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I hope I’m not being confusing with this issue concerning Lucifer. For those who found themselves sympathizing with his viewpoints, there must have been a great deal of chaos in their minds. Certainly their faith-trust was being tested, but I think the underlying issue was about sovereignty . . . who’s will is dominant in the universe. Faith is a relationship with the Sovereign. Once that relationship is compromised a person is forced to face reality as an isolated entity. Personality is not capable of functioning like that, at least not for long. Free will, like personality, functions as part of a relationship with other personalities. After all, the first volitional act of God was to create a Son.
“When I recommended a ‘miscellaneous’ sub forum I did it with other ‘new thought’ adherants in mind, along with mainstream religions as well as basically anybody”
dont know what the mods think about this request but mainstream religions are easy enough to study outside of a forum dedicated to study of the Urantia revelation. I vote no FYIW.
new thought from anybody sounds good however.
For those who found themselves sympathizing with his viewpoints, there must have been a great deal of chaos in their minds.
On Urantia who were those people? The Prince’s corporeal staff of one hundred at the planetary HQ which staff were to facilitate communication with the inhabitants of the realm and set up schools; the people who attended the schools the staff set up at HQ; the recently taught groups of people who previously attended those schools; the people who lived in the surrounding vicinity of HQ.
The corporeal staff one hundred had Adjusters but hadn’t fused with them. (50:3.2) But Adjusters were present in the minds of those human contributors of life plasm to the staff of one hundred. (66:2.7 ) “. . . [T]he grandchildren of the corporeal staff — are in status as of the superior races of their day and generation. All the offspring of these semimaterial assistants of the Planetary Prince are Adjuster indwelt.”( 50:3.5 ) After the seven years of debate, of the corporeal staff only forty remained loyal to the way and will of God. Of the midwayers (50,000 primary and about 50,000 secondary) there is a united group of 10,992 who remain loyal to the will and way of God and are now present on our world. (77:8.1 ) Of the angels and their associates read here: 53:7.6 .
Did these persons have *chaos* in their minds? I don’t know. At the Lucifer rebellion many were wowed by the brilliance of their superiors. (67:4.6 )
People believe lies. What more can I say? I myself have believed lies. People do it and rationalize it with all manner of thinking and reasoning. In the past I was a dabbler. Try a little of this. Try a little of that. I didn’t have any *chaos* in my mind. When I joined a cult I would describe myself as being self-deceived. It happens. To a certain extent at least in my case I wanted to believe. The ideas appealed to my mind and at the time those ideas did not seem goofy or ridiculous. I did not want to believe I was deceiving myself. I was not being forced to believe. I believed willingly.
Then I experienced disillusionment – the feeling of great disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as I believed it to be.
When I joined a cult I would describe myself as being self-deceived . . . .Then I experienced disillusionment – the feeling of great disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as I believed it to be.
I call all of that chaos. Self-deception is the product of mental chaos, a symptom of the disease. As I see it, that is.
I call all of that chaos. Self-deception is the product of mental chaos, a symptom of the disease. As I see it, that is.
No chaos. No disease. Just a normal person with an inquisitive mind.
I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the subject, and since the experience is part of what I personally acquired by actually participating, I consider the experience a gain-plus from passing through that period of my life. That period of my life was all about beliefs, many beliefs. It was not about faith.
I don’t know if you know it or not, but I was part of a cult too. I joined because my husband was a member. It didn’t work out for me because I had enormous faith which quickly revealed all the falsity (and sickness) that was going on there. So I’m kinda like an expert too.
Hi,
It took seven years until everyone made the final choice.
Seven years to listen to the arguments of both sides.- 200,000 years Lucifer rebellion.
… from the outbreak till enthronement sovereing ruler of Christ/Michael. 53:5.3
- 7 years
Throughout the seven crucial years of the Caligastia rebellion,Van was wholly devoted to the work of ministry to his loyal army of men, midwayers, and angels 67:3.6
Yes we may be born with faith, we might be born into an inherited religion on which we have no say; but we were also born with autonomy.
Hi Leon,
I see you started a thread on this in the new reader forum. I’m not sure if you expected me to respond or not, but I should tell you that I promised the readers of this forum never to post there. Apparently I tend to scare new readers away. So, don’t think I’m ignoring you. Others will answer I’m sure. And thanks for asking a really good question.
Hi Bonita
I was looking for a variety of answers from various people, I used the search the UB function and found a reference to it but no specific condoning or condemnation edict. But mention was made of races going extinct in regards to primitive peoples, so I didnt get a definite moral judgment one way or another. But your quote got my attention because of Singer (who is also OK with bestiality) which also made me think – Is it possible that ‘bad guys’ have examined all sorts of religious/metaphysical/occult writings and have sought to hijack certain teachings or prophecies and create them in their image?
People will fight and die for or against abortion, just like they will fight and die for or against a world government.
We can see fanaticism in suicide bombers, the islamic wahhabi teaching is you get 72 virgins. Also your family gets a free pass to heaven, but the never mentioned part is if you die just as an ordinary muslim you will be conscious in the grave until Judgment Day. So you have the carrot and stick motivation but wouldnt you have a concrete belief? And if so wouldnt you need faith to enact on it?
My email - leon_fourteen@y7mail.com
Some of you know my testimony. For those who don’t, I’ll give a short version. This also might add to the discussion.
I was raised ultra conservative Christian. After discovering and reading the UB, I was challenged. I read it the first time strictly for intertainment. After reading it my feeling was something like “how dare this book challenge my beliefs!” I was still deeply intreagued though. Before I dug into the, as I saw it, different religion, deeper, I decided to read the Bible. I picked a chronological bible plan that put the events of the bible in a timeline order and started reading.
The result of this reading was that by the time I got through reading the bible I was no longer Christian. If it hadn’t been for the ub I’d have lost my faith/belief in God.
Like most people who claim a religion, I hadn’t read the religious texts that my faith was based on. My incounter with the ub forced me to do that. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I had not had the preparation of the ub before reading the Bible. As it stands though, I wholly embrace The Urantia Book and all that it represents. I reject the core of Christianity and the bible though. Sharing my new faith is proving difficult with those who have a conservative world view as I live in the Bible belt.
I have found the best thing for me is to keep my faith in the ub private. I still go to church though for the spiritual fellowship. I do not share my belief in the ub with anyone who does not share it. I wear a necklace with the ub symbol on it and tell people different things about it depending on the person. When I do share my interest in the book I am circumspect there as well. Again, I tell the person different things about the book depending on the person in question. A stock answer might be that I have been investigating a book called The Urantia Book for many years and I think that so and so might be interested as well. That isn’t a lie. I’ll spend the rest of my life reading, studying, and investigating the book. I don’t tell them that the book is the source document from wich I draw my faith.
. . . so I didnt get a definite moral judgment one way or another . . .
And you won’t either. Moral judgments are for humans to make. Morality is superanimal, but subspiritual. Morality evolves along with the culture. We humans must work out our own moral dilemmas. God cannot do that for us but he does attempt to illuminate higher meanings and values as a divinity goal. Those higher values are supernal guidelines discernible within the soul (which is where the Adjuster, or God lives). Morality is the human stepping stone in that direction. Humans must decide to step, or not step, in that direction. Here are a few quotes to get you started:
196:3.25 Morality is the essential pre-existent soil of personal God-consciousness, the personal realization of the Adjuster’s inner presence, but such morality is not the source of religious experience and the resultant spiritual insight. The moral nature is superanimal but subspiritual. Morality is equivalent to the recognition of duty, the realization of the existence of right and wrong. The moral zone intervenes between the animal and the human types of mind as morontia functions between the material and the spiritual spheres of personality attainment.
16:7.8 Man’s moral nature would be impotent without the art of measurement, the discrimination embodied in his ability to scrutinize meanings. Likewise would moral choosing be futile without that cosmic insight which yields the consciousness of spiritual values. From the standpoint of intelligence, man ascends to the level of a moral being because he is endowed with personality.
16:7.9 Morality can never be advanced by law or by force. It is a personal and freewill matter and must be disseminated by the contagion of the contact of morally fragrant persons with those who are less morally responsive, but who are also in some measure desirous of doing the Father’s will.
16:7.10 Moral acts are those human performances which are characterized by the highest intelligence, directed by selective discrimination in the choice of superior ends as well as in the selection of moral means to attain these ends. Such conduct is virtuous. Supreme virtue, then, is wholeheartedly to choose to do the will of the Father in heaven.
I have found the best thing for me is to keep my faith in the ub private.
Do you have faith in TUB, or in God? They’re not the same thing, as I’m sure you know. I think you trust the words in TUB to be truthful, but that is not faith. Just being a little picky about words for the benefit of newbies since we tend to confuse the meaning of the words “faith” and “belief” as outlined in TUB.
101:8.1 The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith.
Point taken bonnita. Let me rephrase…
While it is true that I believe that words of the ub are true and that it claims to be what it says it is, it took me a while to arrive at this conclusion.
At the time of this conclusion, I had two choices… Try to reconcile the bible with common sense, or accept the ub.
My debate with myself went like this. Read the bible in a chronological order with no outside helps. I could study and use commentaries later, but for now, I need an overview of the bible, what happened when and why such and such happened. I’m interested in this Urantia religion, but I need to know about my own first.
While reading the bible at various points… Wait a minute. That is an open contradiction… That doesn’t make sence… Why would God do so and so… Can I believe in a god that apparently condones so and so… Can I believe in a god who has a moral code lower than my own… You get the idea.
On the other hand… Can I believe in a book that sounds like it came from aliens… (remember, I’m trying to let you in on my thought processes) Can I believe in a book that has questionable passages dealing with science… races… A religion that, for all intents and purposes I’d have to be a solitary practishoner of? Remember, at this time virtually everyone I associated with was a Christion/bible believer.
In the end, it came down to relationship. The UB made me “feel” the relationship with Jesus in a way that the gospels never did. Same goes for God. The Bible, to my mind, portrayed a god that quite frankly, I would loathe to worship. While it did have its’ good points, they were overshadowed by the bad ones. As for relationship, it comes through loud and clear in various places throughout the ub. You have to actively hunt for it in the bible.
I hear what you’re saying chucksmith. I never trusted the Bible ever, except the part that says Jesus loved the little children. I always loved anything that had to do with Jesus. It was a love affair that started very early in my life. But the Bible was hooey to me. In fact, I got thrown out of a Presbyterian kindergarten because of that attitude. The teachers just couldn’t abide me having my own personal relationship with God. They said that was hooey and it meant I was just plain selfish. Go figure! My mother was so embarrassed!
So yeah, when I finally got around to reading the truth about things like the Garden of Eden, Noah, Lucifer, and the Land of Nod . . . well heck . . . TUB became a no-brainer. The Bible is merely a record of man’s religious evolution. It’s a good thing to have though. I think we’ll be using some of that stuff on the mansion worlds for reversion therapy (laughing at ourselves). How many wrong ideas about God can man dream up?
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