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Good day Ray, nelsong, Bonita, Keryn, Brad, Rick B, Alina, Carolyn, Carola, Fellow Students, Forum Friends, Members and Guests,
Always do the authors attempt to distinguish between cold, hard facts and living, flexible truth. This short sentence in the first paragraph of today’s reading should inform an age:
…Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may…. (2078.4)195:7.1
Compare it with these other statements from various authors on fact, theory and truth:
…The dead theory of even the highest religious doctrines is powerless to transform human character or to control mortal behavior. What the world of today needs is the truth which your teacher of old declared: “Not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit….” (380:7) 34:6.6
…The seed of theoretical truth is dead, the highest moral concepts without effect, unless and until the divine Spirit breathes upon the forms of truth and quickens the formulas of righteousness…. (380:7) 34:6.6
…The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind…. (1125:5) 102:6.10
…Skepticism may challenge the theories of theology, but confidence in the dependability of personal experience affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into faith…. (1124:6) 102:6.4
…The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space…. (1125:2) 102:6.7
Again, in the second paragraph, the word quarrel appears:
…True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion…. (2078.5)195:7.2
Compare with these statements on science, religion and truth:
***
From today’s text:
…The materialistic dismay and despair of a mechanistic science has failed to recognize the fact of the spirit-indwelt mind of the scientist…. (2078.6)195:7.3
A Perfector of Wisdom said this about the Indweller (also known as the Thought Adjuster), in Paper 12:
…Mortal man has a spirit nucleus. The mind is a personal-energy system existing around a divine spirit nucleus and functioning in a material environment. Such a living relationship of personal mind and spirit constitutes the universe potential of eternal personality. Real trouble, lasting disappointment, serious defeat, or inescapable death can come only after self-concepts presume fully to displace the governing power of the central spirit nucleus, thereby disrupting the cosmic scheme of personality identity….(142.1)12:9.6
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Once more the TB&G trio appears, this time with regard to values:
…Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena of the universes of time and space…. (2078.7)195:7.4
84 Uses of Truth, Beauty & Goodness In 16 Languages
Spirit values are a central theme of the UB. From the Foreword:
…Successive planetary revelations of divine truth invariably embrace the highest existing concepts of spiritual values…. (17:1) 0:12.12
From Paper 102:
…Science, knowledge, leads to fact consciousness; religion, experience, leads to value consciousness; philosophy, wisdom, leads to co-ordinate consciousness; revelation (the substitute for morontia mota) leads to the consciousness of true reality…. (1122:1) 102:3.5
The words value and values appear in over 500 paragraphs.
***
The Midwayers don’t use Einstein’s name, but they do debunk his theory of relativity in today’s reading:
…let not your dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of “relativity” disturb your concepts of the eternity and infinity of God…. (2078.8)195:7.5
“Dabblings”! “Faintly glimpsed”!! Many readers have wondered how the famous genius might have reacted to the Urantia revelation. I think he may have been swayed by it. He did, after all, say:
“The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth.”
“The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.”
“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
***
From today’s OPAD:
…do not make the mistake of failing to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your real and better self…. (2078.8)195:7.5
From Paper 110:
…Subsequent to mortal fusion the Adjusters share your destiny and experience; they are you….(1212.5)110:7.4***
About the mind and the material, from today’s text:
…This very mechanistic concept of the universe is in itself a nonmaterial phenomenon of mind, and all mind is of nonmaterial origin…. (2079.1)195:7.6
Mind has its origin in the Third Source and Center, the Conjoint Creator. From Paper 9:
…Because the Third Person is the source of mind, do not presume to reckon that all phenomena of mind are divine. Human intellect is rooted in the material origin of the animal races. Universe intelligence is no more a true revelation of God who is mind than is physical nature a true revelation of the beauty and harmony of Paradise. Perfection is in nature, but nature is not perfect. The Conjoint Creator is the source of mind, but mind is not the Conjoint Creator…. (103.3)9:5.5
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A stinging quote in today’s reading to admonish and guide us away from ego gratification and intellectual pride:
…Man’s conceit often outruns his reason and eludes his logic…. (2079.2)195:7.7
Yet another pearl of wisdom in today’s text:
…Both optimism and pessimism are concept reactions in a mind conscious of values as well as of facts…. (2079.3)195:7.8***
Thank God we are not doomed to life as mechanists. Mechanistic belief would deprive us of survival, God, love, creativity, genuine joy, even free will. From today’s text:
…life is a phenomenon which transcends the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of mind and the creative qualities of spirit…. (2079.4)195:7.9
Finally, in today’s reading, the Midwayers give us this jewel of an unsolvable paradox to confront mechanism:
…If materialism were a fact, there could be no self-conscious mechanist…. (2079.8)195:7.13
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In tomorrow’s reading, part 2 of Section 7. The Vulnerability of Materialism, the Midwayers continue to compare the facts of science with the values of religion, the lifeless theories of mechanists with the life giving beliefs of the spirit born.
Overview of Paper 195 – After Pentecost
1. Influence of the Greeks
2. The Roman Influence
3. Under the Roman Empire
4. The European Dark Ages
5. The Modern Problem
6. Materialism
7. The Vulnerability of Materialism
8. Secular Totalitarianism
9. Christianity’s Problem
10. The FutureThis group of papers [121-196] was sponsored by a commission of twelve Urantia midwayers acting under the supervision of a Melchizedek revelatory director. The basis of this narrative was supplied by a secondary midwayer who was onetime assigned to the superhuman watchcare of the Apostle Andrew.
Listen toPaper 195: (click the speaker icon at the top of the page)
Thanks for reading. Members’ thoughts, reflections, insights, observations, comments, corrections and questions about today’s OPAD presentation are invited.
Much love, Rick/OPAD host.
Richard E Warren
Wow, yet even more thoughts you raise – in particular:
…do not make the mistake of failing to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your real and better self…. (2078.8)195:7.5
We can express our ‘real and better self’ via personality’s functioning- mind conjoins – balances the spiritual with the material and personality has capacity to unify the constituent parts of our nature – includes soul – and to reveal our co-created morantia selves – if we so choose.
These higher conceptual ideals can be factualized in our relationships with others. The conceptual infinite level is a value level -expressed with absolute meanings and universally factualized. Our factualized experiential living acquires experiential meanings to augment the absolute value. Absolute nature of the Value-Giver is comprehended as Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
So Einstein was on the right track!
Walk with God. May His Peace be unto you.
Einstein was on the right track, the authors lament the sparsity of deep thinkers. He qualifies there.
On/off switch? Only Grand-Dad has one.
Richard E Warren
Welcome to The OPAD Online Study Session
Today’s Presentation
Paper 195 – AFTER PENTECOST
7. The Vulnerability of Materialism
[Part 2 of 2]
The very claim of materialism implies a supermaterial consciousness of the mind which presumes to assert such dogmas. A mechanism might deteriorate, but it could never progress. Machines do not think, create, dream, aspire, idealize, hunger for truth, or thirst for righteousness. They do not motivate their lives with the passion to serve other machines and to choose as their goal of eternal progression the sublime task of finding God and striving to be like him. Machines are never intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual.
(2079.10)195:7.15 Art proves that man is not mechanistic, but it does not prove that he is spiritually immortal. Art is mortal morontia, the intervening field between man, the material, and man, the spiritual. Poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values.
(2080.1)195:7.16 In a high civilization, art humanizes science, while in turn it is spiritualized by true religion — insight into spiritual and eternal values. Art represents the human and time-space evaluation of reality. Religion is the divine embrace of cosmic values and connotes eternal progression in spiritual ascension and expansion. The art of time is dangerous only when it becomes blind to the spirit standards of the divine patterns which eternity reflects as the reality shadows of time. True art is the effective manipulation of the material things of life; religion is the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art.
(2080.2)195:7.17 How foolish to presume that an automaton could conceive a philosophy of automatism, and how ridiculous that it should presume to form such a concept of other and fellow automatons!
(2080.3)195:7.18 Any scientific interpretation of the material universe is valueless unless it provides due recognition for the scientist. No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords recognition to the artist. No evaluation of morals is worth while unless it includes the moralist. No recognition of philosophy is edifying if it ignores the philosopher, and religion cannot exist without the real experience of the religionist who, in and through this very experience, is seeking to find God and to know him. Likewise is the universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite God who made it and unceasingly manages it.
(2080.4)195:7.19 Mechanists — humanists — tend to drift with the material currents. Idealists and spiritists dare to use their oars with intelligence and vigor in order to modify the apparently purely material course of the energy streams.
(2080.5)195:7.20 Science lives by the mathematics of the mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity. Religious experience is something in human life which is truly supermathematical.
(2080.6)195:7.21 In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals — of love and hate, of cowardice and courage — represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.
(2080.7)195:7.22 The universe is not like the laws, mechanisms, and the uniformities which the scientist discovers, and which he comes to regard as science, but rather like the curious, thinking, choosing, creative, combining, and discriminating scientist who thus observes universe phenomena and classifies the mathematical facts inherent in the mechanistic phases of the material side of creation. Neither is the universe like the art of the artist, but rather like the striving, dreaming, aspiring, and advancing artist who seeks to transcend the world of material things in an effort to achieve a spiritual goal.
(2080.8)195:7.23 The scientist, not science, perceives the reality of an evolving and advancing universe of energy and matter. The artist, not art, demonstrates the existence of the transient morontia world intervening between material existence and spiritual liberty. The religionist, not religion, proves the existence of the spirit realities and divine values which are to be encountered in the progress of eternity.
***
[Each OPAD presentation is copied from The Urantia Book published by Urantia Foundation. Questions and comments related to the Paper under discussion are welcome and encouraged. In-depth questions and related topics may be studied in branch threads in the OPAD, or other subforums, as you require. Thank you for studying with us.]
Richard E Warren
.
Greetings nelsong, Ray, Rick B, Bonita, Brad, Keryn, Alina, Carolyn, Carola, Fellow Students, Forum Friends, Members and Visitors,
Mechanistic philosophy is really a sad, shallow, and lonely belief, isn’t it?! Our bodies are somewhat machine like, they break down, they are subject to the laws of atrophy and chemistry. But we aren’t our bodies or our minds, and we don’t have to identify with them, rather with the God who indwells the body/mind, even becoming like the Indweller.
From the first paragraph of today’s reading:
…the sublime task of finding God and striving to be like him…. (2079.9)195:7.14
Many are the references to becoming Godlike. Here are four:
…An experience is good when it heightens the appreciation of beauty, augments the moral will, enhances the discernment of truth, enlarges the capacity to love and serve one’s fellows, exalts the spiritual ideals, and unifies the supreme human motives of time with the eternal plans of the indwelling Adjuster, all of which lead directly to an increased desire to do the Father’s will, thereby fostering the divine passion to find God and to be more like him…. (1458.2) 132:2.5.…The eternal salvation of this truth-discerning and beauty-loving soul is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness which leads this mortal to develop a singleness of purpose to do the Father’s will, to find God and to become like him…. (1459.4) 132:3.4.…In substance Jesus said: The will of God is the way of God, partnership with the choice of God in the face of any potential alternative. To do the will of God, therefore, is the progressive experience of becoming more and more like God, and God is the source and destiny of all that is good and beautiful and true…. (1431.2) 130:2.7.
…every God-knowing man or angel possesses the potential of unlimited self-expression on ever-progressive levels of unified self- realization by the technique of the never-ending achievement of Godlikeness–the experiential blending in the evolutionary experience of eternal truth, universal beauty, and divine goodness…. (507.5)44:7.4
***
The arts and religion are, or should be, closely associated. From today’s text:
…religion is the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art…. (2080.1)195:7.16
The Midwayers put art and poetry in their rightful place in today’s reading:
…Art is mortal morontia, the intervening field between man, the material, and man, the spiritual. Poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values…. (2079.10)195:7.15
The authors allude to art and poetry elsewhere. There was this, also from the Midwayers, two Sections back:
…Living truth teaches the truth seeker aright only when it is embraced in wholeness and as a living spiritual reality, not as a fact of material science or an inspiration of intervening art…. (2075:5) 195:5.2
Other quotes on art:
…The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity…. (557.7)48:7.23
…The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature…. (646.4)56:10.3
On poetry:
…Work should alternate with play; religion should be balanced by humor. Profound philosophy should be relieved by rhythmic poetry…. (1616.5)143:7.3
…Only a poet can discern poetry in the commonplace prose of routine existence…. (557.6)48:7.22
***
From today’s OPAD:
…Likewise is the universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite God who made it and unceasingly manages it…. (2080.3)195:7.18
There are over 350 paragraphs with the term “I AM”. The I AM was first discussed in the Foreword:
…The concept of the I AM is a philosophic concession which we make to the time-bound, space-fettered, finite mind of man, to the impossibility of creature comprehension of eternity existences — nonbeginning, nonending realities and relationships. To the time-space creature, all things must have a beginning save only the ONE UNCAUSED — the primeval cause of causes. Therefore do we conceptualize this philosophic value-level as the I AM, at the same time instructing all creatures that the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit are coeternal with the I AM; in other words, that there never was a time when the I AM was not the Father of the Son and, with him, of the Spirit…. 6.3) 0:3.23
***
The Midwayers wax philosohical in today’s reading, quite beautifully:
…Science lives by the mathematics of the mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity…. (2080.5)195:7.20
Here they tie will and personality together:
…directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment….(2080.6)195:7.21
Other authors also tie the two together:
…Creature personality is distinguished by two self-manifesting and characteristic phenomena of mortal reactive behavior: self-consciousness and associated relative free will…. (194.5)16:8.5
…never is personality manifested without the human will…. (1230.5)112:3.7.…There is associated with personality a limited sovereignty of will…. (1220.7)111:4.8***
The Midwayers end this illuminating Section with multiple statements about the difference in value between the individual scientist, artist, religionist, and his or her interest, expertise or occupation.
From the last sentence of today’s reading:
…The religionist, not religion, proves the existence of the spirit realities and divine values which are to be encountered in the progress of eternity…. (2080.8)195:7.23
***
In tomorrow’s reading, Section 8. Secular Totalitarianism, the Midwayers discourse on the pitfalls of Godlessness, how peace and progress can never come from atheism, and how the terrible tyranny of selfishness can lead only to disaster, wars, personal and civil devastation.
Overview of Paper 195 – After Pentecost
1. Influence of the Greeks
2. The Roman Influence
3. Under the Roman Empire
4. The European Dark Ages
5. The Modern Problem
6. Materialism
7. The Vulnerability of Materialism
8. Secular Totalitarianism
9. Christianity’s Problem
10. The FutureThis group of papers [121-196] was sponsored by a commission of twelve Urantia midwayers acting under the supervision of a Melchizedek revelatory director. The basis of this narrative was supplied by a secondary midwayer who was onetime assigned to the superhuman watchcare of the Apostle Andrew.
Listen toPaper 195: (click the speaker icon at the top of the page)
Thanks for reading. Members’ thoughts, reflections, insights, observations, comments, corrections and questions about today’s OPAD presentation are invited.
Much love, Rick/OPAD host.
Richard E Warren
(2080.6)195:7.21 In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals — of love and hate, of cowardice and courage — represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.
A trivial thing but I thought it was interesting that the author chose to use the word “scope” as opposed to “limits” to define material and spiritual laws – rather they chose “limits” to define the situation.
(2080.6)195:7.21 In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals — of love and hate, of cowardice and courage — represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.
A trivial thing but I thought it was interesting that the author chose to use the word “scope” as opposed to “limits” to define material and spiritual laws – rather they chose “limits” to define the situation.
It is interesting, hadn’t caught that. And when the two are switched, it doesn’t sound exactly right.
Richard E Warren
Welcome to The OPAD Online Study Session
Today’s Presentation
Paper 195 – AFTER PENTECOST
8. Secular Totalitarianism
But even after materialism and mechanism have been more or less vanquished, the devastating influence of twentieth-century secularism will still blight the spiritual experience of millions of unsuspecting souls.
(2081.2)195:8.2 Modern secularism has been fostered by two world-wide influences. The father of secularism was the narrow-minded and godless attitude of nineteenth- and twentieth-century so-called science — atheistic science. The mother of modern secularism was the totalitarian medieval Christian church. Secularism had its inception as a rising protest against the almost complete domination of Western civilization by the institutionalized Christian church.
(2081.3)195:8.3 At the time of this revelation, the prevailing intellectual and philosophical climate of both European and American life is decidedly secular — humanistic. For three hundred years Western thinking has been progressively secularized. Religion has become more and more a nominal influence, largely a ritualistic exercise. The majority of professed Christians of Western civilization are unwittingly actual secularists.
(2081.4)195:8.4 It required a great power, a mighty influence, to free the thinking and living of the Western peoples from the withering grasp of a totalitarian ecclesiastical domination. Secularism did break the bonds of church control, and now in turn it threatens to establish a new and godless type of mastery over the hearts and minds of modern man. The tyrannical and dictatorial political state is the direct offspring of scientific materialism and philosophic secularism. Secularism no sooner frees man from the domination of the institutionalized church than it sells him into slavish bondage to the totalitarian state. Secularism frees man from ecclesiastical slavery only to betray him into the tyranny of political and economic slavery.
(2081.5)195:8.5 Materialism denies God, secularism simply ignores him; at least that was the earlier attitude. More recently, secularism has assumed a more militant attitude, assuming to take the place of the religion whose totalitarian bondage it onetime resisted. Twentieth-century secularism tends to affirm that man does not need God. But beware! this godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster.
(2081.6)195:8.6 Secularism can never bring peace to mankind. Nothing can take the place of God in human society. But mark you well! do not be quick to surrender the beneficent gains of the secular revolt from ecclesiastical totalitarianism. Western civilization today enjoys many liberties and satisfactions as a result of the secular revolt. The great mistake of secularism was this: In revolting against the almost total control of life by religious authority, and after attaining the liberation from such ecclesiastical tyranny, the secularists went on to institute a revolt against God himself, sometimes tacitly and sometimes openly.
(2081.7)195:8.7 To the secularistic revolt you owe the amazing creativity of American industrialism and the unprecedented material progress of Western civilization. And because the secularistic revolt went too far and lost sight of God and true religion, there also followed the unlooked-for harvest of world wars and international unsettledness.
(2081.8)195:8.8 It is not necessary to sacrifice faith in God in order to enjoy the blessings of the modern secularistic revolt: tolerance, social service, democratic government, and civil liberties. It was not necessary for the secularists to antagonize true religion in order to promote science and to advance education.
(2082.1)195:8.9 But secularism is not the sole parent of all these recent gains in the enlargement of living. Behind the gains of the twentieth century are not only science and secularism but also the unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual workings of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
(2082.2)195:8.10 Without God, without religion, scientific secularism can never co-ordinate its forces, harmonize its divergent and rivalrous interests, races, and nationalisms. This secularistic human society, notwithstanding its unparalleled materialistic achievement, is slowly disintegrating. The chief cohesive force resisting this disintegration of antagonism is nationalism. And nationalism is the chief barrier to world peace.
(2082.3)195:8.11 The inherent weakness of secularism is that it discards ethics and religion for politics and power. You simply cannot establish the brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the fatherhood of God.
(2082.4)195:8.12 Secular social and political optimism is an illusion. Without God, neither freedom and liberty, nor property and wealth will lead to peace.
(2082.5)195:8.13 The complete secularization of science, education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. During the first third of the twentieth century Urantians killed more human beings than were killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come.
***
[Each OPAD presentation is copied from The Urantia Book published by Urantia Foundation. Questions and comments related to the Paper under discussion are welcome and encouraged. In-depth questions and related topics may be studied in branch threads in the OPAD, or other subforums, as you require. Thank you for studying with us.]
Richard E Warren
.
Good day Ray, nelsong, Bonita, Rick B, Brad, Keryn, Alina, Carolyn, Carola, Fellow Students, Forum Friends, Members and Guests,
Wonder if the Midwayers coined the term “secular totalitarianism”? It’s a ringing indictment of Godlessness all by itself.
Totalitarianism was a fairly common word during the “cold war” of the mid 20th century, when atheistic Soviet communism was being tried on a grand scale by a leading nation.
From Wikipedia:
Totalitarianism or totalitarian state is a concept used by some political scientists in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible.
The concept of totalitarianism was first developed in the 1920s by the Weimar German jurist, and later Nazi academic, Carl Schmitt and Italian fascists. Schmitt used the term, Totalstaat in his influential work on the legal basis of an all-powerful state, The Concept of the Political (1927). The concept became prominent in Western anti-communist political discourse during the Cold War era, in order to highlight perceived similarities between Nazi Germany and other Fascist states on the one hand, and Soviet Communist Party states on the other.
Other movements and governments have also been described as totalitarian. The leader of the historic Spanish reactionary conservative movement called the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right declared his intention to “give Spain a true unity, a new spirit, a totalitarian polity…” and went on to say “Democracy is not an end but a means to the conquest of the new state. When the time comes, either parliament submits or we will eliminate it.”
It should be noted the Soviet union collapsed in 1989.
***
The first line of today’s reading is not especially positive or inspirational:
…even after materialism and mechanism have been more or less vanquished, the devastating influence of twentieth-century secularism will still blight the spiritual experience of millions of unsuspecting souls…. (2081.1)195:8.1
In the second paragraph they name the parents of 20th century secularism: Godless science, the father, and the Catholic church is the mother, the very institution charged with carrying the gospel message forward.
In the third paragraph the Midwayers unreservedly state the crushing truth of the matter:
…The majority of professed Christians of Western civilization are unwittingly actual secularists…. (2081.3)195:8.3
Stunning isn’t is? But quite typical of Urantia, where things are so often backward, misleading and out of step with reality. How tragic that THE church somehow twisted itself into the role of devil’s advocate, and became a mere shell that truth left behind.
So Godless science and a corrupt church paved the way for modern secularism. What then did secularism do for humanity? From today’s reading:
…Secularism frees man from ecclesiastical slavery only to betray him into the tyranny of political and economic slavery…. (2081.4)195:8.4
Secularism is not a new idea. From Wikipedia:
Secularism draws its intellectual roots from Greek and Roman philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius and Epicurus; from Enlightenment thinkers such as Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Baruch Spinoza, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine; and from more recent freethinkers and atheists such as Robert Ingersoll and Bertrand Russell.
The purposes and arguments in support of secularism vary widely. In European laicism, it has been argued that secularism is a movement toward modernization, and away from traditional religious values (also known as secularization). This type of secularism, on a social or philosophical level, has often occurred while maintaining an official state church or other state support of religion. In the United States, some argue that state secularism has served to a greater extent to protect religion and the religious from governmental interference, while secularism on a social level is less prevalent. Within countries as well, differing political movements support secularism for varying reasons.
…In political terms, secularism is a movement towards the separation of religion and government (often termed the separation of church and state). This can refer to reducing ties between a government and a state religion, replacing laws based on scripture (such as the Torah and Sharia law) with civil laws, and eliminating discrimination on the basis of religion. This is said to add to democracy by protecting the rights of religious minorities.In today’s reading the Midwayers warn us. They name the consequences of ignoring and/or denying God’s primacy:
…But beware! this godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster…. (2081.5)195:8.5
States and nations may declare they are atheistic, but individuals do not always follow the dictates of the state. Spirituality always persists in humans because we have personal and genuine spiritual experiences, contact with the indwelling influences of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth. And since secularism always leads to disunity, it cannot last. The drift of the cosmos is toward unity, and though it may be delayed, no thing, person, or group can stop it. God will prevail, and ‘do all his pleasures’.
***
So, how is modern secularism viewed by modern scholars? From Wikipedia:
Positive Ideals behind the secular society:
Deep respect for individuals and the small groups of which they are a part.
Equality of all people.
Each person should be helped to realize their particular excellence.
Breaking down of the barriers of class and caste.
Compare with this in today’s OPAD:
…the blessings of the modern secularistic revolt: tolerance, social service, democratic government, and civil liberties…. (2081.8)195:8.8
But then the Midwayers say, and without equivocation, that secularism isn’t reliable:
…This secularistic human society, notwithstanding its unparalleled materialistic achievement, is slowly disintegrating…. (2082.2)195:8.10
However, we have reason for hope:
…Behind the gains of the twentieth century are not only science and secularism but also the unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual workings of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth…. (2082.1)195:8.9
Secularism did its job in releasing us from the totalitarianism of the church, but then became another kind of morass:
…Secularism can never bring peace to mankind. Nothing can take the place of God in human society…. (2081.6)195:8.6
This book will help us recognize and acknowledge those workings. It already has in some measure since you and I are here studying it. But it will take considerable time for Urantia to find global peace. Still does nationalism rule many hearts and minds in the place of God and Michael. Widespread peace and brotherhood still elude us:
…nationalism is the chief barrier to world peace…. (2082.2)195:8.10
The UB was finished before World War II, but the Midwayers didn’t have any difficulty predicting it. From today’s reading:
…During the first third of the twentieth century Urantians killed more human beings than were killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come…. (2082.5)195:8.13
They are referring to the first World War in which a mere 17 million were killed. In World War II an estimated 80 million died. A ‘dire harvest’ indeed.***
In tomorrow’s reading, Section 9. Christianity’s Problem, we are given a look at the evolved church, founded on Peter the rock, from the celestial point of view. Not only do the Midwayers cite the problems, they present the solutions.
Overview of Paper 195 – After Pentecost
1. Influence of the Greeks
2. The Roman Influence
3. Under the Roman Empire
4. The European Dark Ages
5. The Modern Problem
6. Materialism
7. The Vulnerability of Materialism
8. Secular Totalitarianism
9. Christianity’s Problem
10. The Future
This group of papers [121-196] was sponsored by a commission of twelve Urantia midwayers acting under the supervision of a Melchizedek revelatory director. The basis of this narrative was supplied by a secondary midwayer who was onetime assigned to the superhuman watchcare of the Apostle Andrew.
Listen toPaper 195: (click the speaker icon at the top of the page)
Thanks for reading. Members’ thoughts, reflections, insights, observations, comments, corrections and questions about today’s OPAD presentation are invited.
Much love, Rick/OPAD host.
Richard E Warren
Again a beautiful presentation! So thru my rose colored glasses, we are witnessing fanatical, totalitarian, facist, Islamic terrorists attempting to establish a theocracy. All these have failed in the past. Capitalism as practiced today is in decline. Perhaps secularism is merely being thus challenged fantically so – to wake up the Western civilization to reexamin its spiritual roots and values, I sense a general dissatisfaction with the road we are on. A rude awakening! Funny in America this is Black Friday:
Walk with God. May His Peace be unto you.
Again a beautiful presentation! So thru my rose colored glasses, we are witnessing fanatical, totalitarian, facist, Islamic terrorists attempting to establish a theocracy. All these have failed in the past. Capitalism as practiced today is in decline. Perhaps secularism is merely being thus challenged fantically so – to wake up the Western civilization to reexamin its spiritual roots and values, I sense a general dissatisfaction with the road we are on. A rude awakening! Funny in America this is Black Friday:
Thanks Ray!.One can almost feel a values crisis coming, in the West at least. The Middle East has been increasingly in crisis mode since WW2. The East is rising again, but under the direction of atheistic communism in China, that most influential of all Asian nations. Vast and polyglot Africa has never been out of crisis mode..And a crisis anywhere on Urantia usually means the effects are not limited to that locality. Urantia needs a unifying event, I think. The weather might do it if the whole world begins turning into an ice ball, or a runaway greenhouse. Loose nukes are another looming threat…But the greatest unifying influence now present might well be this book, when it is found, recognized and acknowledged as the latest word from the government of God. The Arabic, Mandarin and 20 other translations are due out in the coming decades. Maybe the Catholic church will adopt it in a century or two. And maybe there will be a spiritual revival after a world crisis, an emergence of that new John the Baptist the Midwayers talk about in Paper 170:.…Sooner or later another and greater John the Baptist is due to arise proclaiming “the kingdom of God is at hand” — meaning a return to the high spiritual concept of Jesus, who proclaimed that the kingdom is the will of his heavenly Father dominant and transcendent in the heart of the believer — and doing all this without in any way referring either to the visible church on earth or to the anticipated second coming of Christ. There must come a revival of the actual teachings of Jesus, such a restatement as will undo the work of his early followers who went about to create a sociophilosophical system of belief regarding the fact of Michael’s sojourn on earth. In a short time the teaching of this story about Jesus nearly supplanted the preaching of Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom. In this way a historical religion displaced that teaching in which Jesus had blended man’s highest moral ideas and spiritual ideals with man’s most sublime hope for the future — eternal life. And that was the gospel of the kingdom…. (1866.2) 170:5.19Richard E Warren
All the problems of our world – actual and potential laid before us in a few paragraphs and not one mention of Satan or Lucifer as a scapegoat cause.
All the problems of our world – actual and potential laid before us in a few paragraphs and not one mention of Satan or Lucifer as a scapegoat cause.
Great point! Can’t find any mention of the rebellion, rebels, default, devil, Satan, Lucifer, quarantine, none of those in Papers 195 or 196.
Richard E Warren
Funny in America this is Black Friday:
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Yeah, I get to thinking about this in regard to just the simple holiday shopping experince:
At the root of it the intention is very altruistic, but at ground level in the stores it can appear almost completely secular, and selfish – whats up with that? How does Christianity appear to get lost between theses extremes?
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