Human-centered religion does not work, because it is not the truth.
True faith is God-centered.
Be wary if you’re receiving religious teachings that are centered around ‘human improvement’, be it self-improvement or improvement of others. The fact that such teachings come with a religious cover by acknowledging that we shall do it with some help from God does not change the human-centered nature of the teachings.
We yearn for eternity because “we will see God” (Matthew 5:8), not because we will see ourselves, nor because we will see each other. In God we shall also see ourselves and each other, but that’s a guaranteed result in faith, not the active purpose of pursuit.
One divine attribute revealed in the Bible is God’s goodness. There is no darkness in God because God is pure light and love. It is this goodness that provides the foundation and substance to reconcile a seeming paradox: One who seeks himself shall lose his life, but one who seeks God shall find his own life. Without God’s absolute goodness, this would be a trap. Without God’s absolute goodness, the entire humanity would be a circular logic. One cannot lift himself up by pulling his own hair. Both Newton’s law and Gödel’s incompleteness theorem testify for this universal reality. God’s goodness breaks the circle and directs humanity to a purpose with certainty, because it provides an absolute external anchor.
“For whosoever would save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
Matthew 16:25
In contrast, Satan’s teaching is the opposite: “Seek your self and you shall find yourself to be like God.” Satan’s teaching is more appealing to the flesh, but is a lie. It was told in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:5) with a full murderous purpose and an immediate effect, the separation of man (Adam and Eve) from God.
Satan’s lie continues to have its strong grip on humanity today.
It took the death and resurrection of the Son of God to break that grip. Outside of this simple universal fact, there is no faith, only human wisdom; no redemption, only continuing enslavement; no salvation, only eternal destruction.