Free market, means free from government and regulation.

How can the government control the choices, while remaining free market?

In a free market, you choose your healthcare. Your healthcare provider chooses your medication. The pharmaceutical company chooses the healthcare provider's medicine menu. At the top of this chain are companies that collude with each other, invest in funds that you would think are unethical or even completely wrong, and they also lobby government to make their own commercial choices a lot easier.

You can make up the same scenario for banks, fast food, your motor vehicle, your Playstation.

In a world awash woth consumer choice, the consumer's choice is always at the bottom end. All of the other choices are made by organisations that do not have your interests at heart.

The government stay away from the commercial decisions - otherwise, you're right, it would not be a free market, but your personal choice as a consumer is not all that different whatever the economy.

All those companies are themselves consumers... The bank, the healthcare company. They are as much a consumer as you or I, unless you don't have a job or provide a service. So at what point exactly is there a forced operation? Ability is a terrible thing isn't it.

I am a Christian Scientist. I saw you guys mentioned it earlier. I'll clear up the Spiritualist confusion.

It's simple logic. Mary Baker Eddy in the late 19th century created Christian Science, or the religion of christianity that proves (science: a method of proving something as true, or untrue) or denies certain principles. It is faith based healing to the fact where if a Christian Scientist is feeling sick, they work to realign their thought with the preinvested perfection that we are. We are God's perfect reflection. In the bible, it says, 'and he made man in HIS image and likeness.'

As for spiritualists, scientology etc. they were the offshots after the 60's and 70's. To be a Christian Scientist in Hollywood back in the 60's and 70's was 'the cool thing to do'. After that, people like Tom Cruise decided to make their own religions, modifying it to what they like.

Anyway, as most Christian Scientists say, Christian Science is not a religion, its a way of life.

And as for anyone that wants to degrade christian science, i refer you to a large cup of SHUT THE UP!

Anyway. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to fill you in. I assume their are no other CS here?

EDIT: Watch your language, ~Shiri~

Define degrade.

Science deals with how, spirituality and religion deal with the why bits that philosophy struggles with.

You could argue that both science and religion ultimately try to anwer the same questions in different ways. You could also argue that without Judeo-Christian and Muslim faiths, science would be a sideshow compared to what it is now. But I struggle with the idea that you can draw science out of the biblical texts.

I see your point. Freedom from regulation is what defines a free market. My point is that as a consumer, your choices as to how you spend your money are never as free as you might believe, because the big choices are made by the corporations.

Food is a good example. In many European countries, food markets are heavily regulated and subsidised by government, but they are subsidised to retain local grower communities and keep out inferior imports. In the UK, food is pretty much deregulated; there is a free market which means the supermarkets survive by being cheaper and bigger than the rest, and by squeezing out the local grower communities in favour of cheaper imports. As a result, I have about 10 supermarkets in a 10 mile radius of my house yet I can't buy the same variety of food that I could get if I lived in some of the more regulated countries in Europe.

I've read about six posts into this topic, and realized Nementh spelled Lutherans wrong.

I find this amusing, because isn't he some youth pastor in training or... something?

Ya spelt mah church wrong!

Ioryk: That's what I mean. Not so much degrade it, but misinterpret it. We AREN'T looking for Science in the bible. We USE the methods of science, those of: Proving through fact, or disproving through fact. We prove the things in the bible, or the ideas from the bible, and back them up from the writing that Mary Baker Eddy gave us. More later. Gotta go home.

The variety does not exist because there is no demand for that variety.
I'll take my town for example. Its a unique place but I doubt it defies the laws of economics. My family is from Irvine californa, if you don't know much about irvine, every house looks the same, the city has been planed for the next 20 years, inch by inch. There is a compnay called the Irvine company that has more power and influence than the Irvine City council. You might say its run by the mob. If I want to change the color of my house, I need to get written permision from both my neighbors that my color will match thier color. The options I have to paint the house are Eggshell, cream, and snow. (exacterated but you get the point) The city is mostly republican, is 60% white, 30% asian, 10% other and has a population of about 100,000.

Ok thats the background.
There are 5 major supermakets in a reasonable distance to go shopping. 15 years ago, it was Hughs, Alphabeta, Lucky's, Ralphs(not sure never went to that are untill recently) and Savon. My family would either go to Hughs or Alphabeta depending on which direction we were driving because they were virtually identical. Soon, Ralphs bought Alphabeta and Hughs, so now you have 3 ralphs and one Lucky's turned alberstons in the area. Two of those Ralphs were less than 1 mile away from eachother. To make a long story short, we now go to Alberstons for the better bread selection, Ralphs for the Kosher food, and a new Wholesome Choice which sells only MiddleEaster, Asian, and Vegan food. (I go there less and less because of the LARGE number of Persians who now shop there comming from all over the city, making the lines too long) Each of the Ralphs alos contains a different bank inside each of them, so depending on which bank account I have I'll shop in a different supermarket. Oh and a Gelson's just opened up which we only shop at when there is a big family function or certain fruits are in season. All these stores are within a 5 mile radius from my house. Each of them is a Huge National chain run by large cooprerations, and they all pushed away the "little guys" yet even the two Ralph's that are near eachother sell different products and rerely does anyone in my family go to just one supermaket while shopping because of the different varieties and special needs our family has.

And thats just the supermakerts.

So while conspiracy theories and anti-capitalist theories would have you think that only rich white folk would be able to find food in my area, and that one compnay would own all the supermarkets leading to less and less viarity, in fact as the larger companies bought the smaller companies, and made larger buildings, they noticed small populations within the area that they could benefit from, and thus have increased the variety and my choices 10 fold. There was even a brief time where EVERY supermakret in my 5 mile radius was a Ralph's or Ralph's owned supermakert. And don't get me started on the 15 movie theaters all owned by the exact same company.

My aplogies. I misunderstood.

I understand much of theology deals with proving facts in the bible, and faith healing is widespread in christianity. I've seen some amazing things happen that even my cynical mind struggles to believe are only medical anomolies.

What makes CS different, apart from the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy?

It's not so much proving facts in the bible. Ms. Eddy came up with a method to effectively heal, the way that Jesus did. The science part of the religion comes from how she proves that we can heal. It is evidenced in her book, Science and Health. I suggest everyone who decides to make half brained remarks on the subject to read it before they make the half brained remarks. CS is a widely misunderstood religion, and we have a shnazzy newspaper! (entered by my friend, sorry). Anyway more later... dumb class thingy.