> you simply can't reach salvation and union with God without starting from right morals.
This is almost the opposite of Christianity, depending on what you mean by "right morals".
Christianity says you simply can't reach salvation and be with God unless you are flawless, which is humanly impossible, so unless God does something... hence Christ.
> Christianity says you simply can't reach salvation and be with God unless you are flawless, which is humanly impossible, so unless God does something...
Thing is, Buddhism makes very similar claims. That's what the Bodhisattva vow is all about; a commitment, made out of pure loving-kindness, to delay ultimate enlightenment so as to accumulate a store of merit (good karma) that other beings can freely call for and attain their own enlightenment. For all we know, every practitioner of Buddhism who actually manages even the slightest semblance of enlightnment might be tapping into the power of countless bodhisattvas.
I'm pretty sure you can find some sect of Christianity somewhere that will contradict another one completely, just consider the Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912 interpretation vs. the Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879.
People can and will bikeshed about any subject, this is about a core tenet -- the contradiction of which, would, at most charitable interpretation, be nominalistic.
>Unitarians generally reject the doctrine of original sin.
I agree that basically that if you do a random sampling of Christians the odds are likely somewhat greater than 99% while still less than 100% that anyone you pick will believe that Jesus saved humanity from sin and salvation is related to accepting his teachings.
Some will also say salvation is accepting his teachings and divinity, and some will say salvation is accepting his teachings and divinity and doing good works as well.
But not everyone will believe in original sin, and as such they may believe that you can be very good and still be saved without accepting Jesus.
This of course answers several common complaints against many Christian faiths that a good person who lived all their life following Jesus' code of conduct without knowing who Jesus was would not be able to be saved.
I don't have any particular side of this fight, as I am an Athiest, although relatively well read in theology (at least when younger)
On edit: also note that there were probably sects of Christianity that were deemed heretical in former times and wiped out that differed on this part as well, it is my understanding that the Adamites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamites did not have a doctrine of original sin and Jesus' death being necessary for salvation.
God has always wanted humans to "be perfect", if by that we mean without sin. We have always failed at this, and God has always gotten angry. This starts in Eden, and even Jesus told us to "be perfect" (e.g. see Sermon on the Mount), and was really upset at sinners _who did not want to change their ways_.
Romans 3: "... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Yeah, it's humanly impossible not to sin.
It is crucial to Christianity that humans are saved "freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom 3), "and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph 2).
This is almost the opposite of Christianity, depending on what you mean by "right morals". Christianity says you simply can't reach salvation and be with God unless you are flawless, which is humanly impossible, so unless God does something... hence Christ.