Originally Posted by
Outvoid 
Stone, I appreciate your response.
I didn't say, "my belief is beyond logical arguments" - check the post; you put those words in my mouth: a Strawman Argument. In other words, that's your argument, not mine.
.... be assured that when I (Outvoid) say that I "believe" in something I am not making a statement of absolute truth or ultimate reality. I am merely making a personal statement of belief.
Are those two not basically the same? You were criticising Dawkins for using a mathematical intellectual system, I assumed the word logical to mean the same thing, therefore you were dismissing the logical argument against God. That was how I interpreted it, I wasn't meaning to put words in your mouth.
Originally Posted by Outvoid
On to your comment that: "Believing in God makes as much sense as believing in the other stuff I mentioned."
If you were to think that fairies or invisible orbiting teapots were able to help you recover from your addiction, then certainly they would make as much sense as believing in God.
Sense on a pragmatic level yes. Why "choose to believe that it comes from God"? Why not fairies or teapots?
I am not trying to be smart, I am not an atheistic fanatic like Dawkins and I do have some nebulous spiritual ideas that don't stand up to any logical arguments myself. I enjoy Eckhart Tolle's teachings and have an interest in Buddhism.....but it is not because they "work" in any way, they do not comfort me nor do they explain any success or not in recovery. I suppose they just "feel right", lol (like I say, they don't stand up to any logical arguments). In the same way I must admit I do get a gut reaction against an anthropomorphic idea of God, not that I am saying you have that.
If I contradict myself it is because I have no real deep set beliefs or anti-beliefs...beyond my gut-level reactions.
I am in AA and struggled badly with the HP/God thing for a long time, it is only when I stopped trying to understand it or adopt it and just followed the instructions that it started to happen for me. I don't have a God or HP I just follow spiritual guidelines. They could easily be called moral guidelines with meditation and mindfulness thrown into the mix.
Dawkins is a great polemicist and does destroy the anthropomorhic God idea as far as I am concerned but as for why spirituality aids (my) recovery I do not know if it is just down to psychology or because there is "something" deeper going on.
So, I don't really know what my point was if I had one!
Just a lot of waffle really.