"So be warned. Whenever you come across someone who proclaims the glory of choice as an isolated good in itself, be aware that you are in the presence of a salesman and that you are about to have the wool pulled over your eyes."

Okay, so this is one way of looking at it. But you can just as easily replaced the word 'choice' with the word 'faith.'

When fundamental flaws are pointed out in theories of Christianity, or any other institutionalised religion for that matter, the answer is always, 'have faith'.

Sorry. That's just seems like too much of a copout. The salesman's pitch that cannot be debated.

I'd rather stick with my 'choice,' but then again, I suppose I just don't have enough 'faith' right?

If you want to discover a moral abyss, take a look at some of the atrocities committed throughout history in the name of institutionalised religion.

Whilst all preach peace in theory, not all practice it.
This is exactly the same for agnostics and atheists.
The moral abyss is not exclusive to those without religion, sadly it is part of humanity that has always been there.

Perhaps it is not just a decay of society, perhaps it has always been there, and now there are just more people with differing views, and thanks to a more encompassing media, now we just know about what's actually going on.

Yes Sells, choice is an evil word to those incapable of understanding or responsibly enacting it. Choice is something the human race has recently obtained, we can see the reaction of monotheism by, “The only recourse open to a prophet sent to such a people is to wage war on the fortified self'. Your whole paragraph gives proof of what we are seeing in monotheistic governments around the world, as they desperately lie, cheat enslave and roll back the freedoms many fought centuries to obtain.

Choice gives options, not understandable by repressed theists, it also brings responsibility, something your belief frowns on. Why should people have to feel bad, its sensible and logical to want to go through life with the least problems. Just because some want everyone to be fearful and submissive because of their own lacking of reality, doesn't mean everyone should suffer as well. After all, life will certainly make you sit up and take notice, if you step across the invisible line called ethics. Ethics are something lacking in the followers of god and it's history.

Its mostly the followers of god who judge simply by price or the size of their income. Lifestyle overcame the boredom of religion and allowed people to experiment with their lives, gaining a better feeling of personal satisfaction and express their individualities beyond closeted fearful superstition.

Inventing firsts is a part of the evolutionary process of testing ourselves against ourselves and life. When it comes to the whole of society, it gives everyone to excel differently, its called free choice. Your against anything giving people personal satisfaction and control over their lives, demanding we return to the despotic repression of the past and submit to failure.

Choice is a developing evolution, it has its pitfalls and problems, they're being worked out as all new understandings do. We'll get it right once evolution overtakes god completely.

I'm with Alchemist on this.

Too much choice is bad, in the same way as too much water will kill you. Choice itself is good, in the same way that water is essential to our survival.

Choice forces us to think, and our thinking defines us.

In his primitive state, man elected to define his religion in simplistic ways that coincided with critical aspects of his lifestyle – the sun, the weather, the presence or absence of woolly mammoths. We have gradually evolved to a level where these phenomena have become increasingly “understood” - we know that the sun is a ball of burning hydrogen, and the weather is caused by a myriad of natural phenomena – and as a result the quest for spiritual “truth” has moved over the centuries into more abstract and cerebral pastures.

But to posit the benefits of a particular religion from the evils of a plethora of choice is a long bow, even for our resident proponent of reductio ad absurdum, Mr Sells.

>>So what do we do in this new era of the absolutely free self? We marry and choose not to have children. We seek ever more thrilling experiences with the aid of drugs and travel agents and adultery. We invent new quests that prove that we are actually here.<<

Who is this “we”, kemo sabe? I know it will come as a surprise, but the vast majority of folk don't fit this mould. Yes, we choose to marry, and choose whether we bring children into the world. And yes, sometimes we make a mistake in our selection of a life partner, and make in-flight adjustments. But the rest of your homily is simply ascribing to the majority the acts of a tiny minority. Generalizing from the particular is unattractive in any argument, but this is blatant exaggeration for effect.

Choice is an essential part of our lives, and to suggest that it is “a sign of the moral depravity of a society” to approve of it is untenable.

TurnRightThenLeft

The 'atrocities' committed in the name of Institutionalized religion, show us the evil which resides in man, not in the faith itself, when that faith is in Christ.

"As the Father has sent me, SO I SEND YOU" said Jesus (John)

i.e. In the same manner...... we are sent. If you can find 'atrocity' in the life or words of Jesus, then by all means ramp up the criticism. Otherwise, just criticize the actions of 'men'.

The judgement on the Canaanites was not an 'atrocity' it was judgement.
Have a read about Canaanite religion 'here' http://www.theology.edu/canaan.htm

Some aspects of the Crusades were 'atrocities'. Hitlers holocaust was an 'atrocity'.

Faith is not blind. Our faith is based on one major event. The resurrection of Christ. You may dispute this, just as 9/11 is disputed and claimed by some to have been a CIA thing. That is your choice :)

The ethical and behavioral aspects of the faith are unsurpassed and involve simple common sense.

Your criticism of 'INSTITUTIONALISED' religion and the 'just have faith' point are quite valid. Arn't we all blessed that Jesus did NOT build an 'instituion'. The real church is not a huge beurocracy, it is in the hearts of individuals. They 'are' the Church.

As I said in my other post on Emily's article about removing choice and limiting life:

Choice without boundaries is moral anarchy.

Specially in a post modern 'My truth is truth for me' society.

It's always amusing when the Christlings throw "original sin" around to prove an argument. It's a very simple concept really which is time and again lost on them.

Peter says:
The serpent says to her: “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Guess What!

They did not die
Their eyes were opened
And they were like God

ergo God decieved. The serpent was correct. Adam and Eve knew that God had created them for his own ammusesment. God created humanity for servitude, not for love.

Peter goes on to say:
when Jesus is tempted by the devil in the gospel of Matthew (Chapter 4) he presents him with the desirable things, bread to ease his hunger, miraculous power and absolute political rule

Yet Jesus goes on to head a the christian church which has almost absolute rule for a thousand years over Europe, miraculous powers and the ability to create food/wine etc. Who is kidding who.

Both of these examples required a free choice between two black-and-white extremes. If the choice was removed because it was "morrally reprehensible" then there would be no choice, no freedom, no free-will. God indeed would then be the pre-determiner of all things and the lifes and souls of the christlings would have no value.

Good Zeuss(or the god of your choice)! Peter has used a reference to the word "heresy" as originating from a pagan mob - the ancient Greeks: One of the article's few demonstrable facets of intellectual breadth. The poor Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists, etc. etc. don't get a look in.
And what rigour can be expected from it when, in spite of its statement "we know we are in the area of propaganda", shortly afterwards comes in with the statement "Never mind the fact that we are teetering on the brink of demographic extinction".
What a load of cobblers that statement is. It seems to me that the effects of overcrowding in Australia becomes more manifest year by year.
Just in case it is because I am getting old and grumpy, I consulted the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It said nothing about my mental situation, but did confirm that our population is rising at the rate of some million per four years. Roughly half of that is from immigration. The other half is due to a fertility rate of almost 1.8, combined with a strong cohort of females of breeding age: Even without an immigration component, Australia's population will continue to rise for about another generation.
Peter, you have been listening to too many porkies on that matter from our over-esteemed Treasurer. And it does not help your article to re-gurgitate them as "fact".
cheers
Colin

Who needs God? We have the Media in all it's manifestations.

Comparing Australia to Europe, one comes to understand that Australia is a more conservative country than most, excluding perhaps Italy (socially, not economically), Ireland, or Austria. Thus, the social order which Christianity has infused with its teachings survives to a larger degree than in England, Holland, or other nations which have embraced the social liberalism of "choice". Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that the two leading factions in politics in Australia are a socially conservative bunch of unionists with a significant proportion of Catholics in it, and a socially conservative bunch of accountants and lawyers with a significant amount of Anglicans, and a growing number of Catholics, there within contained. Also, we don't have a Bill of Rights, a representation of Christian belief in human dignity detached from Christianity.

This means that, as it has been noted, most Australians do not lead lives as has been described to a large degree. Drug use is decreasing, marriage and the birth rate are up, the push for reform of institutions is minimal; on the whole we're a conservative lot. Still, the apocalyptic style of revelation has proved its relevance in its ability to motivate by attempting to reveal a glimpse of the end of days, just as it could be argued that Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Mr Sellick do.

Notwithstanding that, the elevation of the self to the highest sphere and its necessary accompanyment of choices to allow the self-relevation of as many selves as possible has grown in popularity. You don't need to be religious to fight it, though it helps: social conservatism takes much from religion (and much from paganism) in an attempt to make a political doctrine to fight it.

Something i'd like to add... this individualism can occur on two levels; social or economical. Labor is more pushing social individualism, whilst the Coalition more economic individualism. Deakenite liberals and Catholic unionism more traditionally stood between the two, arguing for a settlement in economic matters and then against social liberalism. These two groups are being futher isolated by current machine politics.

Sells

The shallow and empty pursuit of gratification and self-indulgence that you caricature is not what most small-‘l’ liberals mean or want by freedom. Rather, it is as about taking responsibility for our lives, for our actions and for their consequences. Choice is a moral act, as well as a utilitarian one. You condemn freedom without responsibility, and so do I, but I vastly prefer freedom with responsibility to the absence of freedom.

Nor is freedom necessarily about refusing to accept authority, but rather about choosing our authorities and evaluating them critically (even die-hard libertarians will probably be more inclined to accept some propositions just because von Mises said them).

You mention Jesus’ temptation. He was offered the three predominant means of exercising power over other human beings, both in Roman times and today – economic (“command these stones to become loaves of bread”) political (to rule all the kingdoms of the world) and religious/charismatic, by beguiling an audience with an evident miracle. He rejected them all in favour of a model of service and persuasion – authority, certainly, but not of a kind the world had seen before (or much since, sadly).

All of Jesus' followers chose to accept the invitation to follow Him, many at great cost to themselves.

Liberation is a central theme of the Bible and it has some compelling things to say about freedom.

“if you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”

“for freedom Christ has set us free.”

Christ offers us the possibility of being perfectly free and completely under authority at the same time. But this is neither freedom nor submission as encountered in the secular world, where freedom and coercive authority are almost always polar opposites. In that context, give me freedom every time

"It is of the nature of evil that it is always presented as the good."

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

There is a misunderstanding here. Most of the commentators are arguing that choice would be OK as long as it's combined with responsibility. But that misses the point. Peter Sellick is clearly arguing that there is a flaw in the modernist philosophy of choice, in that it degrades choice itself. I have to agree. Once you accept the belief that the ideal to aim for is an autonomous individual who is free to choose according to his own desires, then the point of politics will be to enhance this kind of freedom. This requires a "liberation" from those things which impede individual choice.

But what impedes individual choice? Think of all those things which lie outside the realm of individual choice: it would include anything determined by our own biology; anything significant to an inborn human nature; any inherited forms of identity; any traditional or customary social roles; any forms of authority external to the individual; and any "objective" codes of morality.

So what is left to choose after you have "liberated" the individual from all these things? Mostly what is superficial. You can't include "manhood" or "womanhood" (biological destiny). You can't include traditional communal identities (inherited not chosen). You can't include objective moral codes (external to individual choice) - and so on.

Is it really so great that we strip down our concept of the individual, until we finally arrive at the pretence that we are "self-defining", if this requires us to limit ourselves to trivial aims and a mass of insignificant choices?

Thank you, alchemist and Pericles, for your eloquent answers to Sellick’s sermon. It’s not possible to be human without making choices and taking risks.

Sellick is waging the 21st century’s major war – the conflict between those who, in the name of religion, claim the right to tell others how to behave, and those of us who refuse their claim.

The fact that it’s possible to achieve goodness without the help of deities and priests is far too threatening for the proselytisers. They will never give up their attempts to control our lives. They offer all kinds of justifications, but frankly, I reckon it’s because they despise themselves, and believe that all other humans are as rotten as they are.

I’d like to leave them to their terrors, and honestly I would if they didn’t keep trying to tell me how I should run my life. But you just can’t leave claims that choice displaces faith, or “the celebration of choice is a mask covering the underlying nihilism” unanswered. This nonsense is repeated so often that we become habituated to it, too tired to dispute.

There is no underlying nihilism: choice doesn’t displace faith, but reason often does. The celebration of faith is a mask covering the underlying voodoo.

“Choice has become a word that signifies that we believe in nothing.” Eh? I think you mean that we believe something you don’t want us to. “Choice has no ground except the fragile whim of the chooser.” (Mark’s variation, that we can only choose the superficial, is just as insulting.) Human beings are constantly modulating their relationships with other humans, making choices based on whatever value or belief system they’ve (yes!) chosen.

Personally, I think my value system is better, but the values of reason and tolerance I have chosen to adopt require that I accept others’ rights to their own belief systems, even when bilge like this sermon makes it nauseatingly difficult

W, reason and tolerance for what? You can use reason to think about things, to make sure your ideas are consistent and so on. But what is the end product of your reason? What does it lead you to think is important in life? You haven't told us.

And tolerance might generally be a good thing, but it doesn't really tell us what you yourself actively endorse. It only tells us that you don't try and repress the things you disagree with.

So tell us what are the higher things, the things of quality, which make your life significant. Is it a patriotic love of homeland? Is it a pursuit of moral virtue? Is it a love of family? A love of the opposite sex?

"W" said:

"the conflict between those who, in the name of religion, claim the right to tell others how to behave, and those of us who refuse their claim."

Actually, this is not quite what we 'BibleBashers/GodBotherers' are on about.

There is only one valid basis where "we" can 'tell' you what to do, and that is if you are also a committed Christian. i.e. one of us.

Here is the picture-

22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

1/ Draw near to God
2/ Cling to our Hope
3/ Spur one "another" on towards love and good deeds.

In regard to the wider community, we have the democratic right to vote according to our conscience in Christ, and this will inevitably shape our laws JUST AS when those of secular persuasion do the same, and inevitably effect us.

We can 'prophetically' call on the community to turn away from things which we know in our heart of hearts will ultimately bring destruction to our social order, but the prophetic voice is just that..a voice, not a law, nor an imposition by a religious beurocracy.

Individuals outside of Christ can CHOOSE to listen, and follow, or listen and reject.

Christians have a specific calling in relation to the wider community and her it is

Salt (to preserve) and Light (to show the way)

The words of Jesus "The wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction" are based on spiritual realities, but are also based on 'choice'.

So, no matter how much 'preserving' or how much 'showing'we do, people can and will choose either the 'wide broad' way or the 'narrow hard' way....which leads to life.

We are merely 'signposts' on the road of life.

You miss the point, Mark. I’m not here to change anyone, or even to promote my values.

The point is that the values are mine, acquired in a lifetime of experience and reflection. They deserve respect, not because they are better or worse than anyone else’s, but because they are the foundation of my human-ness.

When the proselytisers try to undermine the beliefs and values of others, they are showing the greatest possible disrespect. Their verses and chapters may mean something to them, but it’s the height of arrogance to claim that the verses give them a mandate to dictate the civil behaviour of others.

Finally Mark, how I implement my system of values is my own business, so I won’t be providing the personal details you ask for.

Thank you W. and special mention to Pericles and Alchemist.

Once again Sells is casting aspersions on any who differ in their beliefs to his. Agnostics and atheists are presented as empty vessels living in a void that is only punctuated by consumerism and selfish, selfish choice. Other religious are not left unscathed by Sells' 'superiority' either, because he insists that only his version of religion is the 'true' path.

This persistence to denigrate others, continually pounded out by Sells' frequent articles on OLO, flies in the face of the tolerance preached by Jesus.

Now he is attacking freedom of choice; he presents a two dimensional view of what this means, presenting it in terms of consumerism and selfishness. He doesn't want to accept that people can act responsibly, ethically and humanely outside the constraints of formal religion, for to do so would undermine his own rigidly held beliefs.

Peter Sellick continues to prove the nihilism of his own existence - if he didn't have his version of religion to cling to, he would have nothing at all as he is incapable of visualising a life lived in full responsibility for all its actions without recourse to the supernatural.

Very sad indeed.

Interesting that the fastest growing churches, at least here in Sydney, are the pentecostal ones. Christianity is gussied up with rock music and the message is "prosperity gospel". There's an interesting article on Hillsong here http://www.reportage.uts.edu.au/stories/southside/hillsong1.html . Looks like the ideal church for the consumer age.

Johnj

Large beurocratic Churches (Anglicans_RC_Uniting) are as far from the idea of the 'Church' in the new Testament, as is the concept of 'prosperity' gospel.

It probably represents the greatest 'white_anting' of true Christian faith today.

Give to God SO YOU CAN GET.... aarrggggh....

No question that living for the Kingdom first is to experience abundant blessing both materially and spritually but to PREACH on the abundance of material reward is absolutely to put the cart before the horse. Is simply repackages selfish consumerism with a spiritual branding.

I could rave on about material blessings, of giving away my inheritance at the beginning of my Christian life, and now at the near end of it receiving back 10fold, but if I said it might take 30 yrs to see that, I don't know how many would be interested.

The point is, the Christian life is NOT about 'giving to get' its about this:

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." as Paul said in Galatians 2.20

If "I" no longer live, why the heck am I worried about material reward in my path of living for God ? To use a modern phrase... that is SOOOOOOOOOOO 'not' what its about.

Perhaps we need more preaching in the Pentecostal Churches you refer to like this:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26

Obviously, this must be interpreted contextually and culturally.
But in context, he said this to CROWDS of people who were following Him due to his miracles and his healings !

Yet today, we have televangelists like Benny Hinz&Co ADVERTISING "Miracle Service" (but make sure you have your credit card ready, our stewards have the swipers on standby)

Part One

Here we seem to be caught up in the old controversy about freedom of choice - which in history as regards Christianity was finally partly solved by one of our most famous Christians as well as one of our greatest Western philosophers, St Thomas Aquinas.

It was Aquinas who accepted precepts of Ancient Greek philosophy introduced to the West by Islamic students. Apparently Aquinas had already decided that Christianity had to be lifted out of the doleful period we now know as the Dark Ages. Thus it came about that Christian faith became tempered with Aristotelian Reason, which not only greatly influenced the Rennaissance with thoughts more of earthly progress besides an afterlife, but which also gave great impetus to science and the Age of Reason followed by the the Age of Enlightenment-then into the exciting but problematic Democratic Age we are living in now - sensible reason, according to sociologists having become replaced once again with the crude animalistic doctrine of the survival of the fittest.

It was Darwin himself who died condemning former compatriots like Herbert Spencer and Walter Bagehot for helping to form what we now know as Darwinian Socialism, which not only gave more impetus to an already rampant colonialism later proven by the British invasion of South Africa and American imperial adventures into the Spanish possessions on both sides of the Pacific, as well as capturing Hawai.

Further, it was the so-called Darwinistic survival of the fittest concept which historians say not only helped begin WW1, but after Versaille, the angry revival of the Germanic Wermacht, giving sanction to Hitler to give command for all the horrendous Nazi Germanic atrocities of WW2.

How impressive it was for America and her victorious allies to forgive the German people for following the fanatical Hitler, gifting them with the Marshall Plan, along with Japan. Also ridding the world of Soviet Stalinism placing the US by then in the global academy award status

Part Two

Unfortunately, corporate greed and hegemon has now trapped the US like a huge fester, as it has trapped Britain, as well as Australia, and has really trapped us in Iraq. Like the blind leading the blind, our leaders have been too blind to see that corporatism is really nothing new, as proven by the East India Company which finally gained control of the whole of Ceylon.

Simply the economies of scale, as Adam Smith knew all about, play along carefully and you will have the lot. But it was Adam Smith who warned to remember you are dealing with people, who as a social philosopher thought also about the proletariat as part of his Wealth of Nations.

Maybe Bill Gates is another one who thinks about people, though some say he will get back more than he gives away - though he at least gives indication how with corporatism most of the wealth will rise to the top like junket does to milk.

But after thousands of years, as Darwin made clear before he died. For humans, we surely should have found a kinder and more compassionate way to live our lives different to the animals.

The point is, even through the ballot box, with economic rationalism and corporate power mesmerising both sides of government, we lower ranks have now lost the license to make the choice?

"It is of the nature of evil that it is always presented as the good." IN this case the Chinese Communist party regime

REPORT INTO ALLEGATIONS OF ORGAN HARVESTING OF
FALUN GONG PRACTITIONERS IN CHINA

by David Matas (former Canadian Member of Parliament)
and David Kilgour (Renowned Human Rights Lawyer)

http://investigation.redirectme.net/

“Based on what we now know, we have come to the regrettable conclusion that the allegations are true. We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners.”

Mr. Matas called the report's revelations "a form of evil we have yet to see on this planet...a new form of evil," and something very hard to believe, like the Holocaust.
This is the first comprehensive independent investigation on the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China. It was reported in almost all Canadian media’s headline yesterday.



my comment is ;

If the CCP wont let investigators in to investigate all labour camps and hospitals 610 offices, if the CCP cannot prove to us that 40,000 organ transplant operations were performed between 2001-2005 and that these numbers do not add up to executed prisoners and any other list of so called consenting donors, then apart from finding the tactile evidence of 40,000 bodies without organs which is impossible because all the bodies have been disposed of in an incinerator then there is only one conclusion based on all the evidence presented in that report.

This Genocide is caused by the biggest evil on the planet today the communist regime and has encouraged VIP’s and those in power to turn a blind eye to the evil in favour of business with China. This is the real battle of good and evil.

Only by supporting Truth, compassion and forbearance the highest principles of the universe can humanity survive this evil. Only evil would persecute Truth compassion and tolerance. So this is a battle between evil and good that will be won by Falun Gong and all those who support truth compassion and forbearance.

Scout,w et al

You lot seem so proud of your ability to make up your own mind as to what is freedom, what is good, what is moral "outside of the constraints of formal religion.." And you disparage anyone who professes a faith as a cripple needing a crutch.

You abuse Peter as being a rabid bible basher who is pushing his view into your face. Why are you so anxious and abusive? He puts a reasoned case that appears to any reasonable person to flow from knowledge, experience and reflection.

The point is the society in which you are free to express and live your wonderful self autonomyous moral profile is underpinned by Christian social formation, across all continents and cultures. You are picking the flowers of the great humanisation project that has crossed millenia and began with the call of Abraham, yet you and your co-travellers over the last few hundred of Enlightened years are pissing on its roots. We are already seeing the petals fade and scent turn sour in our social directions and expressions.

Scout, w et al, if you seek truth you would be better informed - from multiple sources and disciplines. Your use of words such as reason freedom and tolerance are so clumsy, and meaningless. Yet this is the path for the one without roots and story and goal and purpose.

I do not read Peter as a preacher. He is simply asserting a truth worth commiting to, as a foundation. Whether you seek to build on it is your choice. It is personal to you. Take it or leave it. At least it is a choice

It seems that every time Peter Sellick publishes another article a hundred knees jerk simultaneously and the result is the repetitious postings of Alchemist, Pericles, W and Scout and others. Indeed I sometimes wonder if they have actually done more than scan the article in a few seconds before hitting the keyboard.

Peter is denigrating not choice but the idolisation of choice! The theme is that wise choice is made on the basis of a firm commitment, allegiance or devotion to something enduring, something more profound than momentary whim or infantile greed. For Peter the something is the trinitarian God, but his text does not assert that everyone should hold the same faith.

Peter’s last paragraph sums it up: “Whenever you come across someone who proclaims the glory of choice as an isolated good in itself, be aware that you are in the presence of a salesman and that you are about to have the wool pulled over your eyes.”

The article is written by a follower of Christ using the frame of reference he knows best; it does not set out to preach the superiority of Christian belief, nor to condemn those who do not subscribe to Christian beliefs.

Boxgum, being proud can be taken in varying ways, I prefer to call it being humble, accepting and responsible with the freedom of choice evolution offers us. Your ilk persist in forcing morals ( a monotheistic concept), whilst I believe, non believers follow planetary ethics, as followed by all rational living things.

Your right, the society we live in reflects Christian values, something we wish to remove, to attain peace and sanity. What we're seeing is a dying mythological illusion (god), desperately trying to instil fear and damnation into those able to decide their own direction and beliefs.

Bd, hill song is no different to previous forefront churches, they use the times for control, so restricting choice by deception. As with all christian history, it's just repetitious. The problem monotheism faces, is the unknowing, gullible and irresponsibles numbers are diminishing, as choice opens up to all the worlds peoples.

Mark Richardson, “the higher things, the things of quality, which make your life significant.”

Its the peace we find when we've the choice to choose our direction in life. Its being able to be confident in who you are, understanding of difference and humble in your dealings with the world, but never submissive. Taoists may call it passive resistance. Choice allows you to never have an ending, nor an answer but always a possible choice.

When you have no choice in your belief, you have no choice in your understanding, your limited to the choice determined by your belief, which is singular. Without a formed, or reliance on a belief your able to investigate unlimited avenues of choice, giving you knowledge, understanding and increasing your avenues of choice.

Bd, “We are merely 'signposts' on the road of life. “

Sadly those sign posts lead to the choice of fearful suppression or suppressed fear.

BOAZ_David, I note you believe that "large beurocratic [sic] Churches (Anglicans_RC_Uniting) are as far from the idea of the 'Church' in the new Testament, as is the concept of 'prosperity' gospel." It seems to me that there aren't many true Christians, if that's how you define Christianity. Sounds like a splinter-Maoist condemning all the other Communists as capitalist running-dog lackeys.

It's all a bit self-referential really. "I'm a Christian and I believe XYZ, If you don't believe XYZ you're not a Christian." So feel free to believe whatever, you obviously only represent yourself and your own biblical interpretation.

Forget-about-Nihilism-and-Religion. God-helps-those-who-first-save-themselves.

What we have in Australia 2006 is the prelude to another world war based on monopolisation of IT technologies and INFORMATION.

WWs I&II were preceded by particular technological advances where a handful of individuals and corporations HOGGED that technology, grew populations beyond stable bounds purely for MARKETS, enslaved those populations with PROPAGANDA, engendered fascism and Nationalism to penalise anyone with original thought, force citizens into a sense of false-security, inaction and NIHILISM, and lead them into inevitable wars of GREED.

All this so a few individuals with unbelievable power and riches can be divine KINGS (Just-LOOK-at-obscene-CEO-salaries!). These KINGS and their king maker politicians will not let go. They are able to garner extensive financial, social and political MONOPOLIES that make religion irrelevant, freedom a sham and nihilism the only way we can rationalise our weakened-position short of an unpalatable revolution. We keep hoping we will awake one morning and John Howard will stop unfairly funnelling immigrants into SYDSEQ to the hurrahs of a corrupt Italian NSW state Government. That Iemma isn't a liar and will not reclose the CCT funnel roads after the March 07 election. That state and federal governments aren't creating MONOPOLIES to reduce our choices and funnel our water, our cars and our lives into serfdom and suffering. We've all seen the nihilism in Soylent Green and think its fictional. Only when we understand that Soylent Green style debasement IS happening NOW with a pernicious gusto of funnelling, stacking and monopolisation, can we get past the nihilism and do what we still have a right to do:

VOTE THE BASTARDS INTO OBLIVION!

Continued..

And keep voting for alternate governments, both-Federal-and-State till they listen to 'we-the-PEOPLE' and not to big corporations, too drunk on false hopes of Kingdoms to realise that in 10 years time PEAK oil will rent their ambitions to dust.

This corruptitude of human civilisation has been going on since our time dawned. You'd think Howard, Iemma and Co. would've learned.

The tragedy is that now, in our time, John Howard, Westfields, MacBank and PBL still believe they can be KINGS of Australia despite all historical evidence to the contrary. Lets give them cause to wake up to themselves Australia. That's where the rubber hits the road and that's where nihilism gets left right out - or perhaps right left out

Remember, religion in its truest form can't blossom when we are ensconced by the desires of EVIL men or when we are so debased by them that God must intervene to save us. If you want true religion then USE YOUR VOTE and rid this country of Howardism and State governments that serve minority obidurate ethnic branches.

The Alternative? We need to STOP immigration. Give ourselves breathing space from the greed, corruption and pressure surrounding the fedral immigration program. Give ourselves a government that will teach us skills rather than making us redundant and vulnerable to ever increasing numbers of voracious foreigners. Give ourselves time to worship rather than being consumed by the need to compete and survive. I thought Howard was just senile but since his record breaking doorstop interviews last week it is clear that he is CULPABLE. Let's give HIM a taste of NIHILISM and vote him, Costello and their 'immigrationopolies' out.

So both W and The alchemist are disciples of choice. Is this a life philosophy we ought to be eager to adopt and defend? If anyone thinks so I would ask them to consider two things.

1) There is nothing pointing beyond choice itself in this philosophy. Choice is not allowing us to get at something important. We are supposed to be content to merely have choice itself.

So, when I asked for some positive quality in life to be considered important neither W nor The alchemist could list anything much beyond choice itself. The alchemist actually wrote that "Choice allows you to never have an ending, nor an answer, but always a possible choice." Choice gives you ... choice.

Doesn't this seem empty? Can't we affirm the positive value of something beyond choice itself?

2) The philosophy of choice not only leads to a failure to choose, it also limits the field of choice - and it particularly restricts us from choosing the most important things.

Why? Because if I am supposed to be free to be a self-defining individual, then I will have to deny all the things I can't possibly choose for myself. I will have to deny anything that came to me as part of my biology, or my inborn nature, or from custom or tradition.

Because I can't choose these things, they have to be made not to matter, in order for me to uphold the pretence that I can be a purely self-creating individual.

For these two reasons, we have to revisit the whole philosophy of "choice", to recast it so that it isn't self-defeating. Part of this will have to be the recognition that we choose within a reality which we ourselves do not and cannot create and which rightfully points us toward a set of goods which exist independently of our own will.

Huh? Boxgum, where did all this come from? Cripple needing a crutch? You didn’t hear it here, least of all from me.

Nevertheless you accuse scout and me of “picking the flowers” and say that we are “underpinned by christian social formation.” And what might that underpinning be? Two thousand years of sectarian warfare? The Inquisition? Witch hunts?

Let’s be clear, I’m not holding you responsible for any of these things. My point is that there are worthy reasons to reject christianity, just as you might claim that there are worthy reasons to embrace it.

And before you protest that my examples are in the distant past, let me remind you that the christian tradition has brought us Fred Phelps http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=103703, who pickets funerals, Peter Hollingworth http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s484774.htm, who blames the victim for sexual abuse, and Frank Houston http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Houston, who saved his best ‘pastoral care’ for the teenagers in his congregation.

Still, you choose christianity? Fine. Your beliefs are your own affair, and no doubt you’ve got good reasons for holding them. The same goes for me. When you imply my choice of values is like picking the low hanging fruit, you are being offensive in the extreme.

My protest above is against using religious arguments in support of a claim to impose religious values on me by proscribing civil, legal choices.

Please, pay me the courtesy of quoting me accurately, allowing me my values as I allow you yours, and leaving my civil rights alone.

Crabby, your point about “idolisation of choice” would be correct, were it not for Sellick’s paragraph beginning, “We kill our unborn babies under the rubric of choice.” The claims about the celebration of choice are a mask for the real argument about limiting people’s choices. Thankfully, the preachers don’t get to decide these things.

Mark, please stop challenging my values – they’re none of your business. This discussion is not about my beliefs. It’s about adult human choices. Sellick is making a case for limits to particular choices on religious grounds. I and others reject his claims on civil grounds. Basta.

W is painting a picture in which his preferred civil society leaves people alone to do as they will, whilst the religious element interferes.

In reality it is the civil society which has become increasingly intrusive. One exampe of this was the informal code of political correctness which became so oppressive to people that it inspired a popular backlash. More recently, there are formal speech laws, which operate inconsistently with some classes of people being deemed "protected" and others "unprotected" and which are becoming increasingly detailed: in parts of Canada it is now considered a form of harassment if someone feels you have adopted an "air of superiority" toward them.

The civil philosophy endorsed by W has effectively become a kind of state religion. It doesn't announce itself as such, but it is the way the people who shape society make sense of things, and they have committed themselves to very radical forms of social engineering, often against the views of the majority, in line with their view of things.

Mark R.
You have added significantly to the debate by pointing out the circularity of choice as a good in itself. I have read somewhere that this kind of liberalism can be described as “the view from nowhere”. I like your theological approach that insists that as far as gods are concerned nature abhors a vacuum. As much as I appreciate your comments, and those of Bushbred and Crabby, a note of warning. Feeding the trolls is most often counterproductive. While insisting on rationality they are the most irrational. They rejoice in misinterpretation in order to get some private point of theirs own across. Their arguments are more reflex (of the simplest kind, perhaps spinal) than reflective. Feeding them only encourages them and fills up the space in which a real dialogue may happen. My policy is to scan them quickly to see if there is anything of substance that would begin a real debate. Otherwise they are best left alone.
Peter Sellick

Sells doesn't want debate, he begins his latest sermon by loading the dice:

“It is of the nature of evil that it is always presented as the good.”

Therefore, anyone who presents a different POV as good is, evil.

Sells allows no variety of discourse, when he states:

“So when someone wants to convince us of something they invariably dress it up to look like the good.”

Ironically and hypocritically as Sells does so himself by portraying a belief in the divine as the only ‘good’.

He admonishes non-believers as sexually disordered (if unplanned pregnancy results) or nihilistic when choosing between beliefs be it atheism, Buddhism, capitalism or Unitarianism - the act of choice is the evil for Sells. Monotheism is the only ‘good’ he opines.

Interlaced within his argument are genuine subversions of choice such as Workchoices: “When the Howard Government labels new industrial relations laws, which swing power in the workplace massively towards the employers………… we know we are in the area of propaganda. For many, the only choice involved is to shed benefits or lose the job.”

This is mere window dressing. His own message is that he requires everyone to believe as he does. Absence of choice is no more a ‘good’ than unfettered choice.

Freedom to choose involves maturity, responsibility and ethics. Sells’ absence of choice involves subjugation – there is no need to grow as a mature being if all one has to do is blindly follow.

Finally, Sells, insults the intelligence of many with his latest post – dismissing those who question his motives and who disagree as mere trolls. I can only conclude that Sells is bereft of any valid argument to counter those who hold differing perspectives.

Across all of his articles, when he cannot offer rational debate – he dismisses all. This is the final insult and therefore, not remotely ‘good’.

Peter

Are you saying that the Christian life is a response to the call of being chosen? And that within that response, with all of its undulations - faithfulness and failings - that choice is more a process of discernment of the "chosen for what?". First to be in relationship with God, and then whatever specific, across the whole spectrum of one's skills, talents and life's circumstances?

Peter. A theological question. Who are the many who are called; and who are the few chosen? Is it fair on the unchosen?

By the way, as a foot soldier, I appreciate the responses to others from Mark R, DFXK, Bushbred and co, as they articulate thought that would not otherwise have been shared.

Individuals had little to no choice in either 1984 or Brave New World.

To be honest, suggesting these books are recent is to ignore when they were written and the projection of the international political environment in which they were perceived and the 50-60 yeqars which has elapsed from when they were written.

Both books described authoritarian social structures where the individuals who populated them were given very few and limited options (especially in 1984).

The notions of massive nations based on continents could well parallel the distribution of religions across the globe.

Wikipedia describes Nineteen Eighty-Four is a “political novel that George Orwell wrote in opposition to totalitarianism.”

Certainly there are a lot of similarities between the supreme leader, “Big Brother” and Stalin as well as all the trappings of a repressive and invasive state. Such a “big brother” could equally be a Pope or Arch Bishop, dispensing power, without care or responsibility - like the Spanish Inquisition, to suit the doctrine of a religion, just as much as Stalin dispensed his awful power, to the significant detriment of the population which supported him.

Individual choice is only possible when accompanied with individual responsibility. Such responsibility reflects the nature of man as a moral being. We do not need institutions demanding to tell us how we must live by their particular dogma. We have developed, as individuals, beyond the grasp for power which is enshrined into every religious order and the sooner we dispense with them and their self-perceived (but redundant) roles in our lives, the better

Johnj

yes, I can see how my view may have sounded like that little 'splinter' group which throws stones at all the others and claims to be 'The only True' whatever.

Not quite.

My intention is to show that 'The Church' consists primarily of that body of believers in all the traditions who have been truly born again. Those for whom Christ is Lord and their denomination simply a historical accident. Some people move from denomination to denomination, its no problem. The problem comes when a large Church like the RC who (if you dig deep enough) will suggest dogmatically that they ARE the only true tradition, and dispensers of truth.

I hope that clarifies my position.

All I do, is compare what I see with the New Testament, it not rocket science.

The Anglicans have a unique historical connection, and when one understands this, it becomes clear why they would probably regard themselves as deserving a preferred position in any place of Empire background, but certainly less dogmatic than the RC. Anglicans were too closely tied to the throne and politics and English History for my liking, but I have no drama sharing in worship and fellowship in an Anglican Church with other members of my Christian family.

P.S. TRIVIA because we have often debated Creation/Evolution/ID in connection with Sells posts, I'd like to mention this surprising news soundbite. Turkey-Secular Academics are wringing their hands over the claim that they are 'LOSING' the battle to keep 'Creation' out of the education system ! Amazing stuff :) Creationists are giving out free DVD's and Brochures demonstrating the flaws in Evolution in Malls etc.

We are each of us conflicted between our fundamental instinct for survival and the knowledge of our indisputable mortality.

Religion offers salvation and proclaims that there is a way of avoiding the unavoidable and living forever, basking in the everlasting glory of god. Any lingering uncertainty is warned of an eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell forever and ever and ever.

But of course there is always the freedom to choose…heaven or hell. However, it is written:

You did not choose me, but I chose you… (Jn 15:16); For he chose us in him before the creation of the world… (Eph 1:4); from the beginning God chose you to be saved …through belief in the truth (2Th 2:13); All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world (Rev 13:8); Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev 21:27).

Is it by the grace of the Christian God that non-Christian freedom is condemned as the rankest slavery?

What freedom do the children of Christian parents have in the development of their own worldviews, when they are taught that God is the truth, ad infinitum?

I personally have not been chosen by any god. Neither do I believe in hell nor life after death. Nor does it mean that I marry and choose not to have children, seek ever more thrilling experiences with the aid of drugs and travel agents and adultery, etc. It especially does not mean that I do not believe.

I believe that people believe different things and I respect their right to those different beliefs. It is unfortunate and disrespectful that Christianity does not.

Boxgum.
That God chose Israel to exist in covenant with Him is axiomatic for a biblical theology. Israel is chosen to be the covenant partner with God, not a vassal nation in slavery to Him but a partner. “I will be your God and you shall be my people”. The bible is quite specific about this: “Salvation is from the Jews”. It is the Jews, among all of the nations, who through their struggle with God come to truth and this truth is shared with the whole world. Jesus is the culmination of this struggle.

The bible thus starts with the particular and proceeds to the universal. Your question is about the individual who is caught up in this history of God’s choosing. As such he is not left alone to create his own choices but is directed by what he has come to understand of the truth. The truth is the truth of all things as revealed in the history of Israel and the man Jesus and witnessed to in the bible. It tells him that he is directed towards the opposite sex, that he will find his life in the one next to him, that life will contain suffering and that he will die the death of all creatures. It also tells him that he is to have only one Lord, the Christ, who will set him free and remove the shadow of death from his life. This begins to sound like the Eucharistic prayer. Set as he is in the Christian story and in the Christian community he finds he has a vocation of service to that community. In no way is he in bondage in this but finds his way through discernment of his capabilities, his charisms all directed towards the building up of the body of Christ the Church. This one freely chooses that which he discovers in the Spirit.

On other words my answer to your question is yes. The Matthew text must be left to another time.

Sells, thanks for the part compliment in your earlier post, but can’t quite get your point of view?

In old age have acquired a post-grad in political science, majoring in International Relations with Honours. Also have historical geography, a major dealing with the change we have inflicted on the environment. Further, in the last 12 years have been leading discussion groups in Philosophical Topics with the Uni’ of the 3rd Age.

Could agree us oldies might have lost touch while sunk in history, but in our talks we would have mostly agreed that political or religous choice historically has much to do with the choice between faith and reason.

Sinking in history again, it was Peter Abelard the French monk, who after meeting Moorish scholars really took on the message of Sic-et-Non changing it to the Search for Enquiry, and which any genuine historian will tell you, got the Christian Western world out of the social rut brought on by the Dark Ages.

Some modern historians do say, in fact, that it is the formerly wonderfully progressive Islamic world that is now in its own eschatological Dark Ages caused by us former barbarian but now very pushy over-progressive West.

You never know, Sells, maybe the faithlike hold that corporate capitalism and economic rationalism has got on us right now, might find us wishing to escape into the old faith once again that gave us our own Dark Ages?

No offence meant, though mate, always ready to discuss.

George C - WA - Bushbred

Brushy
you are always mentioning Peter Abelard and the Moorish Muslims and Reason.

Can you give us some solid documentation for this and some accessible references ?

Appreciated.

Yes the conservative section of the Christian Church has never been at home with choice.

What choice were the Jews/Muslims given in Spain? Not even allowed the choice of not eating pork. What choice did the Protestants/Catholics give to each other in England Spain France and Germany? Burning people to death and forcing the children and wives/husbands to watch or hanging drawing and quartering the other side were regular events when the Church was in charge. Jesus had it easy - the Romans only crucified him, much less painful. The population of Germany fell to one third thanks to the lack of choice the Churches gave to each other.

And of course the native Americans and the aborigines were denied choice as Christianity was pushed onto them.

For God´s sake spare us a return to the dark ages. (The last act of the Holy Inquisition of charging a woman with the heinous crime of laying eggs with prophesies written on them occured as recently as the 19th century).

Hitler and Stalin were further examples of what happens when choice is denied by fanatics. That is why modern Christians distance themselves from the conservative Church and practice a doctrine of choice, tolerance and respect.

“W is painting a picture in which his preferred civil society leaves people alone to do as they will, whilst the religious element interferes.”

Yes, most definitely. “The religious element,” being a subset of society, has no mandate to speak for the greater whole.

It’s a fairly simple concept, and I’m pleased you’ve grasped it, Mark. Governments operate in the areas of shared values and concerns – shared by the entire society, that is. Subsets of society are free to make rules for themselves, to the extent that (a) their members consent, and (b) these rules don’t conflict with the rules of the greater society.

To relate this specifically to Sellick’s article, his arguments are grounded in his own religious subset. People of any religion who support a secular society have an obligation to resist religious identities trying to exert influence beyond their ambit. That’s why I’ve joined in this debate.

Fortunately, there is no such thing in our country as a “state religion,” Mark. Contrary to your claim, reforms “against the views of the majority” may sometimes occur in democratic societies (Workchoices may prove to be a good example), but they don’t survive subsequent elections.

Your rights are protected (and your views respected) in the civil society you say is mine. Rather than railing against me, and railing against political correctness, I think you should join me in being grateful that *our* society protects your values equally with mine.

The debate so far seems to revolve around 3 lines of argument-

1)Choice is/isn’t good

2)The article presents “philosophy” of choice as a poor inherent good/the article presents an over simplified “philosophy” of choice

3)Peter Sellick, and/or Poster “x”, is biased/moronic/overbearing/wise etc…

1)On this first line of argument, most of us, including Peter Sellick, seem to be ambivalent. Sellick says freedom is a “higher good” and talks about the subversion of higher goods. Though choice is not specifically mentioned as a higher good, the sentences condemning “WorkChoices” as propaganda come straight after the line about the highest goods being used subversively…

Choice is presented as outweighing “haunted mother…demographic extinction” etc in a “Pro-Choice” argument supporting the killing of “unborn babies”, and as a “weak excuse” for running a church school. However, in this forum, the defenders of “choice” have not defended “choice” without qualifying that choice involves choosing between ethical options.

In these early examples, Sellick has set choice up as a banner used to justify evil actions, though the article proceeds to outline a “philosophy” of choice, or self-autonomy as the actual unethical “mask” (this philosophy has several tags, but the idea of it is that freedom/choice/self-autonomy is to “choose between a range of value neutral options”).

2)Hence the argument in this forum has centred around if Sellick is condemning our idolization of a “philosophy” of choice as a poor inherent good, or if Sellick has presented an over simplified “philosophy” of choice, that excludes from consideration any valid ethical basis of behaviour other than Christianity or “self-autonomy”. To me, both sides of this argument are correct.

If “Choice has become a word that signifies that we believe in nothing”, and this same philosophy is used to justify behaviour, then all of us moral realists (surely most of us with enough passion to write on this forum are moral realists…) would be alarmed at that, for then that is the same as saying the behaviour has no ethical basis. As no one here seems to be debating moral realism though, there must be a reason that there is debate…

Sellick says-“The thoroughness with which the Christian tradition swept the world of impossible belief left us with nowhere to go but to Christ…So when Christianity is rejected…the old…authorities…must also be rejected. There is no one else to go to except to the self… the totally free self…”

To me, Sellick is very much implying the main ethical underpinnings of behaviour are either Christian, or his “self-autonomous, Philosophy of Choice”, and this charge means that his supporters need to debate seriously the claims that other sources of ethical behaviour may exist, and if they do, then freedom to “choose” one’s own ethical basis (noting that the choice still has an ethical basis) is a good alternative “philosophy of choice” to the one Sellick presents.

It is true that Sellick has not quantified the extent of this “philosophy of choice” so has not explicitly excluded other religious and ethical philosophies as legitimate replacements to a shallow “philosophy of choice”, but if other “worthwhile” value systems could exist the point of each of the examples would lose much impact- killing “unborn babies” just to choose may be bad, but to allow a person to choose abortion because they are choosing from one of several plausible ethical considerations requires those ethical considerations to be allowed in to the debate.

3)Finally, I hope to steer clear of arguments of the third kind; suffice to say that we may find them frustrating, witty or rude, but rarely productive. On this occasion though, I do feel that if “Sells” is the handle of the author, Peter Sellick, then exhortations to ignore his detractors as trolls seem a little unfair, when there are plenty of arguments that can be debated. It makes me inclined to believe that the ambivalence from the article that has spawned the diverging views of the above lines of argument, is a deliberate affectation to exclude the “choice is complex” counter to the “choice has no inherent worth” argument with selective definition. Maybe I am being too harsh; in Sells defence, it is hard to respond to 40+ comments in only 350 words…

Thanks, Boaz, for asking me about Peter Abelard. As well as finding him in your computer in Google or Altavista you will find him in any recommended Volume of Western History.
Regarding Aristotelian influence on the Late Middle Ages by means of Islamic scholars, two important figures of the Christian church are mentioned. Placing St Thomas Aquinas first because he is the most important, as well as the most revered.

However, it was the French monk Peter Abelard who is said to have first received Golden Greek Philosophy from Islamic scholars, some say possibly in a Moorish university in Northern Spain to which had been invited any non Islamic personage who was interested. As you probably know, Islam at the time was very interested in Greek philosophy, which was also taught in the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, which was taken over by the Muslims.

After meeting Muslim teachers, Peter Abelard developed the term Sic-et-Non - Yes or No- meaning that the key to real wisdom is interrogation, diligent and unceasing.... By doubting we are led to inquiry - and from inquiry we perceive the truth.

Out of Abelard's teachings grew the philosophy of Scholasticism, which was taken by the famous religous teacher Albert Magnus whose most famous pupil was St Thomas Aquinas who in turn wrote Summa Theologica which set out to prove how a belief in God and Christ could be proven by reason.

But the essence of the whole exercise Boaz, is that it was the mixing of reason with Christian faith that advanced Western society to where it is today.

Note - Besides Google and Altavista, the historical volume I have on my desk is called. World Civilizations - by Edward McNall Burns and Philip Lee Ralph - fifth edition- volume 1
Kind Regards,
George C - WA - Bushbred

W,

If society provides someone with the freedom to say or think what they want, why must they also "respect" the individual's opinion?

You say "The point is that the values are mine, acquired in a lifetime of experience and reflection. They deserve respect, not because they are better or worse than anyone else’s, but because they are the foundation of my human-ness."

This suggests that we should respect your values simply because they are yours. Surely this is not the basis for a workable society? Do we have to respect all beliefs and values, no matter how abhorent they are to us as a society?

Freedom is about the freedom to say or believe things, but it does not follow that society must unquestioningly accept those statements or beliefs. The original article makes a good point, because, whether you are religious or not, it is plain that the secular nihilism which is being pushed by many organisations in our society is not a workable model, as the long term consequences of many "choices" are never addressed. It is expected that we simply accept them because to not accept them means that we are impeding freedom. This shows a basic misunderstanding (or subversion) of the principle of freedom.

Exercising choice has consequences. Freedom must be used responsibly, and not as an excuse to justify every whim and fancy. Decisions we make as individuals have an impact on society as a whole. We do not live, as individuals, in a vacuum, immune from the actions of others. To cry "freedom" whenever an individual does not get their way debases what freedom means, and leaves modern institutions open to attack, as people become disillusioned with the ever expanding but somehow less fulfilling range of "freedoms" available.

Society is about relinquishing some "freedom", for other things that we also enjoy, such as security. By using freedom as a defence for any sort of behaviour, we are actually undermining our own long term viability as a society. All freedom must be tempered by responsibility and by a moral code.

Interesting point, Gekko, though I think you’re confusing thought and action.

Humans do have the freedom to think and believe what they like, and the fact that certain individuals believe some pretty distasteful stuff in no way relieves us of the obligation to respect the values of others. Nor does it justify restricting freedom of thought, even if it were practical to do so.

Society rightly limits the freedom to act on beliefs, where those actions might be damaging to others. In Australia it is lawful to believe that female circumcision is an appropriate thing to do to your daughter, but we restrict the right to act on that belief because it would be inflicting damage on her.

Just about everyone holds beliefs which conflict with civil law in some way. Sellick clearly believes that abortion is wrong, yet society permits it. Others believe that euthanasia is right, but our society forbids it. When you write, “Society is about relinquishing some "freedom", for other things that we also enjoy,” you’re covering precisely this type of compromise.

Sellick’s original article posits a hypothetical group of people seeking an unlimited range of choices, in spite of the fact that no-one has been arguing for unfettered freedom. There are always restrictions, which your social-contract view points to. Ultimately the argument here is about who gets to determine those restrictions, and on what basis.

“In the absence of God and a seminal story of identity and purpose, the only thing we have to turn to is the desire of the self, epitomised by the notion of the free individual who may choose.”

Sells your statement above is what an absence of god means to you. That is your burden. For those of us who value independence and freedom of thought there is no absence. There is no void. What exists is our self determination that we exercise to a lesser or greater degree of success. How well we use our freedom of choice is related to our depth of maturity and compassion for others.

“At the end of the modern period freedom is understood as the stripping away of any allegiance.”

I have the freedom to choose allegiance. What dismays Sells is that people choose not to ally themselves with dogma. I freely offer my services to welfare agencies, for example. This is not because I am striving to be a good Christian, Muslim or citizen; it is because I desire to help.

“To be truly free is to cancel all authority escape from any informing story, disband any sense of duty and look to what the self wants, to choose between a range of value neutral options.”

No it isn’t. What Sells describes is anarchy. To be truly free is to respect others. I see little respect for others from Sells and those who follow his dogma.

“We tell our children they must follow their dream while
simultaneously removing anything that might form that dream.”

Here Sells is again displaying hypocrisy – he removes all our dreams by denying our freedom to choose.

“the totally free self, ………… and directed by whim and fleeting desire.”

Wrong, this is where maturity, responsibility, altruism and ethics aid our decisions.

However, Sells agenda is not really about freedom of choice. In all his articles, Sells is simply selling his religion – he will claim that black is white or that choice is inherently evil, in order to persuade that his way is the only way.

W,

Point taken that I am mixing thought and action, but I believe that thought and action are always inextricably linked. I don't think it's sufficient to say that "thought" is OK, but action is not. By respecting a thought, you are halfway towards legitimising the action.

Of course, people will always hold personal values which vary from the common moral code held by society. However, what we are arguing about is not whether people should be allowed to hold certain beliefs in the privacy of their own mind, because there will always be people who hold unconventional or sometimes abhorent beliefs. There is little we can do about that, unless we start dabbling in social engineering (which is arguably a greater evil).

The question I was debating is whether we should, as a society, decide that all beliefs should be respected as a matter of course, or whether we are open and honest enough to freely criticise views we do not believe should be given any credence, or more to the point, whether such views should be held up as examples of society exercising "freedom".

In other words, I don't believe that Freedom of Speech requires that all views be considered worthy of public respect until proven otherwise. Freedom of Speech has been used as a "catch all" defence to legitimise the dissemination of all sorts of ridiculous ideas and actions. This debases Freedom of Speech and makes it more susceptible to attack.

I also think that the original author, by conflating individualism with securalism, has clouded the issue. It is not that individualism per se has caused securalism (or vice versa), it is that secular interests have used individualism (and other tenets of modernism) as a substitute for belief in God, and hence the two have become (incorrectly, in my view) intertwined.

There are many ideas mixed in here, and unfortunately in 350 words I can't even begin to touch the issues raised by this article. I wonder if there is a forum where longer posts are allowed?

Dear Brushy
on Peter Abelard and the “Islamic” connection.

I’ve researched this as best I can this morning and conclude that it was not Peter “Abelard” who had the connection with the Spanish Muslims and learning, but in fact it was “Peter the Venerable”, a different but contemporary person.

Peter Abelard appears to have arrived at his ‘Dialectic’ use of reason quite originally and without any reliance or connection to Toledo/Spanish Muslims. Much of his work was already done prior to 1142 (when he died) when “Peter the Venerable” went to Spain and began a work studying Islam ‘from its own sources’ – a method pioneered by Peter Abelard, who undertook this approach to issues of Christian belief rather than simply relying on the views of Church fathers.
Peter the Venerable is connected more with ‘Translations’ of Islamic works rather than philosophical contributions.

Sic et non, showed:

1/ The issue
2/ The “pro” views of some Church fathers
3/ The ‘contrary’ views of other church fathers (on the same issue)

So, he recommended seeking truth on the basis of reason and original sources, a good thing.
But unless you can show me a good quote and solid reference I fail to see his connection with Muslim learning.

I do see a mild connection (which used Abelards own original methods) with Peter the Venerable who described Islam as a Christian heresy bordering on paganism.

Sources

http://latter-rain.com/eccle/abela.htm Peter Abelard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blessed_Peter_of_Montboissier (Peter the Venerable)

WIBBLE

the alternative to choice based on freedom in Christ, is choice based on self and its most brutal but honest exposition is found in Sartre and Neitsche and these days in the likes of Gene Simmonds of Kiss Rock Band “I will do what I want, when I want, how I want and to whom I want” .... at least he is consistent in terms of his atheistic presuppositions. Sadly he is an intelligent man, highly educated, a Jew and speaks 4 languages from memory. Pity he cannot do better with his life specially in regard to his ethno/spiritual heritage.

Gekko raises and interesting point, the conflation of individualism with secularism. Historically, the removal of God from the scene by philosophical means also undermined the community of God, the Church. In the absence of the community all we have left is the individual. That individual is cut off from the interpretation of the world found in the tradition of the community and is thus in a position to choose without tuition. It is this choosing from a vacuum that is the target of my article. Choice is a good thing, obviously. But choice that is uninformed of the ways of the world is shear foolishness, again, obviously.

We are dealing here with the self that is supposed to raise itself by its own bootstraps. It is expected that such a self, unfurnished by deeper ways of knowing, will make shallow and foolish choices. I am not sure why these simple ideas evoke so much rage in my interlocutors. It seems to be a rage that the church has any ideas that demand consideration.

Peter(sellick) and Paul(of Tsrsus)laud Abraham's unquestioning obedience to God's voice ordering him to murder his innocent son.
Could God the Creator,Author of life and the Ground of our morality command such a morally reprehensible act? Whose voice did Abraham hear?Was it his own voice from deep within his mind? Or did the voice originate from some external source?
My guess is that it was the voice of some bard or scribe on the lookout for some dramatic tale.
Yes I hear you say God only wanted to test Abraham, but doesn't the omniscient God already know.

Various professional groups such as GPs, Psychologists and Social Workers are governed by humanism and a code of ethics. Whereas, politicians who profess to be Christian make decisions which would appear to go against Christian principles with little admonishment. George Bush with his axis of evil makes him a very scarey man dealing with scarey North Koreans. The posturing against North Korea has made them take defensive measures; as a result, testing their missiles should not be a huge surprise.

Should a professional person break a code of ethics then severe action can follow swiftly; professional people come in all shapes and sizes with any number of personnal beliefs. However, in their professions, they work towards the common good as best they can, nothing to do with Christianity or any other religion.

It's a mistake to believe that people who are athiests or agnostics cannot work in a manner that is helpful to the community. Just like some Christians are so involved with their religion that they contribute little to the community.

Narcissist,
1. Your comment here is false: “Guess What! They did not die. Their eyes were opened and they were like God ergo God deceived. The serpent was correct.”

A cynically smart and deceptive comment Mr Narcissist! The Genesis account is a record of the descent of the pure spirit of man into the natural curses of ionic mortality. The fact is man was separated from God on that very day. The death is spiritual separation from innocence and purity in relationship with absolute purity of character. The death envisaged in the Genesis account is the eternal death of the spirit of man because of sin, not organic death in the body. The spirit of man was separated from the purity of God and placed in the field of mortality - the Earth. The field is the natural ionic chemistry where change and decay are an intrinsic part of this organic life. The nature of this new life offered in Christ is not organic immortality but eternal spiritual relationship with the purity of God. True followers of Christ are not defined by a belief in XYZ doctrines it is a relationship with God as revealed in Jesus Christ. That the character he revealed is to be revealed in us as his followers

2. The kingdom that Christ envisaged was not one won by swords, but one won by love. That is why he rejected the call by the leader of the zealots [Jesus calls ‘the satan’] to feed his men who had learned to suck stones when hungry, cast out the by himself the two Roman guards from the watch house in the pinnacle of the Temple and join him in a battle of swords against the Roman authorities to gain freedom for Israel. If you read the intent of Jesus words he never envisaged a political Church, but people who displayed love and forgiveness to opponents and enemies. So what happened is not of his intent.

What appears to be choice in the mind of many is merely brainwashing by the media values that reject sound social moorings

fdixit,
Abraham lived in a society where child sacrifice was practised by the contemporary religions the same as the early Druids who sacrificed a child to appease the gods at the time of winter solstice. Abraham who had just adopted one God [El Shaddi] from the many gods his father worshipped, was discovering a new concept of one God who would provide a sacrifice in the midst of a barren land. Abraham believed God would provide and this was the basis of his faith. This was a conversion event for Abraham and his new found faith. From this he learned God abbhored the sacrifice of children that was to be become part of the faith of monotheists.


Quote, "Peter(sellick) and Paul(of Tsrsus)laud Abraham's unquestioning obedience to God's voice ordering him to murder his innocent son.
Could God the Creator,Author of life and the Ground of our morality command such a morally reprehensible act? Whose voice did Abraham hear?Was it his own voice from deep within his mind? Or did the voice originate from some external source?
My guess is that it was the voice of some bard or scribe on the lookout for some dramatic tale.
Yes I hear you say God only wanted to test Abraham, but doesn't the omniscient God already know.

BD, “the alternative to choice based on freedom in Christ, is choice based on self,”

Proof please. Self's culminated exprerience, individualism's working with others, using personal skills. Not as a choiceless clone.

Philo, “The Genesis account is a record of the descent of the pure spirit of man into the natural curses of ionic mortality. ”

Prove this, without choice of definition. So your interpretation's more correct than the actual written word.

Monotheists rely on a small set of documents, written long after the supposed event. They dismiss first hand accounts, relying on documents of hearsay, dismissing documents not supporting their choice, which removes choice.

Monotheism survived the centuries by suppressing peoples choice violently. Now they state choice leads us to nothingness. Monotheisms removal of indigenous peoples choice, destroyed cultures, decimated environments, taking away their reason to live. They're threatened with extinction under the auspices of monotheisms no choice policy. Indigenious choice, survived tens of thousands of years, under no choice monotheism, destroyed in less than 200.

Its understandable those unevolved wouldn't be able to see beyond fear, you couldn't expect a blind person to describe what something looks like if they can't use their limited senses to experience it. Evolved beings see beyond the violent infantile god, to a future offering our race a chance to investigate and improve our interaction within this 3rd dimension.

The more choices you have, the more responsibility you need to understand what is opening up before you. Choice showed us avenues in life other than suppressing religion, choice gives us the means to avoid being sucked into religions depressive psychological decline.

No matter what your situation in life, if you have only god, you've what god bequeathed its followers in the past, nothing but death. Without god, you've freedom to change your destiny, making it your own, responsibly. We constantly get told, but without god, we are doomed. Look at the history of god to see the factual outcomes for its followers, then you'll know what doomed is. Not my choice, but a fools choice.

Philo,
Abraham sinned the moment he decided to murder his son and God was the agent provocateur. Your rationale is that God was banning child sacrifice. Pity that God did not take his own advice when it came to the slaughter of the firstborn of the Egyptians.

Boaz, as regards Peter Abelard, here are some exerps from The Rise of the West - Edited by William Angel - The University of Chicago Press

High Middle Ages. 1100-AD to 1300-AD

A monument of the Age was Scholastic philosophy - an attempt to explain and define Christian doctrine. The pioneers of this effort - men like St Anselm and Peter Abelard drew on the Latin inheritance which had filtered through the early church. This they supplemented in radical and daring fashion through the use of their own reasoning powers. Such an approach to questions of theology and physics generated a tremendous excitement among the curious and unfettered minds that clustered in Paris and other centers of scholastic instruction and debate.

Once their intellectual curiosity had been aroused Westerners discovered that certain Moslems possessed a sophistication of mind and richness of learning far surpassing that available in Latin literature. Regular schools of translators therefore set eagerly to work to bring the treasures of Arabic learning to the Latin world. Toledo in Spain became the principal seat of this activity, but paralall work was also done in Sicily, Salerno, Salamanca and Venice.

It seems from the publication you supplied, Boaz, that Abelard is not given the credit he gets from William McNeill in the text I have also supplied. My learning has all been from university texbooks, and the fact that Abelard is regarded as one of the pioneers of Scholasticism, which as you must know was later given high place by Albertus Magnus and St Thomas Aquinas should be enough. Futhermore, according to university studies, triggered from the original research by Abelard and others - the modification of Christian faith by Aristotelian reasoning - virtually gifted by Islamic scholars - paved the way not only for the Western Age of Reason, but the Age of Enlightenment and the Democratic Age we are living in now. .

Regards,

George C - WA - Bushbred

Boaz_David, although I have been unduly harsh on you at times, I admire your honesty...clearly you believe that "the alternative to choice based on freedom in Christ, is choice based on self.."

It is this setting of the morality of choice in to this dichotomy in Sellick's article that is sticking in the craw of many posters. You may feel that choice based on belief in, say, Budhism, is based on the wrong moral tradition, but surely you can't think that such choice is necessarily selfish?

I know from previous posts that you believe Christians have a duty to "light" the way for non-believers as opposed to convert at sword point; this is more the sort of freedom to choose that posters here are advocating.

Sells says-"Choice is a good thing, obviously. But choice that is uninformed of the ways of the world is shear foolishness, again, obviously." We all agree, but if this is the sum total of the argument in your article, then it is not saying much- "WorkChoices", "Pro-Choice" and "choice" of schooling may all be "informed" choices.

Sells-"We are dealing here with the self that is supposed to raise itself by its own bootstraps. It is expected that such a self, unfurnished by deeper ways of knowing, will make shallow and foolish choices. I am not sure why these simple ideas evoke so much rage in my interlocutors. It seems to be a rage that the church has any ideas that demand consideration."

But is this self automatically the only alternative to Christian values?
If it is, then your interlocuters are enraged because you have defined all of their moral traditions out of any debate about choice, surely a less fair way of arguing than to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of those moral traditions.
If not, then the article has a point, but not much of one. It is indeed a simple idea, but not one demanding any consideration.
Your article remains ambiguous on this.

BRUSHY
I see where ur coming from on the Abelard thing, though I tend to attribute more weight to his own original thinking than how much he benefited from any Islamic approach to things. I agree that the Islamic world of the middle ages had much high learning in the field of science, and that once some of this was translated into Latin, then Europe also benefited.

The main point I would argue though, is that the learning found in the Muslim world was more a simple issue of coincidence of history and Empire, (the scholars of Islam benefited greatly from the science of the Hindus, and the matter of 'zero' is one such example) than anything connected to the Islamic faith itself. Islam by nature is 'If Allah wills' and is fatalistic rather than energetic in the persuit of new knowledge from what I observe.

WIBBS
Thanks for the kind words.
Regarding 'non Christian' systems of morality and foundations for choice, the main point we would make, is their validity or lack thereof.

By this I mean if we based our morality on the nursery rhymes of Hans Christian Anderson, most of us would agree that its a pretty shakey foundation based more on 'feel good' than any objective event.

Of course, such a system might work for an individual. But we (Christians) point, guide, proclaim, announce and persuade people to come to Christ in repentance and faith, and that this be their abiding foundation for morality and life.

Such an approach will always be 'dynamic' in that it could never form the basis for 'legal enforcement' regarding the faith itself.

The Biblical Christian life can only ever be a personal life changing experience, and those renewed people will make political,social and moral choices based on their own standpoint.
So, by nature, it will wax and wane as peoples committments do and so society will reflect this.

There is no doubt that Howard's “WorkChoices” is an example of Hobson's choice and that private schools (99% are belief stamping religious outfits) are very much about reducing choice for young impressionable minds. On the basis of promoting choice both examples are deceitful in intent. Then Peter says "Choice is a good thing, obviously. But choice that is uninformed of the ways of the world is shear foolishness, again, obviously." ....... which shifts from choice to one of behaviour. i.e. Just how do we make choices?

I've touched on this previously because choice is not the issue. As an eight year-old when I decided not to go to Sunday School, it was not because of some choice theory but simply my need to control my own perceptions. Hence I say that behavior is neither just caused by stimuli in the environment like choice advertising nor is it blind execution of internal plans; rather it is to control input variables. Even more simply put .... purposeful behaviour is controlled input .... i.e. human behaviour results from controlling perceptions, not actions.

If we can assume that perception refers to the world as we experience it, then its nature indicates each person's uniqueness ..... hence individuality. What a blessing but how do we control our perceptions or even what of control? Being in control of your own life is good however being out of control is a sign of mental illness and control is only considered bad when other people try to control you. In an infinite material universe all material constituents push .... it's a world full of pushers and our unique individuality not only pushes but in the process gets shaped to what we care about because our perceptions have a circular causality that loops back onto itself. We can go back to 1865 when Claude Bernard noticed that the "constancy of the internal milieu was the essential condition to a free life." What this means is that we strive to maintain a set equilibrium and It has little to do with a fantasy teddy or one concocted religious role model.

Sells claims: “So when Christianity is rejected even the old baptised authorities of the ancient world must also be rejected.”

We can choose the best of the ancient world, Christianity ,Buddhism, Plato, Hinduism or whatever – it is up to us. All philosophies have something to offer.

“In our day we have ensured that most people believe in nothing, in the nihil, in the name of freedom.”

Who are these people that Sells keeps referring to? These people who apparently believe in nothing?

Really Sells is trying on a very simple message, dressed up in religious rhetoric.

The message he wants people to believe is that freedom of choice leads into nothingness.

There is no evidence for this.

What he does posit as evidence is religious dogma, that is, to blindly follow a particular version of Christianity or nothing. Anything that does not fit his belief system is rejected as either evil or nihilistic.

For all that I loath Howard’s government – particularly the IR ‘choices’, at present I am still able to make decisions for myself. Whereas, if someone like Peter Sellick was in control, we would indeed, be in a dictatorship. No choice, no room to breathe, no variety – 1984 fundy Christian style.

Boaz - "The 'atrocities' committed in the name of Institutionalized religion, show us the evil which resides in man, not in the faith itself, when that faith is in Christ."

I couldn't agree more, and this was the point I was making in my first post - I mentioned the atrocities committed in the name of institutionalised religion to point out that it was people making these decisions - even if they adhered to a religion that preaches pacifism.

People - be they christian, jewish, agnostic, hindu, buddhist, muslim or otherwise are capable of committing violence. They're all just people.

The main thrust of Sellick's article seems to be that if we were all christians all would be well and good - okay so there would be less religiously motivated violence... though the same could be said if we were all agnostics adhering to a certain moral code.

So if we could all be forced into some moral/religious/spiritual subset - basically all adhering to a single ideology, then our potential for violence and moral decay would be reduced.

Well you know what?

It's not worth it.

I don't necessarily want to adopt your beliefs, do you want to adopt mine?

Not necessarily?

Well then it's a good thing you have a 'choice' then isn't it?

TURNright.....

The idea that if we were all 'Happy Clappers' :) i.e. Christians, that all would be perfect... is indeed naive. I don't think Sells is suggesting that, esPECially not that anyone be 'forced' into something like faith.

But, having lived in a country where there are conflicting religious traditions, and seeing the results, including race/religious riots I assure u we would be much better off with a Christian flavor across the board. Look at Cronulla for something closer to home.

But at the same time, don't misconstrue a 'cultural fabric/texture/legal system' which has a strong foundation in Christian ideas as anything other than people expressing their legitimate democratic right.

There is no suggestion that our social system would ever involve people being forced to embrace a faith, just as it does not involve people with faith being forced to deny it.

But ask yourself this, if you had been brought up from prep to grade 6 with your class opening in Prayer and suddenly you were told "You are not ALLOWED to do this any more"... it gets pretty close to forced denial. At least in the cultural sense it is.

The culture war in the USA is about 'social texture'. The ACLU is deliberately seeking to alter many accepted aspects of culture which reflect the Christian foundations of America based on a misunderstanding (and misuse, even ABUSE) of the constitution on separation of Church and state. Personally I REJOICE that the 10 commandments are on some plaque at a Court, its my democratic right to enjoy it. They are seeking to FORCEably take this part of my life enjoyment away.

If a community has accepted traditions, existing over 200 yrs, then suddenly some moron says "Woah.. I don't like that, I want it removed"
Should he have that right ? Personally I think that to seek to remove a vital cultural icon is irresponsible ..even cultural apostacy :) and I don't think such a "right" exists.

If so, it brings us to the reality of politics where the votes are what counts.

So, it cuts both ways :)

Sells states: ” What has happened is that choice has displaced faith.”

No it hasn’t. When choice replaces faith it means taking responsibility for our actions. It is about learning how to make decisions based on experience and accrued knowledge. People CHOOSE to believe in the supernatural or not. Some people even manage to both believe in a religion AND make independent choices.

“There is now no room for either Abraham or Mary who, when God appeared to them with the promise of a new and startling future said simply “Here am I”.

First one has to believe that there even was a Mary or Abraham for there to be no room for them. Sells assumes that everyone believes the bible is accurate.

Sells further states: ”The feminists would protest at her passivity in the face of an obviously male angel.” I am not disturbed by (Mary’s) passivity because I neither believe in pregnant virgin women or angels. I AM disturbed by religion’s continual subjugating of women.

Sells, again: “While we are told that we should be the best that we can be, that we should strive to create a life, even make a difference, achieve our goals, strive for excellence” he proceeds to take issue with this without explaining clearly why there is a problem.

When Sells says that Abraham and Mary’s obedience is the abnegation of choice. He implies that obedience is something that freedom of choicers eschew. Wrong again, I am obedient in that I uphold the laws of our land – that’s how humans manage to live with each other.

Somehow all of Peter's articles lead to a similar theme, an Orwellian theme that suggest Christians are more equal than others.

Boaz, you are partly right that scientific reasoning did not come from Allah, but you must admit that it also did not come from early Christianity, nor from early Judaism. However, even before the life of Jesus, intellectual Jews strongly attended the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, which had been planned and built both as a tribute to Alexander the Great and Aristotle, Alexander's teacher - as well the the other famous Greek philosophers of Greece's Golden Age.

There are also suppositions that the young Jesus might have attended the Great Library when he spent some time in Egypt with his mother Mary.

Bringing in genuine history again, Boaz, it is a fact that Greek reasoning has had much to do with the success of Christianity. Certainly Indian culture has had some effect, but nowhere near the extent that the Moorish Islamics gave when they opened the learning centre in Toledo inviting all and sundry in a type of Ecumunalism including Golden Greek reasoning, something very much needed in the Middle East today - as well as probably in our own society

Wow, all that gospelly gibberish is the neatest form of nihilism I ever come across. Wait til my invisible friends hears about it.

Always smile at the many ways of foolishness. Gods' are invented and forgotten but humanity continues. We are learning more and more about our world and how we fit in it and no Super being has been exposed because they hide in the darkness of our fears.
Step into the light and free. take responsibility.