Why are the New Age movement and other exotic ideas so attractive?

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Ahimsa said:
I’m not referring to multiple lifetimes here. The Catholic teaching is that, even if someone is not formally a member of the Church before he or she dies, that person may be saved.
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Of course. That’s why we have Purgatory.

No successive births required.

ICXC NIKA.
 
Ahimsa said:
Did this pneumatikon soma ascend into heaven?
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Of course. That is what the pneumatikon soma is designed for. Just as our natural body is designed to walk on the ground.

So will yours, if you get there.

ICXC NIKA!
 
Ahimsa said:
Right, but Jesus leaves those who do/could/would not believe, undetermined. He doesn’t say anything about them.
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Yes he does. He said as I quoted to you in the scripture your father is the devil.

Check this out John 8:23 He said to them you belong to what is BELOW I belong to what is ABOVE. You belong to this world.

Who’s world is this?

Jesus said IF you do not believe that I AM you will die in your sins. What do you think it means to DIE in your sins?
 
rinnie said:
But back to the point I think another thing that makes the new age movement so attractive is empty promises
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You are close dear friend. The reason our ways are attractive and I have had time to think on this is, our promises are kept. Practice, practice, practice and live a good moral life and you will have good things come to you!
 
cyberwolf001 said:
You are close dear friend. The reason our ways are attractive and I have had time to think on this is, our promises are kept. Practice, practice, practice and live a good moral life and you will have good things come to you!
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I thought it was practice, practice, practice to get to Carnegie Hall???🙂
 
Hi, Ahimsa,

The ability to combine two words (e.g., ‘spiritual body’) does not make it so. What is ‘spirit’ is 100% immaterial. The body is 100% material. When we are alive - it is our spirit (soul) that animates our body, When we die, that animating force leaves the body and it immediately begins to decay,.

If I were to tell you about a ‘square circle’ … two words I have hammered together. You would have every reason to wonder how such an object (expressing a total contradiction) could ever exist. The same is true with a ‘spiritual body’. This is simply a ‘mind game’ of contradictions.

Several of the posters who have challenged you - have done so quite successfully. One of the reasons for their success is that you simply spin our another fanciful tale … and some of them are truly best to not even thinkl about (I got quite a chuckle out of that one). Maybe you wold consider putting some more of these ideas of re-incarnation = resurrection in that category?

One item worth considering is not to give two different words the same definition. Such a combination simply flies in the face of rational discourse. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, never taught or identified anything dealing with re-incarnation. Christ gave us what we need for salvation - He gave us His Church. You guessed it - His Chruch, the Catholic Church has never tauight or identified anything dealing with re-incarnation. This is no oversight! Now, there has been extensive teaching on the Resurrection. Christ proved He had the power over life and death (he raised the widow’s son and Lazarus to prove this). He told His Apostles He would be “handed over to the Chief Priest…” Mark 10:33 and be crucified - and then would rise from the dead.

Notice: when Christ rose from the dead, His Apostles and followers recognized Him. Christ did not come back as a dog or cat - but in a resurrected body.

God bless
Ahimsa said:
He had not yet been physically bodily resurrected when He descended into Hades. But His spiritual body was still active and alive.

Well, that depends upon who is defining what is a “major doctrinal matter”.

So you’re saying that every Christian who has a “new idea” on traditional Christian teaching, is being influenced by New Agers and Asian religions?
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Hi, Ahimsa,

There are two thoughts that must go together to be properly understood:

1.) BELIEF is more than an intellectual agreement, it is more than saying, “Lord, Lord…” (Matt 7:21) belief requires ACTION!

2.) ACTION is not ‘salvation by works’… but work is required. Look at the 25th Chapter of Matthew - three parables where the people involved lost big time!

Not stated in this account of Thomas and the Resurrected Christ is the idea that Thomas (along with the other ten) had to DO SOMETHING (ACT) on this new information. Christ e had been crucified and He had really died - and NOW He is alive. It is no longer business as usual (hiding from the Jews will have to stop - and look what dramatic actions took place on Pentecost Sunday!

God bless
Ahimsa said:
Right, but Jesus leaves those who do/could/would not believe, undetermined. He doesn’t say anything about them.
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tqualey said:
Hi, Ahimsa,

The ability to combine two words (e.g., ‘spiritual body’) does not make it so. What is ‘spirit’ is 100% immaterial. The body is 100% material.
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“Spiritual body” refers to the “form” one has before one is physically resurrected. The word “body” does not necessarily refer to something physical (as in the phrase “a body of knowledge”). To call something “immaterial” is to simply say it’s not “matter”. It doesn’t say what it actually is.
Christ did not come back as a dog or cat - but in a resurrected body.

God bless
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The compatibility of reincarnation and resurrection does not entail the necessity of any one having to reincarnate. In Hinduism, reincarnation exists only so long as one chooses to refuse the gift of liberation offered by the Divine. The goal, in Hinduism, is not to keep reincarnating forever, but to stop the reincarnation process – which involves a type of “resurrection” from the death that is samsara.
 
tqualey said:
Hi, Ahimsa,

The ability to combine two words (e.g., ‘spiritual body’) does not make it so. What is ‘spirit’ is 100% immaterial. The body is 100% material. When we are alive - it is our spirit (soul) that animates our body, When we die, that animating force leaves the body and it immediately begins to decay,.

If I were to tell you about a ‘square circle’ … two words I have hammered together. You would have every reason to wonder how such an object (expressing a total contradiction) could ever exist. The same is true with a ‘spiritual body’. This is simply a ‘mind game’ of contradictions.

Actually, “spiritual body” is simply a translation from the Pauline expression, pneumatikon soma, used in 1 Co 15. It is formed by spiritual life, just as we now are formed by natural life. But it is very much a HUMAN BODY.
Several of the posters who have challenged you - have done so quite successfully. One of the reasons for their success is that you simply spin our another fanciful tale … and some of them are truly best to not even thinkl about (I got quite a chuckle out of that one). Maybe you wold consider putting some more of these ideas of re-incarnation = resurrection in that category?
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ICXC NIKA
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GEddie said:
Actually, “spiritual body” is simply a translation from the Pauline expression, pneumatikon soma, used in 1 Co 15. It is formed by spiritual life, just as we now are formed by natural life.
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“Spiritual body” is also used to refer to what in Sanskrit is called sukshma sharira, the subtle or astral body, one of two parts of the human person that exist after the dissolution of the sthula sharira, or physical body.
 
Ahimsa said:
“Spiritual body” refers to the “form” one has before one is physically resurrected. The word “body” does not necessarily refer to something physical (as in the phrase “a body of knowledge”). To call something “immaterial” is to simply say it’s not “matter”. It doesn’t say what it actually is.

Spiritual Body is, in fact, a real BODY. It is the direct translation of the Greek pneumatikon soma, used by Saint Paul to describe the body of our life everlasting; a solid body, just as our LORD has a solid body.

ICXC NIKA.
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Ahimsa said:
“Spiritual body” is also used to refer to what in Sanskrit is called sukshma sharira, the subtle or astral body, one of two parts of the human person that exist after the dissolution of the sthula sharira, or physical body.
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Hi Ahisma: I think our term subtle body is different than what these folks are referring to. I get the sense they are talking about something with hair, teeth, toes and the like.

Your friend,
Sufjion
 
Sufjon said:
Hi Ahisma: I think our term subtle body is different than what these folks are referring to. I get the sense they are talking about something with hair, teeth, toes and the like.

Your friend,
Sufjion
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Yes, I’m beginning to suspect that.🙂
 
I think part of the reason why people are attracted by New Age movements and Far Eastern mysticism is primarily because they implicitly (or explicitly) see Western civilization as having failed. And, in many cases, they see Christianity as part of the problem, and not the solution. They’ve bought into the myth that Christianity is aggressive, mean, and spiteful, and are disillusioned by the over-emphasis on recent scandals within the Church, and I don’t mean just Catholicism, but across the board. So this has given them a propensity to reject “organized religion” and to search for alternatives. Anything that is part of the old guard must be done away with.

New Age spirituality becomes attractive then because people are naturally spiritual, and generally dislike not believing in anything, and New Age appears to be something new and different.

Me, I’m quite the opposite. I see things failing around me, and I ask: ‘What would my ancestors have done?’ - and then I remember - call upon the glorious and most holy God through his Christian Church.
 
Here are some sections of *The Autobiography of a Yogi *in which Jesus is mentioned as being united with God, just like the realized Yogis of India. This is from the Kindle version (which is free, from amazon) of the book"
“Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus. . . . When Jesus heard that, he said, ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.’”

Sri Yukteswar was expounding the Christian scriptures one sunny morning on the balcony
his Serampore hermitage. Besides a few of Master’s other disciples, I was present with a small group of my Ranchi students.

“In this passage Jesus calls himself the Son of God. Though he was truly united with God, his reference here has a deep impersonal significance,” my guru explained. “The Son of God is the Christ or Divine Consciousness in man. No MORTAL can glorify God. The only honor that man can pay his Creator is to seek Him; man cannot glorify an Abstraction that he does not know. The ‘glory’ or nimbus around the head of the saints is a symbolic witness of their CAPACITY to render divine homage.”
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Hi, Fabius Maximus,

I was fairly well following along, until I got to the end … then I got lost.
FabiusMaximus said:
Me, I’m quite the opposite. I see things failing around me, and I ask: ‘What would my ancestors have done?’ - and then I remember - call upon the glorious and most holy God through his Christian Church.
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You identified yourself as ‘lapsed’ - so is that part of what your ‘ancestors’ did? To the best of my knowledge, God chose Peter - and gave him the correct answer to Christ’s question - and Christ responded by identifying His Father’s selection and then founding His Church on Peter (Matt 16:18). It is at this time that the one set of keys was given to Peter (there were not 11 duplicates to be passed out later! :D) So, which Christian Church are to calling out to God from?

God bless
 
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