Or do you agree with the late Sister Connie Driscoll who helped people at St. Martin de Porres House of Hope in Chicago?

"Almost all the women who come to St. Martin de Porres kick their drinking and drug habits. Only 5% return to shelters. Sister Connie estimates that the citywide return rate could be as high as 40%."

"Sister Connie doesn’t encourage her wards to feel sorry for themselves or to blame society. She takes the view that they brought their problems on themselves-and have the inner power to solve them."

"For the first couple of months after we started, I had the same rose-colored glasses as everybody else-thinking these poor people have been abused and victimized. After a while you have to take the glasses off."

"We give every woman a job in the house the day she arrives, whether that’s cooking, security duty or helping Sister Therese teach the children."

We teach them to pay rent, utilities and food bills first, then prioritize what else they need.

The word on the street is that ours is a tough house, probably the toughest in the city. Everyone’s up at 6 a.m. and in bed with the lights out at 10:30 p.m. Children are in bed by 8 p.m., and 9 p.m. in the summer. No men can visit.

Other than a 3/4-hour pass to go for job interviews, the women always have somewhere to be: career or computer training, GED classes, Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings or a job here in the house."

"Since 1990 the average resident stays 7 1/2 months, and every day we talk about responsible sexual behavior, the dangers of illegitimate child births and how to hold a job."

"People equate welfare with compassion. But compassion’s got nothing to do with it. A handout is the least compassionate thing you could do. Compassion means suffering with, doing with, being with. Teaching is 99% of what we do."

What do you think is a more compassionate and more effective way of helping the poor? Through conservative ideas of hands-on charity, like Sister Connie? Or liberal government handouts?

A copy of her interview with Forbes in the late 1990s:

http://www.larryelder.com/solutions/sisterconnie.htm

Only Liberals promote the entitlement mentality. that’s what’s wrong with the country today. Nobody wants to take care of themselves. This lady teaching women job skills and how to take care of themselves is exactly what needs to be done in the place of welfare.

I have asked this question already in cultures. But thought maybe i would get more responses from Religion & Spirituality
Im not going to one of those groups.
Im not a drug user and only drink at parties.
I was asking out of curiousity.

As a former AA member (and what I suppose you’d refer to as a "sober alcoholic" since I haven’t had a drink in almost 10 years) I can tell you that if you went to an AA meeting and asked this question people would be screaming that the program is "spiritual and not religious" and that your higher power can be anything you want it to be, including a doorknob. Then, after the meeting was over, you’d all hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer. Yep. I’m serious.

This is one of the many bizarre and contradictory things about AA. Of course it’s religious, the 12 steps are ALL about God, the primary text says the program is about "fitting ourselves to be of maximum service to God and our fellows"…yet its members claim it isn’t religious. Preposterous, isn’t it?

Now, do people who aren’t religious fail in the program? They sure do. And so do people who ARE religious. That’s another bizarre and contradictory fact not only about AA but about the whole 12 step based "addiction treatment" industry: it doesn’t work very well for ANYONE but it continues to be the almost the only game in town.

Go figure!

Edit: You got involved yourself, it was your decision to go to the park, do not go around blaming the officer; she did her job and she did it well.

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I know that every day seems like the end of the world right now, and that it feels sometimes like you’ll never make it through the day, but you will, I promise. And the next. And the next.
You don’t need to put yourself in a situation where you’ll have to pay for even more than you do now, or where you don’t have proper sanitation. Talk to your mom about this, see if she’ll let you get a job, see what she thinks about you moving in with your dad. There might be things you need to know to make an informed decision.

If God is imaginary, why is the 12-step program so widely used and praised?

Quick description:

The twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems. Originally proposed by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a method of recovery from alcoholism, the Twelve Steps were first published in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939. The method was then adapted, and became the foundation of other twelve-step programs such as Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Co-Dependents Anonymous and Emotions Anonymous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program
I never said this was proof of God’s existence. Heck, I’m an atheist.

Read my question – if God is imaginary, why is this so widely used and praised? It looks like at least a couple people gave some insightful answers

The 12 step program is a mechanism used by religion to convert people. Ask any qualified psychologist and they will tell you surrendering to someone and admitting loss of control is a BAD way to go. Most addictions resolve themselves over time. People desperate for help fall to their knees over anything. Come on, there’s only two types of worshipers in this country: ones that were born into it and ones that were drunks and druggies and "found" it.

Here’s my divs:

<div id="header">
<font color="#dddddd" face="arial" size="5"><b>GODblog</b></font>
<a href="feed.xml" alt="Subscribe"><img src="imgs/subscribe.gif" border="0"></a>
<br><font face="times new roman" size="2"><i>Overheard in AA</i></font>
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<p><b>Saturday, October 18, 2008</b>
<font size="1"><a href="javascript:HaloScan(’oct18_2008′);" target="_self"><script type="text/javascript">postCount(’oct18_2008′);</script></a></font>
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There’s a correlation between honesty & your motives.
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<p><b>Friday, October 17, 2008</b>
<font size="1"><a href="javascript:HaloScan(’oct17_2008′);" target="_self"><script type="text/javascript">postCount(’oct17_2008′);</script></a></font>
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The universe applauds symbolic acts.
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<p><b>Thursday, October 16, 2008</b>
<font size="1"><a href="javascript:HaloScan(’oct16_2008′);" target="_self"><script type="text/javascript">postCount(’oct16_2008′);</script></a></font>
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Change what you can change, and change your mind about the rest.
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<b>Recovery Corner</b>
<p><a href="http://aa.org" target=_"new">Alcoholics Anonymous</a>
<a href="http://na.org" target=_"new">Narcotics Anonymous</a>
<a href="http://oa.org" target=_"new">Overeaters Anonymous</a>
<a href="http://something-fishy.org" target=_"new">Something Fishy</a>
<a href="http://12step.org" target=_"new">12 Steps</a>

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<p><br><p><center><a href="http://www.freedomain.co.nr/" target=_"new"><img src="imgs/fdconr.gif" width="88" height="31" border="0"></a></center>
</div>

and here’s my stylesheet:

<style type="text/css">

<!–
body{

margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

#header {
background: #fff;

width: 100%;
}

#container {
display: table;
}

#row {
display: table-row;
}

#left, #right {
display: table-cell;
}

#left {
background: #fff;

float: left;

width: 80%;

margin: 20px;
}

#right {
background: #fff;

float: right;

width: 20%;
}

#footer {
background: #fff;

clear: both;

width: 100%;
}
–>

</style>

I think I have some sort of inkling of what could be wrong, but I don’t know how to fix it and configure it the way I want… This has got to be so simple, please someone help me?

hello, i dont know if my answer will solve your problem but just try and see.

before your <head> tag, put this:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en">

http://www.blamedenial.co.uk

http://www.morerevealed.com

http://www.orange-papers.org

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http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/other/crimlawclean.htm