Folks, as you think through what ALL of scripture has to say about life, faith, eternity, death, and salvation, read the following short excerpts of teaching from the sourced website, and discuss what you see wrong with it. This is an exercise whereby you can sharpen your apologetics when confronting false, religious beliefs such as these:
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"We hold that Salvation is not a matter of belief."
"Salvation is the outcome of a process of inner unification and transformation where our consciousness is withdrawn from our ego and centered on the awakened spirit within."
"The spirit within has eternal life because it is the substance of God; living light. What we do not have is eternal consciousness."
"...The ego acts as the interface between the world and us and is the chief interpreter of our experience in the world. The ego is a function of the physical body and derives its energy and life from the body. When death is experienced the life force of the spirit is withdrawn from the body. The ego no longer has a source of energy. The ego then weakens and fades away leaving only the sleeping spirit. All awareness and consciousness associated with the ego also fades away into nothingness. This is called the second death."
"Only by transferring our consciousness over to the spirit within, which has eternal life, can we retain our conscious awareness and individual identity."
[http://gnosticwisdomfoundation.org/salvation.html]
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Wowee! The image that came to my mind was of a 1960's VW van driving down the road, painted with flowers, and smoke roiling out the windows and the exhaust pipe...out into the California ocean air...
Eastern Mysticism seems to be prolific throughout many religions.
MM
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"We hold that Salvation is not a matter of belief."
"Salvation is the outcome of a process of inner unification and transformation where our consciousness is withdrawn from our ego and centered on the awakened spirit within."
"The spirit within has eternal life because it is the substance of God; living light. What we do not have is eternal consciousness."
"...The ego acts as the interface between the world and us and is the chief interpreter of our experience in the world. The ego is a function of the physical body and derives its energy and life from the body. When death is experienced the life force of the spirit is withdrawn from the body. The ego no longer has a source of energy. The ego then weakens and fades away leaving only the sleeping spirit. All awareness and consciousness associated with the ego also fades away into nothingness. This is called the second death."
"Only by transferring our consciousness over to the spirit within, which has eternal life, can we retain our conscious awareness and individual identity."
[http://gnosticwisdomfoundation.org/salvation.html]
=====================
Wowee! The image that came to my mind was of a 1960's VW van driving down the road, painted with flowers, and smoke roiling out the windows and the exhaust pipe...out into the California ocean air...
Eastern Mysticism seems to be prolific throughout many religions.
MM