Source: International Mission Board, October 19, 2018<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note: Author Sai Anand is a neuroscientist from India. He studies how the brain works and uses innovative approaches to share the gospel and speak intelligently about God\u2019s design of the human body and brain.<\/em><\/p>\n During college I heard about true liberation offered from the true God: Jesus Christ. He has changed my life and beliefs about everything. This, though, is what I used to believe as a Hindu.<\/p>\n God(s):<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to fix a number to how many gods there are in the Hindu faith\u2014the highest estimate is 333 million. The gods have different characteristics and abilities, so Hindus will pray to different gods for different requests. The concepts of omniscience or omnipresence aren\u2019t attributed to Hindu gods, so Hindus don\u2019t know whether the gods or the particular god they\u2019re appealing to, recognize or acknowledge their sacrifices.<\/p>\n Worship:<\/p>\n Worship, most of the time, means sacrifices to appease the anger of the gods, who are known for lashing out against sin. They will punish you if you do something wrong. The inevitability that you\u2019ll do something that angers a god is overwhelming.<\/p>\n Hindus visit local temples to make sacrifices, give offerings, pray, light incense, and meditate. Worship can also be performed at shrines in the home or along the road. For Hindus, the morning rituals usually include self-purification and prayers to the sun. Many Hindus will also visit the temple in the morning. But they can\u2019t go to the gods whenever they want; the temple isn\u2019t open at all hours of the day.<\/p>\n Salvation:<\/p>\n Hindus believe in the unceasing cycle of life, death, and reincarnation. Your karma\u2014the result of your actions, good or bad\u2014determines how you will be reincarnated in your next life.<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t a way to know if you\u2019ll be reincarnated to a better life or whether what you\u2019ve done is deserving of hell. There is a general belief in a \u201chell\u201d where you are punished, though there are believed to be many different hells.<\/p>\n \u00bb Full article<\/a> has great pictures and includes advice about what to keep in mind when sharing the gospel with a Hindu.<\/p>\n \u00bb The Hindu festival of Diwali<\/a> is coming up November 6-10, and, as we\u2019ve mentioned before, many Christians will be participating in 15 days of prayer<\/a> for the Hindu world October 28 to November 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: International Mission Board, October 19, 2018 Editor\u2019s Note: Author Sai Anand is a neuroscientist from India. He studies how the brain works and uses innovative approaches to share the gospel and speak intelligently about God\u2019s design of the human body and brain. During college I heard about true liberation offered from the true God: … Continue reading WORLD: I\u2019m a Hindu, and This Is What I Believed<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8179,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions\/8179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}