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C: A life in the full presence of God.
NA: The life immediately before enlightenment, since you will no longer exist as a person once you remember you are God.
9. Who is the best man?
C: Jesus Christ, the Man who never sinned.
NA: “Best” is a nonsensical moral category.
10. Why is there evil, pain, suffering, and injustice?
C: The Fall. Man exercised his freedom in rebellion to God and these are the consequences.
NA: People are paying off their karmic debt. As God, we are responsible for the reality we create for ourselves through our thinking and choices. If we are suffering, it is because we are choosing to suffer. If we think differently we can alter the external world and create our own reality.
11. Why do bad things happen to good people?
C: We live in a fallen world with moral freedom. Evil and sin exist. Men hurt themselves intentionally and accidentally. Our hope is only in God who is able to bring good out of evil.
NA: Karma.
Karma and reincarnation have all kinds of fatal logical problems. Who started karma and reincarnation and why? Who decides what behavior gets rewarded and what gets punished, especially since there are no moral categories? How can there be a “who” to all this when God is a “what,” an impersonal force like gravity? How can an impersonal force help you in your relationships, heal your hurts, illnesses and wounds, help with your addictions and bad habits, lead you to confront social evils, poverty, crime, corruption, broken families, broken hearts?
12. Will good or evil ultimately triumph?
C: The resurrection of Jesus proves that good ultimately triumphs over evil.
NA: These are only apparent moral categories, they don’t really exist.
13. Is there life after death?
C: Yes! In either heaven or hell. Our destination is based on our response to the person and work of Christ.
NA: Yes and No. Yes, in that you may have trillions of more reincarnated bodies to inhabit as you pay off your karmic debt before reaching enlightenment. No, in that once you’re enlightened, you will cease to exist, since you will have remembered you’re really an impersonal force that New Age thinkers call “God.”
The New Age Movement is intellectually and spiritually bankrupt. But, it is making Tolle and Williamson—and especially Oprah—a whole bunch of money. |