This is http://www.essayz.com/b0210131.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %FREEDOM CHOICE LIBERTY LIBERATION PRESCRIBE RULER+021013 %INDIVIDUAL CHOICE FORBID PRESCRIBE PROSCRIBE LAWS+021013 %RANGE SPECTRUM POSSIBLE CHOICES ALTERNATIVE ACTION+021013 %CAREFUL CONSIDERATION VISIONS FANTASIES DREAMS SIN+021013 %OPEN HONEST INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS SEXUALITY MORAL+021013 %TEMPTATION PURITY PERFECT COMPLETE OBEDIENCE GOD 021013 Does God grant humans FREEDOM OF CHOICE, or does God instruct each individual human --- prescribing what specific choice to make in each and every individual human's situation; and forbidding those individual choices which God forbids? How does God communicate Her Will? Through what institution and/or persons? Does God FORBID US TO CONSIDER A RANGE OF POSSIBLE CHOICES and give CAREFUL CONSIDERATION TO WHERE EACH POSSIBLE CHOICE MIGHT LEAD; or are we to somehow avoid such careful considerations of where each possible choice might just lead; e.g., might considering some possibilities entail yielding to temptations? How does God communicate Her Will? Through whom? Through what institution and/or persons? How are we to discern which considerations will be temptations to-do-evil which God says we should not go near --- and which considerations will not be temptations to do evil? Wherein does evil reside? In considering the possible consequences of choices which might lead to tragic consequences? In considering ideas, ideals, values, principles and policies which are in competition for our attention, time, energy, and resources --- and perhaps in conflict with each other. In making choices which do lead to tragic consequences which are rooted in unrecognized and/or unresolved conflicts between different humane ideas, ideals, values, principles and policies? In participating in RELATIONSHIPS of self- righteousness, arrogance, domination, coercion, violence, rejection, excommunications, etc? In creating RELATIONSHIPS of alienation and estrangement --- rather than relationships of civility, welcome, reconciliation, hospitality, generosity, healing, peacemaking and shalom. What can we do to reduce the amount of evil in our relationships, communities, cities, states, nations, and the world as a WHOLE. What, if any role, can: arrogance, self-righteousness, domination, coercion, force and/or violence play in successful efforts to reduce the amount of evil --- wherever it is that evil resides? What have been the roles which domineering people have played in our lives in leading us to fear giving careful consideration to many alternative course of actions --- rather than thoughtlessly stumbling into doing what we might have chosen to avoid --- had we given careful consideration to imprudent and uninformed: dreams, visions, fantasies, aspirations, hopes, plans, expectations, demands, prescriptions, proscriptions, rules, regulations, etc. Might domineering people tempt us to trust them --- so that they can more easily dominate us and profit from our vulnerability to their leadership? (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================