{"id":2366,"date":"2016-05-08T20:57:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T00:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.com\/?p=2366"},"modified":"2016-05-08T20:57:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T00:57:05","slug":"2366-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/2366-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity And Eastern Religion: What Sets Them Apart?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>(Part Two)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Q: Now that we know how Islam differs from Christianity, what about the so-called Eastern Religions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A:<\/strong> That\u2019s another good question!<\/p>\n<p>David Barrett, who is a Senior Editor of <strong>\u201cthe World Christian Encyclopedia\u201d<\/strong> reported that there are 19 major world religions.<\/p>\n<p>The research stated that in 2015, about 70 percent of adults here in the United States and in Canada, identify themselves as Christians. However, once the phrase \u2018<strong>Born Again<\/strong>\u2019 is added to the equation, then ONLY about 35 percent of Americans would be counted as Christians.<\/p>\n<p>Several major religions have their roots in the East: India, China, Southeast Asia, and Japan. A number of \u2018<strong>Eastern Religions\u2019<\/strong> teach that the source of Salvation is found within oneself, and the basic human problem is not<strong> SIN<\/strong> against a Holy God, but ignorance of our true condition. <em>Hinduism<\/em> teaches that God is impersonal, an eternal force, having none of the attributes\/characteristics of a human, such as knowledge, thinking, love, etc. And yet, they have three supreme gods: (1) Brahma \u2013 the creator, (2) Vishnu \u2013 the preserver, and (3) Siva \u2013 the destroyer. [Christianity has God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit \u2013 our triune God, which is three persons in one entity.]<\/p>\n<p><em>Hinduism <\/em>has two non-negotiable beliefs: Karma and reincarnation. It is said that no Hindu will trade these away. <em>Buddhism<\/em> teaches that the \u2018<strong>SELF<\/strong>\u2019 as we understand it does not exist, and the key to ending all suffering is to remove all desire. <em>Naturalism<\/em> teaches that anything supernatural is outside the realm of evidence and purely an opinion, not a matter of fact.<\/p>\n<p>In conclusion: the Bible clearly states that even though our God is a Spirit (John 4:24), He possesses the characteristics of a living being &#8211; He has life (John 5:26), He\u2019s loving (John 3:16), He\u2019s all knowing (Matthew 6:8), He\u2019s all seeing (Matthew 6:4), He\u2019s God the creator of all things, and does not need a physical body to possess physical attributes. And if we only needed what Eastern Religions teach &#8211; the need\u00a0 for \u201cA higher level of consciousness,\u201d then, there would not have been a need for Holy God to send His only begotten Son \u00a0Jesus (John 3:16) to die on the Cross for our sins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Part Two) Q: Now that we know how Islam differs from Christianity, what about the so-called Eastern Religions? A: That\u2019s another good question! David Barrett, who is a Senior Editor of \u201cthe World Christian Encyclopedia\u201d reported that there are 19 major world religions. The research stated that in 2015, about 70 percent of adults here [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bibleqa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachingministryofdrmike.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}