Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 13, 2025 9:57 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Aug 13, 2025 6:13 pm The Qur’an does not outright abolish slavery, but it does regulate it, encourage emancipation, and set moral limits—especially around coercion into prostitution.

Yes, tell that to the girls in Rotherham. And tell it to the eunuch slaves of the Trans -Saharan trades over the last 1,000 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW7YGPN9s1M.

I also have what I have found is pretty much a hard-and-fast rule: anybody who simply reprints some nonsense from ChatGPT has simply turned off his brain and stopped thinking at all.

There is a case to be made for revealed religious truths and you try to justify that case by inaccuracies, invalid argument, and ad hominems.
If you can make a sound case for revealed religion I will listen.
I been confusing Scriptural knowledge with theology. due to my wishful thinking.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 10:53 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 13, 2025 9:57 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Aug 13, 2025 6:13 pm The Qur’an does not outright abolish slavery, but it does regulate it, encourage emancipation, and set moral limits—especially around coercion into prostitution.

Yes, tell that to the girls in Rotherham. And tell it to the eunuch slaves of the Trans -Saharan trades over the last 1,000 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW7YGPN9s1M.

I also have what I have found is pretty much a hard-and-fast rule: anybody who simply reprints some nonsense from ChatGPT has simply turned off his brain and stopped thinking at all.

There is a case to be made for revealed religious truths and you try to justify that case by inaccuracies, invalid argument, and ad hominems.

"Ad hominems"? You mean, "ad "ChatGPT-miems." People forget that it's an algorithm programmed with the biases of the programmers, and trust it like it was the voice of God. But I think you and I should not join them in that folly.

If you can make a sound case for revealed religion I will listen.

I can make no case for "religion." "Religion," like Socialism, is a categorical failure. "Religions" are man's attempts to leverage some actions of their own to make themselves "good" enough to compel divine favour. That's never worked, and never will, and the Bible is explict that it is so (Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:5). So I cannot defend "religion." Religion's another misguided human artifact. And since they all so often conflict with each other, then logically, there's precisely a 0% chance that they're all right anyway.

But faith? Yes. And revelation? Yes. It's necessary that God (assuming for argument's sake that He exists) must produce a self-revelation, if man is to know Him at all, and it must be such that it is a guide to mankind for what God is like, and what God expects. If He does not produce any such revelation, then no human being has any ability to know anything about God, and Solipsism, Secularism or Satanism, it makes no difference anymore...nobody knows anything anyway.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 2:48 am [
Doesn't any universalist also believe that people are better for being universalists? In fact, isn't one of the criticisms, the things they call "bad" about other religions, their exclusivism? And does Hinduism (since that's your chosen exemplar of inclusivism) believe that every other religion, such as Islam, say, is the equal of Hinduism? I dare say you can't sell that story in India. And don't they think that practicing Hindu disciplines is better for one's dharma and karma than all the alternatives? Don't they think that being a Hindu is superior to being a Buddhist, or a Zoroastrian, or a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Sikh? You can answer that by their actions, can't you?

Of course they do. Every Hindu IS a Hindu because he/she believes Hinduism is "better" than alternatives. And the same is true of the soft-headed Western universalist creeds...they all believe they're representing the pinnacle of religious achievement, in some sense: to be as "tolerant" and "inclusive" as they think themselves to be must surely be the height of what they believe to be rightness, no?ols)[/color]

IC, I'm going to have to ask, to what extent have you studied Hinduism?

Yes of course, the typical Hindu believes as you described. But Hinduism says "that's because enmeshed in "maya", trapped in the delusion that keeps them on the wheel of life and suffering. Hinduism accepts that "too hard" for almost all of us in THIS life to manage to escape maya, to become enlightened, rejoin the ONE.

You, as a Christian believe after death :the real you" goes to Heaven or Hell. The Hindu believes trapped on the wheel, forced to be reborn, live, suffer,and try again. Eventually all reunited with the One. It's a form of Pantheism with the twist that maya prevents us (well all living things) to realize they are that oneness.

To understand, study Buddhism, in particular the stories of its origins with Buddha. Hinduism doesn't consider what a person who becomes enlightened does with te rest of hos or her life. That's why I say, look at Buddha. Then history as Buddhism split,"little boat" vs "big boat". See how "big boat" relates to Hinduism, giving up on escaping during THIS life.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 2:58 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 2:48 am [
Doesn't any universalist also believe that people are better for being universalists? In fact, isn't one of the criticisms, the things they call "bad" about other religions, their exclusivism? And does Hinduism (since that's your chosen exemplar of inclusivism) believe that every other religion, such as Islam, say, is the equal of Hinduism? I dare say you can't sell that story in India. And don't they think that practicing Hindu disciplines is better for one's dharma and karma than all the alternatives? Don't they think that being a Hindu is superior to being a Buddhist, or a Zoroastrian, or a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Sikh? You can answer that by their actions, can't you?

Of course they do. Every Hindu IS a Hindu because he/she believes Hinduism is "better" than alternatives. And the same is true of the soft-headed Western universalist creeds...they all believe they're representing the pinnacle of religious achievement, in some sense: to be as "tolerant" and "inclusive" as they think themselves to be must surely be the height of what they believe to be rightness, no?ols)[/color]

IC, I'm going to have to ask, to what extent have you studied Hinduism?

Quite a lot, actually. But go ahead.

Yes of course, the typical Hindu believes as you described. But Hinduism says "that's because enmeshed in "maya", trapped in the delusion that keeps them on the wheel of life and suffering. Hinduism accepts that "too hard" for almost all of us in THIS life to manage to escape maya, to become enlightened, rejoin the ONE.

So...genuine Hindus, you think, can indulge in anything, and then plead, "I'm on the wheel of samsara, and blinded by maya, so I don't have to do my dharma?" Is that what you think Hinduism teaches? I don't think you do. I think you know what it teaches, and what its practitioners do. But the fundamental question is simply this: do you think Hindus actually believe Islamists (or anybody else) are their equals?

If you know Hinduism, you know it's a caste-based religion. Hindus not only believe that Islamists are not their equals, they don't even believe that other Hindus are their equals, especially when those people come from the other castes. So far from their thinking is the idea of equality it could not be farther. They literally believe the only way to transcendence is climbing up on the spiral of karma until enlightement is achieved. That means NOBODY's really equal to anybody else, because it's absolutely hierarchical.

Hinduism doesn't consider what a person who becomes enlightened does with te rest of hos or her life.

Well, if you're genuinely enlightened, you'll transcend; that is, unless you're one of what they call "the compassionate ones," who decides to stay and point others to transcendence.

Buddhism is a later form of Hinduism, of course; and they have not transcendence or Heaven, but soul-extinction as their goal, which is what Nirvana is all about. They compare it to a candle being extinguished and a drop of water disappearing in the ocean -- the point is supposed to be reabsorption into the Ultimate, with a complete end to personal identity. At least, that's what many sects of Buddhism believe.

So this all just underlines my point. If you've got a group of belief systems, they have mutually-exclusionary beliefs. If the Hindus say "transcendence," and Buddhists say "soul extinction," and Christians say "a new heavens and a new earth," and Islamists say, "a seraglio with a panoply of available virgins," and Atheists say, "nothing," then you've got a set of mutually-excluding beliefs about the afterlife. One or another may be right; but one thing for sure: ALL cannot be.

In fact, only one, if any can be right, since they're mutually exclusionary. And so is the universalist's view, when he imagines something like, "Well, we all get Heaven," or "you get to choose where you go." Either the universalist is right, or he's wrong; but if he's right, then all the others are wrong, and if any of them is right, he's wrong, and it doesn't turn out that everybody gets their choice, and we don't all get to Heaven automatically.

And that's just basic logic, plus knowledge of the religions and ideologies in question. It's really not even possible to debate, because it's premised in universal truths about what logic requires of us so long as the beliefs are mutually exclusionary...which they are.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 1:39 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 10:53 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 13, 2025 9:57 pm
Yes, tell that to the girls in Rotherham. And tell it to the eunuch slaves of the Trans -Saharan trades over the last 1,000 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW7YGPN9s1M.

I also have what I have found is pretty much a hard-and-fast rule: anybody who simply reprints some nonsense from ChatGPT has simply turned off his brain and stopped thinking at all.

There is a case to be made for revealed religious truths and you try to justify that case by inaccuracies, invalid argument, and ad hominems.

"Ad hominems"? You mean, "ad "ChatGPT-miems." People forget that it's an algorithm programmed with the biases of the programmers, and trust it like it was the voice of God. But I think you and I should not join them in that folly.

If you can make a sound case for revealed religion I will listen.

I can make no case for "religion." "Religion," like Socialism, is a categorical failure. "Religions" are man's attempts to leverage some actions of their own to make themselves "good" enough to compel divine favour. That's never worked, and never will, and the Bible is explict that it is so (Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:5). So I cannot defend "religion." Religion's another misguided human artifact. And since they all so often conflict with each other, then logically, there's precisely a 0% chance that they're all right anyway.

But faith? Yes. And revelation? Yes. It's necessary that God (assuming for argument's sake that He exists) must produce a self-revelation, if man is to know Him at all, and it must be such that it is a guide to mankind for what God is like, and what God expects. If He does not produce any such revelation, then no human being has any ability to know anything about God, and Solipsism, Secularism or Satanism, it makes no difference anymore...nobody knows anything anyway.

Is The Bible the only medium that God used to reveal Himself?

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 7:59 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 1:39 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 10:53 am
There is a case to be made for revealed religious truths and you try to justify that case by inaccuracies, invalid argument, and ad hominems.

"Ad hominems"? You mean, "ad "ChatGPT-miems." People forget that it's an algorithm programmed with the biases of the programmers, and trust it like it was the voice of God. But I think you and I should not join them in that folly.

If you can make a sound case for revealed religion I will listen.

I can make no case for "religion." "Religion," like Socialism, is a categorical failure. "Religions" are man's attempts to leverage some actions of their own to make themselves "good" enough to compel divine favour. That's never worked, and never will, and the Bible is explict that it is so (Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:5). So I cannot defend "religion." Religion's another misguided human artifact. And since they all so often conflict with each other, then logically, there's precisely a 0% chance that they're all right anyway.

But faith? Yes. And revelation? Yes. It's necessary that God (assuming for argument's sake that He exists) must produce a self-revelation, if man is to know Him at all, and it must be such that it is a guide to mankind for what God is like, and what God expects. If He does not produce any such revelation, then no human being has any ability to know anything about God, and Solipsism, Secularism or Satanism, it makes no difference anymore...nobody knows anything anyway.

Is The Bible the only medium that God used to reveal Himself?

Not quite.

Creation reveals His nature and existence (see Romans 1) and the Incarnation is His ultimate revelation (Hebrews 1:2), but we all have a conscience built into us, as well. That's the real reason that everybody sort of "knows" about the objective moral law, even when they're Secularists or belong to some religion that tells them something different. It actually takes quite a bit of effort to resist all the ways God has revealed Himself to mankind, when you put all that together.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 8:48 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 7:59 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 1:39 pm
"Ad hominems"? You mean, "ad "ChatGPT-miems." People forget that it's an algorithm programmed with the biases of the programmers, and trust it like it was the voice of God. But I think you and I should not join them in that folly.


I can make no case for "religion." "Religion," like Socialism, is a categorical failure. "Religions" are man's attempts to leverage some actions of their own to make themselves "good" enough to compel divine favour. That's never worked, and never will, and the Bible is explict that it is so (Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:5). So I cannot defend "religion." Religion's another misguided human artifact. And since they all so often conflict with each other, then logically, there's precisely a 0% chance that they're all right anyway.

But faith? Yes. And revelation? Yes. It's necessary that God (assuming for argument's sake that He exists) must produce a self-revelation, if man is to know Him at all, and it must be such that it is a guide to mankind for what God is like, and what God expects. If He does not produce any such revelation, then no human being has any ability to know anything about God, and Solipsism, Secularism or Satanism, it makes no difference anymore...nobody knows anything anyway.

Is The Bible the only medium that God used to reveal Himself?

Not quite.

Creation reveals His nature and existence (see Romans 1) and the Incarnation is His ultimate revelation (Hebrews 1:2), but we all have a conscience built into us, as well. That's the real reason that everybody sort of "knows" about the objective moral law, even when they're Secularists or belong to some religion that tells them something different. It actually takes quite a bit of effort to resist all the ways God has revealed Himself to mankind, when you put all that together.

I too believe each person is imbued with conscience.
I too believe it takes quite a bit of effort to resist all the ways God has revealed Himself to mankind.

The difference between your supreme deity and mine is that yours has intentions like a human being's intentions. My deity has no intentions therefore I am pantheist not theist.

My next question to you if you would be so good is : is the deity you believe in and trust wholly transcendent ,or wholly immanent, or partly immanent and partly transcendent?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 8:48 pm Creation reveals His nature and existence (see Romans 1) and the Incarnation is His ultimate revelation (Hebrews 1:2),

but we all have a conscience built into us, as well. That's the real reason that everybody sort of "knows" about the objective moral law, even when they're Secularists or belong to some religion that tells them something different.

Judaism also has "revealed by creation" << I'm not going to list which psalms, etc. >>

About everybody "knows" about objective moral truth do you mean "existence of" or "specifics", and I am far from certain all of us believe the latter unique. Nor would I say "built in" in the sense you mean. I doubt more than "learn a moral code if trained to one" << a neural net can be "trained from zero" but that train takes a lot longer >> The secularist might be RECOGNIZING the existence of "morality"; having learned these things make me FEEL bad, disgusted, etc. and doing those feel good, pleased, etc. -- the secularist was toilet trained, for example. The secularist might believe societies evolved "morality" because this gave the culture evolutionary advantage over cultures where interactions between individuals of the culture more random.

About WRONG and the Christian universalists --- IC, I had been holding back responding hoping a UU or at least a UCC person n this forum would respond from "inside" <<the branch of Puritanism from which both these came was tolerant when they arrived and settled Sudbury -- compare the Confidence Compact with the Mayflower Compact >> But since none popped up, I'll give it a go.

The issue is with the term WRONG itself. When you say another Christian sect is wrong (to say nothing of a non-Christian religion), what you mean by wrong sort of like "a wrong path, not a path by which one can achieve salvation". Is that close enough? But the UU does not believe any religion wrong because WRONG (in that sense) doesn't exist. You they ask, if that is so, if they don't think the other sect wrong, why prefer their own?

NOW I really want to defer to the UU spokesperson. Except to ask you "why do you prefer YOUR sect to sect X?" You first answer will be "because X is wrong". I then ask you "besides THAT (wrong about path to salvation) are there OTHER THINGS you dislike about sect X. If you say yes, then you have reasons to prefer your sect over sect X even if you did not think sect X "wrong" (about sole path to salvation).

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 9:32 am The difference between your supreme deity and mine is that yours has intentions like a human being's intentions. My deity has no intentions therefore I am pantheist not theist.

If that's true, that your god has no "intentions," then neither can it "intend" that you prefer one sort of action to another, or "intend" that one kind of action should be seen as "moral" and another less so, or not so.

This would seem to throw you back on the original task: how to explain morality on a strictly secular basis, since your view of god does not allow for it to have an opinion about that. But can you do it? That's the issue.

My next question to you if you would be so good is : is the deity you believe in and trust wholly transcendent ,or wholly immanent, or partly immanent and partly transcendent?

Gladly. Immanent and transcendent, but not "partly" anything: wholly immanent, and wholly transcendent.

As the Bible explains, He is both above this world and before this world, and yet also has intentions and purposes in having created the world, and is quite capable of acting into His world. So there's no lack of capacity on any side.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 3:33 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 8:48 pm Creation reveals His nature and existence (see Romans 1) and the Incarnation is His ultimate revelation (Hebrews 1:2),

but we all have a conscience built into us, as well. That's the real reason that everybody sort of "knows" about the objective moral law, even when they're Secularists or belong to some religion that tells them something different.

Judaism also has "revealed by creation" << I'm not going to list which psalms, etc. >>

Yes, quite so. And abundant references are available, and not just in the Psalms.

About everybody "knows" about objective moral truth do you mean "existence of" or "specifics", and I am far from certain all of us believe the latter unique. Nor would I say "built in" in the sense you mean. I doubt more than "learn a moral code if trained to one" << a neural net can be "trained from zero" but that train takes a lot longer >> The secularist might be RECOGNIZING the existence of "morality"; having learned these things make me FEEL bad, disgusted, etc. and doing those feel good, pleased, etc. -- the secularist was toilet trained, for example. The secularist might believe societies evolved "morality" because this gave the culture evolutionary advantage over cultures where interactions between individuals of the culture more random.

Well, the claim, "I was trained to X," is quite different from the claim, "I do X because it's moral," isn't it?

No doubt society "trains" a lot of things. But to say somebody has innate moral awareness is to say something quite different. That precedes and exceeds all socialization.

But I do think you have a point about "recognizing." I would say that the Secularist is, totally without the help of his Secularism, instinctively recognizing elements of the objective moral truth. And this is how it is not only possible but natural for him to disbelieve his own Secularism at the same time he professes to believe it. For he talks like a Secularist, and thinks like a Secularist, but lives like a Theist -- at least in some of his basic moral intuitions.

The issue is with the term WRONG itself. When you say another Christian sect is wrong (to say nothing of a non-Christian religion), what you mean by wrong sort of like "a wrong path, not a path by which one can achieve salvation". Is that close enough? But the UU does not believe any religion wrong because WRONG (in that sense) doesn't exist. You they ask, if that is so, if they don't think the other sect wrong, why prefer their own?

I'm sorry...the wording of your last question isn't quite clear to me. Do you mean, "If the Christians think the other sect is wrong, why do they prefer their own?" That would seem to obvious to answer. Or do you mean, "If Christianity's right, then why do the other sects think it's wrong?" But then, that, too, is too obvious: because people can be wrong. Or do you mean, "If the Universalists don't think a sect is wrong, why do...?"

Can you clear all that up for me? I want to answer, but I can't see what's being asked.

NOW I really want to defer to the UU spokesperson. Except to ask you "why do you prefer YOUR sect to sect X?" You first answer will be "because X is wrong". I then ask you "besides THAT (wrong about path to salvation) are there OTHER THINGS you dislike about sect X. If you say yes, then you have reasons to prefer your sect over sect X even if you did not think sect X "wrong" (about sole path to salvation).

Again, I'm struggling to understand the wording here. But I'll try to answer anyway, using the best guess I've got. If I've missed your point, my apologies: feel free to clarify.

You're asking if a sect is wrong about...you say "the path to salvation." I have problems with the idea of separating the path of salvation from moral rightness, because the path of salvation IS morally right, too. So I'm struggling to figure out how to accept the supposition buried in the wording of the question. I'm not sure I can save it.

But let me try. Supposing there was a difference between the issue of salvation and the issue of morality, and supposing I found things that made me "not prefer" some sect, you're suggesting my preferences would have sufficient importance to outweigh the question of the truth of the sect's belief? I can't see that "preferences" are very important at all. Most of our "preferences" are things we need to learn to get past. A few may be judicious. But as the old saying goes, "Eat your broccoli; it's good for you." Preferences often don't matter much.

Have I come anywhere close to what you were actually trying to ask me?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 5:07 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 9:32 am The difference between your supreme deity and mine is that yours has intentions like a human being's intentions. My deity has no intentions therefore I am pantheist not theist.

If that's true, that your god has no "intentions," then neither can it "intend" that you prefer one sort of action to another, or "intend" that one kind of action should be seen as "moral" and another less so, or not so.

This would seem to throw you back on the original task: how to explain morality on a strictly secular basis, since your view of god does not allow for it to have an opinion about that. But can you do it? That's the issue.

My next question to you if you would be so good is : is the deity you believe in and trust wholly transcendent ,or wholly immanent, or partly immanent and partly transcendent?

Gladly. Immanent and transcendent, but not "partly" anything: wholly immanent, and wholly transcendent.

As the Bible explains, He is both above this world and before this world, and yet also has intentions and purposes in having created the world, and is quite capable of acting into His world. So there's no lack of capacity on any side.

I can't quite understand. I would have thought a wholly transcendent deity is a fixed essence that eternally transcends this material realm. I feel the wholly immanent deity allows Him to be more sympathetic towards His creatures and to be more readily contacted by His creatures.
Is there part of The Bible that deals with this?

Maybe you same as I are struggling to understand. On GPT I found the following on the tension between transcendence and immanence:-

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
The "he" is Christ i.e. God.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 5:28 pm You're asking if a sect is wrong about...you say "the path to salvation." I have problems with the idea of separating the path of salvation from moral rightness, because the path of salvation IS morally right, too. So I'm struggling to figure out how to accept the supposition buried in the wording of the question. I'm not sure I can save it.

IC, I am wiling to discuss with you your belief that the only source of MORALITY is god. But once you go and entangle "path of salvation" and morality you are going more than a bridge too far. You are saying something like God is the only source of morality and only available to a sect of a sect of those who worship god. You may believe this, but are not going to be able to argue meaningfully except with others of your sect of a sect.

When you say "god is the only source of morality" TO ME we aren't talking about your sect of a sect but all of Christianity, all of Islam, all of Judaism (and I think quite a few small religions also). Of these, only* Christianity has concern with "salvation" but they all have concern with "morality".

* Disclaimer --- I only know more than a tiny bit about most of those small religions (for example, those of the Native American religions that are monotheistic, have just a "creator god"). Perhaps one that I know little about has a focus on "salvation", but most don't.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 6:00 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 5:07 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 9:32 am The difference between your supreme deity and mine is that yours has intentions like a human being's intentions. My deity has no intentions therefore I am pantheist not theist.

If that's true, that your god has no "intentions," then neither can it "intend" that you prefer one sort of action to another, or "intend" that one kind of action should be seen as "moral" and another less so, or not so.

This would seem to throw you back on the original task: how to explain morality on a strictly secular basis, since your view of god does not allow for it to have an opinion about that. But can you do it? That's the issue.

My next question to you if you would be so good is : is the deity you believe in and trust wholly transcendent ,or wholly immanent, or partly immanent and partly transcendent?

Gladly. Immanent and transcendent, but not "partly" anything: wholly immanent, and wholly transcendent.

As the Bible explains, He is both above this world and before this world, and yet also has intentions and purposes in having created the world, and is quite capable of acting into His world. So there's no lack of capacity on any side.

I can't quite understand. I would have thought a wholly transcendent deity is a fixed essence that eternally transcends this material realm. I feel the wholly immanent deity allows Him to be more sympathetic towards His creatures and to be more readily contacted by His creatures.
Is there part of The Bible that deals with this?

Yes. The Incarnation. The Eternal God became Man. The Transcendent One Descended to us, and joined us in our immanent world...and experienced all we experience...including hunger, thirst, tragedy, pain, loss, sadness, suffering and death...for us.

This is what the central Christian symbol, the cross, means.

Maybe you same as I are struggling to understand. On GPT I found the following on the tension between transcendence and immanence:-

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible … all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
The "he" is Christ i.e. God.

It's a direct quotation from Colossians 1:15. That's what the Bible says about it, alright.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 6:16 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 5:28 pm You're asking if a sect is wrong about...you say "the path to salvation." I have problems with the idea of separating the path of salvation from moral rightness, because the path of salvation IS morally right, too. So I'm struggling to figure out how to accept the supposition buried in the wording of the question. I'm not sure I can save it.

IC, I am wiling to discuss with you your belief that the only source of MORALITY is god. But once you go and entangle "path of salvation" and morality you are going more than a bridge too far.

Yet it's the bridge the Bible unapologetically requires us to cross. Morality is never enough, by itself.

You are saying something like God is the only source of morality and only available to a sect of a sect of those who worship god.

No, I'm not, actually. I'm saying that God is the only grounds for morality, alright; but all men know He exists. And all men can behave morally, even if they have no particular basis to do so in the worldview they claim, such as Secularism. But they won't be doing it for the sake of God. They'll have some other motive. And if they do, what does God care about their 'good' deeds? As Isaiah writes, "...all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like filthy rags." It's not enough to have a change of behaviour; what we really need is a change of heart.

As for salvation, it's available to anybody who will accept it through faith...there is no national or cultural boundary placed on that offer; it's truly universal.

But it's also at the decision of each person, without distinctions.

As for morality, it's all good and well if one belongs to God. But morality itself does not bring one into relationship with God. For to be moral is not the most a person owes it to do; it's the least he owes it to do. And if he succeeds, he would only have done what was his duty to have done...no more. See Luke 17:10.

It's the personal relationship that imparts meaning to the moral action. Men can "be good" for the sake of social approval, or peer pressure, or habit, or personal pride, or even just to set up opportunities to be otherwise. As the Word says, "Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart."

You may believe this, but are not going to be able to argue meaningfully except with others of your sect of a sect.

That "sect" will turn out to be anybody who believes God's Word.

* Disclaimer --- I only know more than a tiny bit about most of those small religions (for example, those of the Native American religions that are monotheistic, have just a "creator god"). Perhaps one that I know little about has a focus on "salvation", but most don't.

For Christianity, salvation is everything. It's literally life and death, heaven and hell. There's nothing more important, and without it, even moral behaviour is worthless.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 9:13 pm For Christianity, salvation is everything. It's literally life and death, heaven and hell. There's nothing more important, and without it, even moral behaviour is worthless.

I understand that (about Christianity), that Christianity is concerned with salvation, I really do. But it is beside the point that many Christians believe, by itself, moral behavior is worthless < although -- the books of the prophets are collected poems. When quoting from them, the entire poem please >

BUT BESIDE THE POINT --- We were disputing where MORALITY came from, not whether it was valuable on its own. The other monotheist religions do not have the focus/goal of Christianity. All religions are NOT "about the same thing"

The line you grabbed from Isaiah (which?) is discussing clean/unclean. That IS a focus of Judaism, "how can we live clean?" (how can we be cleansed) where this "unclean" is of many sorts, ONE of which is uncleanliness conveyed by sin (and that category is not "contagious" like some of the other categories). Note that USUALLY the prophets are shouting "just doing the rituals, the designated sacrifices, etc. not enough", also need moral behavior and righteousness. Here in that line the prophet is saying the reverse, just moral behavior and righteousness not enough, FOR CLEANLINESS (in other words, why what logic do you get to think him talking about "salvation").

It is not unusual that cultures group concepts together in way strange to us. Thus the Dine use the concept "beauty" both in the aesthetic sense and the moral sense (to walk in beauty is to act morally). The Jewish clean/unclean is very complicated, different sorts of uncleanliness may be "contagious" in different ways. Christianity (well after its first century or two) concerned only with the kind caused by sin.

If others here are interested in discussing issues of morality, conscience, etc. things like how knowing a moral code causes us to act/not act in accord with it, etc. can we please go off and do that. Those things do not depend on the moral code being the one true/proper/correct moral code. I'd say even you welcome IC IF (a big if) you can accept the previous sentence.