Posted by OldtimerToo on June 09, 2004 at 09:47:21
In Reply to: Issues of salvation belong on Journeys posted by Coordinator on August 28, 2003 at 13:30:03:
To Coordinator, and All:
Hi, everyone!
When I can get to it,I greatly enjoy reading from this board.
I do have a question, and some comments.
How do I put it?
In regards to the area of, say, mental health, does this board only support the comments of a supposedly "purely scientific" point of view, i.e.: one giving credence to the following?
Here are some historical facts:
The 12-Step program had its genesis in the Oxford Group, whose original 12 Steps were all strictly taken from Scripture. "Bill", who went on to write the AA book, was ministered to specifically by them.
Because of the current focus of legal politics, the US Constitution is being aluded to as a document legitimizing government-condoned prejudice (including intellectual) against any and all religion.
The Constitution actually says that no official particular religion may be established by the government, and that that same government may not, conversely, PROHIBIT the free exercise of religion.
So, the only grants that can be tax-funded are those describing certain mental diseases/disorders, etc., as only accurately describable by a purely "medical" model.
Moral models of any kind are not even considered, for either funding or intellectual respect.
This is as over against a moral model, or a model ascribing certain addictions as an initial moral problem followed by seriously debilitating medical repercussions.
Th Oxford Group had a success rate in the high 80th percentile, while today's overall success rate for all 12 Step programs (and I guess we should include 9 Step atheist programs), only have a success rate in the middle single digits percentile.
My problem, and question is this:
Should the overall epistemology of this chat board only ascribe intellectual correctness to those expressing an apparent acceptance of assumptions of what is currently considered "scientific"?
That does change, from time to time, and sometimes quite radically.
If so, what are the historical lines of demarcation? The relatively "soft" sciences of psychotherapy/psychology/counseling of various sorts has been at times, a very confused continuum of mere opinion, as any historically oriented and honest professional in the field will affirm.
"Soft science" does not solve real problems, and cannot; by definition.
I have worked in the mental health field, where Hobart Mowrer (Dean of American Psych Assoc.) "discovered" in the 70's that something suspiciously similar to the requirements of the Gospel (and from which came his student William Glasser's Reality Therapy originated) WORKED BETTER than what was, immediately before that, considered "scientific".
Other examples throughout history show the mistake of what CS Lewis called "chronological conceit" regarding what can truly be considered "scientific"--many people embrace with a pretention of certainty what they have never proved logically, and/or empirically. They embrace, as true, beliefs whose only virtue is that there popular with those currently in power (a mere "ad bacculum" argument proving NOTHING ELSE).
Therefore, spiritual points of view should probably NOT be excluded prematurely and out-of-hand, at least in our hearts and minds.
I can understand separating issues on various boards for various logistical reasons.
However, please let's not misidentify all theistic or Christian paradigms as intellectually suspect or inferior. The current pillars scientific linear reasoning, i.e.: of math, logic and science (Algebra, Calculus, and Quantum Mechanics) were all discovered by theists; after all.
Why assume, a priori, that atheist/humanist, and very "soft science" paradigms are superior?
Where would we be if we had defined these ways of thinking out of existence within what we could accept as "scientific"?
What are the verifiable data?
Just because we're excultists here, it does not logically follow that we should compartmentalize Christian thought into a box containing the intellectually supsect belief paradigms. There is no strong argument to favor that.