Responding to Gerry Cheney’s letter of Sept 3, hucksters claim results without evidence. So why be so quick to claim that “30 people got free from some addiction” without the experience of abstinence over some period of time? I suggested a year as a goal to verify success of this religious intervention. Your letter with admission of struggle and failure speaks more realistically. Your years of devotion to support groups are hereby acknowledged.
To be “set free from an addiction overnight” as you said was your experience only means you recognize the first day of being drug-free. It is like claiming to build a skyscraper overnight because it began with a first day of construction. There are some whose “first steps” at such religious fests were celebrated on the way home with a beer and bottle of gin.
Responding to Rae Ann Brown’s letter on Sept. 3.
If you cannot function without God, then you are captive to the Christian message. First it speaks of “God’s love.” Then it belittles, reduces any sense of adequacy or confidence in oneself, and rants against one’s sinfulness. After sufficient humiliation, one is reminded of love, and forgiveness if one surrenders to God. If that doesn’t bring one into submission, turn up the heat with threats of hell forever. Keep pounding this message into one’s brain.
It is interesting that abusers use these techniques. Critical thinking would point out the absurdities, but one dares not doubt since it is Satan’s influence if one thinks.
There are those with no belief in God who modestly serve this community with a joyful sense of generosity. They are guided by the same “grounding human instincts” that Cory Christianson wrote about in his recent Tails from the Trail column describing volunteer help following natural disasters. One’s religious beliefs or non-beliefs are irrelevant to this primal inclination, although after one tornado I noticed a proclamation stating that “God provides” as some looted for the Lord!
Fortunately many churchgoers are numb to the religious preaching, and instead just enjoy the music and coffee socials. Eventually the churches evolve into museums and soup kitchens which actually do serve mankind.
Geri Jensen
Grand Marais
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