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                     %CHAPTER VERSE QUOTE SCRIPTURE 930714

     To    religious   addicts   and   their   codependent
supporters,   the  religious  scriptures,   rituals,   and
traditions  are just tools (fixes)  which can be used  and
abused  in  keeping  with the demands of  their  collusive
paradigm; rather than being accepted as the means by which
God can reach them, redeem them,  transform them, and heal
them.   Such people will often abuse scriptures by quoting
chapter  and  verse  in carefully selected ways  to  serve
their  own  manipulative purposes---as they  try  to  gain
control  over  aspects  of human lives  and  relationships
which  cannot  be  controlled.    Their  use  (abuse)   of
scriptures and other aspects of their religious lives does
not promote openness,  honesty,  true  security   as   the
freedom to be  open  and honest, reconciliation, dialogue,
listening,  conflict, resolution or   healing---and  often
inhibits all such  healthy desiderata.    This is the case
because all such healthy desiderata  threaten the apparent
coherence   of   such   people's   systemic  patterns   of
dishonesty.   In the absence of this recognition,   it  is
exceedingly   difficult   to  respond  to  such   people's
manipulative   maneuvers   with   personal   or   communal
integrity.    This makes it important for us to  recognize
the  nature of such people's addictive attitudes,  values,
ideals, and behavior patterns---and how they are expressed
within religious context.

     Chapter-and-verse   religious  leaders  are   usually
fundamentalists  who  present themselves  as  being  truly
committed to the essential fundamentals of their religious
traditions  and scriptures,  and by virtue of that fact as
being better than other people.  In fact often such people
have   as   their  ultimate  concern  the   selecting   of
fundamental from their scriptures and religious traditions
in terms of which to judge themselves as being among God's
best people, and all others as unworthy of God's favorable
consideration.

     Given    the    ultimate   concerns    which    drive
fundamentalists,   it is not surprising that they will not
work   to  promote  any  of  the  aforementioned   healthy
desiderata,   and  will  often work in collusive  ways  to
undermine  the  efforts  of  healthy people  who  work  to
promote the healthy desiderata.

     We  cannot  cope meaningfully with chapter and  verse
fundamentalists so long as we let them determine the focus
of  our  attention and discourse.   They  will  evade  the
disintegration issues and subvert any honest discussion of
what  the issues are and how the issues might be  resolved
with  integrity.   So long as fundamentalists control  the
agenda  for  our dialogue with them we  cannot  be  honest
about their disintegrative attitudes,  ideals,  values and
behavior patterns.

     Control is one of the central issues to addicts e.g.,
chapter and verse fundamentalists.   They desperately want
to  appear  to  be  in  control  and  so  try  to  control
appearances.   They want to appear to be better than other
people to compensate for how little true love,  acceptance
and  affection  they have enjoyed.   They lack true  self-
esteem  because they have not been esteemed by  others  as
unique persons.   Since true control of what they want  to
control is not possible, the only alternative is to appear
to  be in control through dishonest games of  mutual  self
deception, i.e., collusions.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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