The Appeal of False Religions

Amen. Thanks for sharing.

I was incredibly convicted for a lot of things I used to participate in - yoga, meditation, affirmations, always concerned with self improvement and being self sufficient. It's incredibly deceptive the way those things will pull you in, and then pull you further and further away from God. It can be challenging to set pride aside - I often pray for God to humble me and make my will whatever his will is for me, the emptiness and pain that came from focusing inward was not worth it


Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Humble_Disciple said:

Regardless of whether or not the first few chapters of Genesis are literal history, there are important theological lessons that can be learned from it.

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From it and from the whole of the OT.
Jesus on the road to emails, explained from the OT how it talked about him.
In Acts where Stephen and other disciples reasoned from the scriptures they were using the OT.

A challenge for your minister is to ask him to preach through the OT showing how it teaches us about Jesus.

Humble_Disciple said:

I fell away from the faith and attended Buddhist temples for five years, until I finally realized that the inner peace I'd been seeking could only be found in obeying God's Word.

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Praise God for pulling you out of that mess, brother ☀ He's so good.

The Word makes much more sense now.

Paul also spoke of the good that he knew to do that he could not but the evil he hated that he did, so even there is like holding the knowledge of what may be good or evil but without the power to perform the good (but only the evil). Same sort of thing could be understood by the law, the knowledge of what is good and evil by it while the power of sin (or the motions of sin by the same) under it had an apearance wisdom also.

I mean because I dont think the desire to be like God, in the sense of being a partaker of holiness and to be wise, or to desire to do righteousness is bad, there is just a way that might seem right to a man (as that tree) but in the end was death.

I might not have stated that as perfectly as I meant to I am really bad free handing anything.

But "kinda sorta" like that

Humble_Disciple said:

Regardless of whether or not the first few chapters of Genesis are literal history, there are important theological lessons that can be learned from it.

The serpent, which represents Satan, tempts Eve with the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, promising that it will make her like God. It’s a warning against the teachings of various religions that by the attainment of special knowledge, you can become God-like.

What the Bible teaches is that we trust and obey the Lord and Him alone for our salvation. Gnosticism, Buddhism, Hinduism, occultism, new age, etc. teach that we are saved by the knowledge (enlightenment) attained by our own efforts, from which we attain God-like wisdom and power.

It’s very appealing to one’s ego the idea that we can be gods unto ourselves, based on our own attainment of secret knowledge. This is why Eve gave into the serpent.

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I have to disagree with your assessment of religious error as a sort of pan-Pelagianism as an oversimplification, and applicable only to some of the religions you mentioned, or some sub-sects within them. But there are Christians who convert to Islam, which is obviously not a Pelagian religion but rather one of submission to an all powerful, inhuman, arbitrary and, from the educated and well catechized Christian perspective, morally outrageous, evil and despicable demonic false deity. So there has to be not one but several distinct temptations that lead to apostasy to different non Christian faiths, but Satan and the demons are behind all of them.

Humble_Disciple said:

Regardless of whether or not the first few chapters of Genesis are literal history, there are important theological lessons that can be learned from it.

The serpent, which represents Satan, tempts Eve with the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, promising that it will make her like God. It’s a warning against the teachings of various religions that by the attainment of special knowledge, you can become God-like.

What the Bible teaches is that we trust and obey the Lord and Him alone for our salvation. Gnosticism, Buddhism, Hinduism, occultism, new age, etc. teach that we are saved by the knowledge (enlightenment) attained by our own efforts, from which we attain God-like wisdom and power.

It’s very appealing to one’s ego the idea that we can be gods unto ourselves, based on our own attainment of secret knowledge. This is why Eve gave into the serpent.

Click to expand...

I think its a little more general. Anytime we ignore God-and A&E were in much closer proximity to His voice than we are now-then we're denying His authority and therefore his very godhood, making ourselves God for all practical purposes. But that just opens the door for any and all possibilities in experimenting with what might be the best thing, the right decisions, morally speaking, for ourselves, 'doing what's right in our own eyes', for better or worse. And so fallen man goes out and looks for all kinds of other "gods", other ways besides God to find ultimate fulfillment and happiness, but it's no where to be found on this earth.

At least, that is, until He came down here to meet us in the flesh-even though He'd also been revealing Himself and His will to a less obvious and less exhaustive degree in the centuries prior, to and through a chosen people. And even when He came in human flesh He doesn't force His will upon us, but draws us to it by His love-and wanting that to ultimately be our resting place as we come to value and embrace that love, to value Him, before any of the offerings of the world. We need to know that Adam & Eve never had reason to leave home, to disobey, to turn away from the God who knows and has only man's best interest at heart.
"God, alone, satisfies", as Aquinas once said.

Because,
"Apart from Me you can do nothing", as Jesus said. We just need to learn how much we need the true God.

After God's Heart said:

Amen. Thanks for sharing.

I was incredibly convicted for a lot of things I used to participate in - yoga, meditation, affirmations, always concerned with self improvement and being self sufficient. It's incredibly deceptive the way those things will pull you in, and then pull you further and further away from God. It can be challenging to set pride aside - I often pray for God to humble me and make my will whatever his will is for me, the emptiness and pain that came from focusing inward was not worth it


Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Click to expand...

Indeed. Yoga has an unenviable reputation for causing spiritual problems for Christians, and that’s not even counting the abusive and sexually predatory gurus.

It is worth noting that the Mar Thomas Christians on the Malabar Coast of India, who were evangelized by the Apostle Thomas before a fanatical Hindu rajah martyred him in 53 AD, do not, in the aggregate, practice yoga or other Hindu forms of meditation but rather tend to avoid them.