suggested hand washing in an insane asylum where he was beaten to death. This all happened in science 150 years ago.

your point? science is self correcting....
the same cannot be said for your inane proselytizing..

 

[Vox]

Boss, don't waste your time and words.

it is a lie that 98% scientists are atheists. 50% at best. and not atheists - those 50% which are not believers are agnostics - a true scientist will leave a pathway for backtrack - always

http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

plus it differs depending on what type of discipline is involved.

About two-thirds of scientists believe in God, according to a new survey that uncovered stark differences based on the type of research they do.

http://www.livescience.com/379-scientists-belief-god-varies-starkly-discipline.html

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/i...entists-really-so-atheistic-look-at-the-data/

In the course of her research, Ecklund surveyed nearly 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275 of them. She finds that most of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. Nearly 50 percent of them are religious. Many others are what she calls “spiritual entrepreneurs,” seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religion…..only a small minority are actively hostile to religion.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection." (Albert Einstein)

What percent of scientists are atheist?
Answer:

98%

What percentage of statistics are made up?

75%

 

[daws101]

There is plenty of evidence. There is actually more evidence for the existence of God than there is for the existence of dark energy, yet you accept the latter simply because you see scientists as having a special understanding of the universe that is not available to other people.

In other words, you treat science as a religion, and see scientists as priests that are granted divine inspiration that is not accessible to laity because they haven't purified themselves properly.

false! you just wish I did.
the rest of your answer is rationalization...
how is no evidence proving or disproving god...more evidence?
that statement is unequivocal....making your answer fiction.

Umm, what?

You are the one that made the false claim here, not me. Your claim that there is no evidence for the existence of God is wrong. You can repeat it as often as you want, it will still be wrong. That evidence might not meet your lofty standards, but that is only because your standards aren't actually standards, they are arbitrarily defined in such a way that you will never accept anything other than God bitch slapping you across the universe as proof of His existence.

You accept a scientist telling you that dark energy has to exist, even though there is absolutely no way to prove it, to test any theory that supports it, or even to find the smallest shred of evidence that would prove it one way or the other. At the same time you willfully ignore the fact that millions of people claim to have experienced God, that events have occurred that have no rational or scientific explanation, that people have changed their entire lives simply because they were touched by God.

This indicates that you have a double standard in assessing evidence. That, believe it or not, is your problem, not mine.

the rationalize when you just got your ass handed to you ploy....

 

[Iceweasel]

What percent of scientists are atheist?
Answer:

98%

Wrong. I posted a link the other day. It's around 50%. It might not be comfortable to your faith but life is like that.

 

[daws101]