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.