Salon.com: on Welfare & Poverty

Arianna Huffington: Faith works for addressing social problems

The evidence is overwhelming that it's infinitely harder to rebuild shattered lives without acknowledging the spiritual dimension of human nature. No, this doesn't mean accepting Jesus as your personal savior. It simply means that, as Alcoholics Anonymous and its many offshoots have shown, acknowledgment of a higher power is central to recovery.

To continue to try and solve social problems while ignoring human beings' innate need for meaning and a connection with something larger than ourselves is as destructive as if we were to build our principles of navigation on the basis that the jury is still out on Copernicus.