The conservatism and influence of Alasdair MacIntyre is very evident in this piece which again castigates the influence of the Enlightenment philosophers by reinstating the old notions of virtue based on divine authority - ie the Christian scriptures and magisterial authority of the Church. In a global village influenced by cultural and religious pluralism, universal values must be seen as a positive influence(as does the theologian Hans Kung in his appeal towards a universal ethic). Universal standards of ethical morality and defense of human freedom. Rationality must not be viewed as inimical to taking an intellectual position - and one must beware of a system of morality that seeks to find solutions to 21st century issues within the Thomistic concepts of the 13th century or earlier.

There is no spiritual content whatsoever in any of Sells writings.
In fact any "religion" which appeals to "reason" for it proofs is always arguing against any real Spiritual possibility and thus promotes an entirely dismal flatland world. And of course sex paranoid puritanism.

This explains why.

Both exoteric "religion and secular scientific materialism have, for many centuries (and, principally, in the Western domain of human socities) been actively "instructing" (or, propagandistically coercing) humankind to DISBELIEVE---or, without or apart from actual experience and the exercise of true discrimination, to dissociate from all modes of association with magical, and metaphysical, and even Spiritual, and, in general, ecstasy-producing ideas and activities.

The process of negative indoctrination to which humankind (and, especially the Western "world") has long been subjected by its sacred and secular "authorities" has, actually been a magic-paranoid political, social, econimic, and cultural effort to enforce a worldly, or gross "realist", or thoroughly materialist--and, altogether, anti-ecstatic, anti-magical, anti-metaphysical, and anti-Spiritual---model of human life upon all individuals and all collectives.

The entire effort to idealize the gross physical ego-"I" and, on that basis, to cause universal human worldliness (or a world-cu8lture based upon gross "realism" and reductionist materialism) has required the universal suppression of the actual INATE natural magical, metaphysical, and, ultimately, Spiritual, and, altogether, ecstatic potential of the human psycho-pysical structue---but, also, and profoundly more imporatantly, the anti-ecstatic, anti-magical, anti-metaphysical, anti-Spiritual, and, altogether, gross-materialist "realism" enterprise has deprived humankind of its NECESSARY access to the Inherently egoless Truth Itself---and even the possibility of such access.

Whem this situation is the common situation of all of us in our dreadful sanity, then we have "religionists" such as Sells prattling on about "reason" and presuming to use FLATLAND "reason" to prove the existence of the Divine Conscious Light, which paradoxically "reason" has well and truly KILLED.

Now let’s turn Sellick’s argument on its head. There are good pragmatic reasons for siding with an empirical tradition of enquiry. The claim is made that humans do not have innate knowledge. All knowledge about the external world is derived from observation and inductive reasoning.

Knowledge of inner feelings and emotions is gained by a process of introspection. I do not wish to imply that the rules of logic and deduction are invalid. Far from it just witness the success of mathematical reasoning. How ever, I do claim that in the final analysis the conclusions of mathematics have to be tested against empirical observations.

An engineer may calculate the stresses on a structure, but the definitive test is does the structure work? Is it functional?

In my rational world I see no need to postulate the existence of deity, ferries, daemons or what you will. There is just no empirical support for such entities.

You may say what of faith and/or revelation are these not paths to truth? No they are not. They are far too subjective. Faith based knowledge is inconsistent between individuals and demonstrates gross variation both between and within human societies.

Since the seventeenth century and probably earlier there has been a strong tradition of atheism.*

To those that say that scientific enquiry is the child of medieval Christianity. I humbly observe that one does not normally contemplate the skills of the scaffolder when enjoying great architecture.

As for the claim religion is the answer to a myriad of social problems. Really, the empirical evidence is that religious organisations are the worse offenders when it comes to such matters as child abuse, women’s rights etc. Let us not forget the misery of the inquisition, the burning of heretics and witches. In our own day honour killings, In to-days paper# a description of how to select the appropriate size of stone for execution for those guilty of adultery.

• Hitchens C. The Portable Atheist. Da Capo Press 2007
# The West Australian 16 Jan page 11

First of all, what rationality can there be in faith?

The same people who scoff about the possibility that man and apes may have had a common ancestor find no problem with the notion that man was formed from dirt, and those who delight in exposing the minutae of inaccuracies of the carbon dating process blindly accept the assumption of unnamed nomads sitting in a tent somewhere that the earth is only thousands of years old.

The notion that by default, we are all hell-bound miserable sinners because a long time ago, a talking snake told somebody to eat some fruit from a magic tree doesn’t exactly demonstrate sound judgement either.

Then we have - “…are blind to the many benefits that Christianity has given to the world.”
Historically it’s more a matter of the benefits that all religion gives to ITSELF and those that use it to gain power over others.

However, I agree with -“Christianity has as many forms as there are believers”.

Precisely! However they each consider their form to be the only true one and all others as misguided and THAT is the problem.

Not only are they morally and spiritually superior to non-believers, but they are also superior to other members of the “same” faith (ie each other).

My goodness, if this is the best Mr Sellick can do, no wonder the churches are in trouble.

"These authors flourish because of the fragmentation of Christianity into myriad pieces many of which are quite laughable. However, it must be born in mind that this fragmentation was largely due to the modern thinkers who proclaimed the new age of reason. If every man is his own orthodoxy this means that Christianity has as many forms as there are believers."

The fragmentation of christianity was due to modern (whatever the hell that means) thinkers? Couldn't have been an overly strong entity then could it? Surely the one true church could withstand such insults?

Seems to me a far more "rational" explanation to say that Christianity fragmented because it is a thoroughly human institution, and that's what human institutions do. Islam (Sunni v Shia) is no different.

Peter you write 'The only solution that we see for the moral problems that beset us is harm minimisation. Legalise the brothels and abortion, supply clean needles to drug addicts, teach minors about sexual health instead of giving them a healthy respect for what love demands. Harm reduction is the minimalist intervention that shows us that we do not have any idea of how to alleviate the problem.'

These are still the solutions of the humanist because they are generally to arrogant and unrepentant about their hopelessly flawed philosophies. The good news is that people are voting with their feet when it comes to education. Even those who hold to their secular dogmas insist on educating their children in an environment less likely to bear the fruits of humanism. Unfortunately the dogmas of humanism are still being played out on our indigenous communities and the fruit that goes with them. Jesus words and teachings are superior to any other and we don't need to apologise for that.