Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Have Worldly Philosophies Influenced Religion and Societies for Better or Worse?



Have Worldly Philosophies
Influenced Religion and Societies
for Better or Worse?
PART 3

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

In Part 1, we asked whether Christianity made the world more moral or not? Our conclusion was:

Morality is as old as humanity itself. Ethics is the reflection on how best to live together. What Christianity did was to tie these deeply and explicitly to worship of a God who cares about how people treat one another — including outsiders. Whether this made the world more moral is debatable — but it certainly reshaped how moral behavior was taught, justified, and spread.

Then, in Part 2, we then asked whether Christianity had failed it's own morality tests? We decided there that:

Where Christianity stayed close to the radical moral teachings of Jesus founded on love, it has inspired profound good. But where Christianity marries itself to power, it often contradicts its own moral heart.

Now here, in Part 3, let's ask whether there are worldly philosophies which have influenced religious and societal morality and ethics for better or worse?

Let's begin...


ChatGPT's Reply

🌍 Worldly Philosophies That Shaped Religious and Social Morality

Short answer: Yes — many non-religious or semi-religious philosophies have profoundly shaped how societies (including religious societies) define good and bad, justice and injustice, rights and duties. They’ve influenced morality for better and worse.

Below is a brief map of some major philosophical traditions and their impact.


1️⃣ Greek Philosophy (Classical)

  • Who: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics.

  • Core Ideas: Virtue ethics (what kind of person should I become?), reason as guide to the good life, moral duty to the polis (community).

  • Impact: Deeply influenced Christian ethics (e.g., Aquinas merged Aristotle’s virtue ethics with Christian teaching). Stoicism inspired later Christian ideas of self-control, endurance, and moral integrity.


2️⃣ Roman Civic Philosophy

  • Who: Cicero, Seneca.

  • Core Ideas: Natural law — the idea that there’s a universal moral order knowable by reason. Duty to society and the common good.

  • Impact: Shaped medieval and modern concepts of universal human rights, which the church adopted into canon law. Influenced Enlightenment thinkers.


3️⃣ Confucianism

  • Who: Confucius, Mencius.

  • Core Ideas: Right relationships, filial piety, respect for hierarchy, moral cultivation through ritual and tradition.

  • Impact: Has shaped East Asian societies for millennia — family-centered ethics, community harmony. Sometimes limited by rigid hierarchies, but its influence on communal responsibility remains profound.


4️⃣ Enlightenment Rationalism & Secular Humanism

  • Who: Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant.

  • Core Ideas: Individual rights, freedom of conscience, moral autonomy, reason over tradition.

  • Impact: Challenged church authority, helped birth modern democracies, abolitionism, universal education. Also fueled secularization — sometimes clashing with religious moral authority.


5️⃣ Marxism

  • Who: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels.

  • Core Ideas: Economic justice, critique of class exploitation, call for equality.

  • Impact: Inspired liberation theology in Latin America — merging Christian concern for the poor with radical social critique. Also justified oppressive regimes when misapplied dogmatically.


6️⃣ Utilitarianism

  • Who: Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill.

  • Core Ideas: The greatest good for the greatest number — morality judged by outcomes, not rules.

  • Impact: Influenced modern law, economics, healthcare ethics. Sometimes clashes with religious absolute principles.


7️⃣ Existentialism

  • Who: Kierkegaard (Christian existentialist), Nietzsche, Sartre.

  • Core Ideas: Individual responsibility to define one’s own meaning. Authenticity over conformity.

  • Impact: Kierkegaard deepened Christian interior ethics. Nietzsche’s “God is dead” critique provoked churches to rethink stale moralism. Existentialist freedom influenced postmodern pluralism ( = equality for all races, genders, sexes, and religions vs majority control of nationalized supremacists).


8️⃣ Postmodern Critical Theories

  • Who: Foucault, Derrida.

  • Core Ideas: Questioning all grand narratives, including moral absolutes. Power shapes “truth”.

  • Impact: Helped uncover injustices hidden by traditional moral authorities (colonialism, patriarchy). Also fuels moral relativism that some see as eroding shared values.


Better or Worse?

Better:

  • Expanded rights (abolition, women’s suffrage, civil rights).

  • Secular checks on religious abuses of power.

  • New moral frameworks for pluralistic societies.

Worse:

  • When severed from a moral compass, some philosophies justified cruelty (totalitarian communism, radical relativism).

  • Some eroded community bonds when hyper-individualism displaced shared duties.


🧭 Big takeaway

Religious morality and worldly philosophy have never been separate islands — they continually reshape each other, sometimes in creative tension, sometimes in conflict. The healthiest moral cultures often draw on both — the spiritual why and the philosophical how.



Myself

Please expand on the last takeaway: "Religious morality and worldly philosophy have never been separate islands — they continually reshape each other, sometimes in creative tension, sometimes in conflict. The healthiest moral cultures often draw on both — the spiritual why and the philosophical how."

ChatGPT

Absolutely — let’s deepen that takeaway into a more thoughtful short essay or reflection...


🧭 How Religious Morality and Worldly Philosophy Interact

Religious morality and worldly philosophy are often presented as opposites — but history shows they are more like braided rivers than separate streams.


They feed each other

  • Religious moral traditions bring deep motivations: awe, wonder, a sense of divine accountability, and belonging to something larger than oneself.

  • Worldly philosophies bring disciplined reasoning, practical methods for testing ideas, and a willingness to challenge outdated customs.

When religion ignores philosophy, it can become rigid dogma, unable to adapt.

When philosophy ignores the spiritual dimension, it can become cold calculation, unable to inspire sacrifice or hope.


🧩 Creative tension

The best moments in moral history happen when these two forces push and pull each other:

  • Greco-Roman philosophy sharpened early Christian thinkers — Augustine borrowed Plato, Aquinas built a Christian Aristotelian system.

  • Medieval natural law thinkers used Roman civic philosophy to argue for universal human dignity — planting seeds for modern rights.

  • The Protestant Reformation was partly philosophical critique (human conscience, individual reason) pushing back against corrupt religious power (Kant, Kirkegaard).

  • The Enlightenment challenged religious institutions to live up to their own moral claims — and vice versa, some churches challenged Enlightenment elitism with radical visions of equality for the poor.


🌍 Pluralistic modernity

In a pluralistic age, people need frameworks that speak both to the heart and the mind:

  • Spiritual traditions remind us that moral life is not just rules but love, mercy, and compassion for the vulnerable.

  • Philosophical traditions help us ask: Is this just? Does it work? Who benefits? Who suffers?

When these dimensions drift apart, societies risk:

  • Fundamentalism — clinging to sacred stories but blocking reasoned reform.

  • Or cynical relativism — endless arguments with no shared moral anchor.


🕊️ Drawing from both: The spiritual why and the philosophical how

Healthy moral cultures do both:

  • They hold to the spiritual why: Why care for the stranger? Why sacrifice for justice? Why forgive?

  • And they engage the philosophical how: How do we design fair laws? How do we balance rights and responsibilities? How do we reform unjust systems?


A living moral process

In this light, the moral life is not a fixed fortress but a living dialogue:

  • Faith brings vision and purpose.

  • Philosophy tests and refines that vision in real-world situations.

Together they remind us that the point is not just to hold ideals but to work them out — again and again — in our relationships, institutions, and communities.


 In the end...

Morality is strongest when it breathes with both lungs: the deep soul of religion, and the clear reason of philosophy.


Where Spirit Meets Mind
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Morality is strongest when
it breathes with both lungs:
   the deep soul of religion, and
   the clear reason of philosophy.


I believe...
in rivers that braid and flow,
entangling faith and reason's
restless questions
and unspoken prayers.

I believe...

in the fierce hush of wonder,
in sacred words that tremble,
tested by thought -
in thoughts that blossom
when watered by mercy's streams.

I believe...
the heart alone grows rigid,
the mind alone grows cold -
but together they remember
truth is a dialogue
and goodness a dance.

I believe...
the holy is never caged in stone,
nor the law carved for fleshly hearts -
but love writes its commandments
again and again
in the dusts of our history.

I believe...
in the why that stirs sacrifice,
and the how that mends injustice -

I believe that mercy
without courage faints,
and courage without mercy devours.

I believe...
we are here to build living bridges
between wonder and wisdom,
the seen and the hoped-for,
the ancient promise,
and the yet-to-come.

And I believe...
that when we do -
when spirit breathes into mind
and mind listens to spirit -
we are nearest
the goodness
we were made to seek.


R.E. Slater
July 2, 2025

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