Eden – really?

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  • #29615
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    Gene
    Participant

    Thinking about the quote below; when the author states that the creators could create an eden, how do you think they are using the word – another multiple meaning for one word?
    Would this eden be like the Garden created for Adam and Eve? Or modeled after Edentia? Or possibly they are getting into our heads and digging out our deep seated desires to have/find such a place?
    for the religionists it could be a world where the golden rule is a reality but there will remain the hammer/anguish anvil/necessity thing regardless – read the quote below.
    or for the secular humanist it could be the world invisioned by those recurring utopian wet dreams?
    And what about the hammer anvil thing? it appears that it is not unique to our decimal Urantia, it is part of the divine plan that extends to the worlds of the central perfect universe. There will always be necessities that require some sort of anguish!
    Don’t they make it sound like our quest for eden is unrealistic, or at least needs tweaking? because eden as we tend to invision does not really exist?
    Didn’t the Adam and Eve garden sink? Was that providence?
    Why was it (Adam and eves garden) called eden when we are told specifically that the creators would be doing us a dis-service by creating one for us??
    Theirs was a working and learning and progressing and teaching environment surrounded by primitive hostiles. Not my vision of eden.
    How do you think about eden? Is it like the holy grail quest or is it a reality that you hope to enjoy some day??
    23:2.3
    The confusion and turmoil of Urantia do not signify that the Paradise Rulers lack either interest or ability to manage affairs differently. The Creators are possessed of full power to make Urantia a veritable paradise, but such an Eden would not contribute to the development of those strong, noble, and experienced characters which the Gods are so surely forging out on your world between the anvils of necessity and the hammers of anguish. Your anxieties and sorrows, your trials and disappointments, are just as much a part of the divine plan on your sphere as are the exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe

    #29617
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    I’m a little confused Gene….Utopia is the absolute destiny of every material inhabited world….hardly anyone’s wet dream.  Granted, here it is more an idealization of hope since we do not have the City of the Prince and the Garden but that idealization has a historical source in legend and fact.

    And I don’t recall any hammer and anvil in Havona or Paradise at all….the hammer and anvil are evolutionary tools of progress in the universes of time and space.

    All architectural worlds are examples of “Eden” in their unique ways.  The quote is saying there is purpose and value in evolution but that evolution follows pattern….the eventuation of that pattern on material worlds IS Utopian.

    Or so I understand.

     

    #29619
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    Gene
    Participant

    I’m a little confused Gene….Utopia is the absolute destiny of every material inhabited world….hardly anyone’s wet dream. Granted, here it is more an idealization of hope since we do not have the City of the Prince and the Garden but that idealization has a historical source in legend and fact.

    And I don’t recall any hammer and anvil in Havona or Paradise at all….the hammer and anvil are evolutionary tools of progress in the universes of time and space.

    All architectural worlds are examples of “Eden” in their unique ways. The quote is saying their is purpose and value in evolution but that evolution follows pattern….the eventuation of that pattern on material worlds IS Utopian.

    Or so I understand.

    My use of the word utopia is related to humanist secular thinking. TUB uses it once to describe the age of light and life.
    Do you think that light and life describes eden?

    Do you think architectural spheres are created edens?

    “Your anxieties and sorrows, your trials and disappointments, are just as much a part of the divine plan on your sphere as are the exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe”

    Don’t you think that the clip above from the quote I posted tells us that perfection and adaptation in the central universe are synonymous with anguish and necessity on Urantia? Hammer anvil?

    Why do you think the Garden sunk? Is it possible that eden was never destined to survive because it would eliminate anguish and necessity?

    How is it possible for our decimal planet to exist as a hammer anvil world of necessity and anguish alongside of eden which we are told the creators would not create? The garden disappeared for a reason, don’t you think?

    Why are we told the creators will not create eden?

    What’s your description of eden? Does finding it imply that anguish/necessity or that “exquisite perfection and adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose” has ceased to be something that we deal with?

    Are finalaters beyond the need to deal with adaptation and perfection to supreme purpose?

    What really is an accurate concept of eden? I don’t really have one.

    #29620
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    Gene
    Participant

    I’m a little confused Gene….Utopia is the absolute destiny of every material inhabited world….hardly anyone’s wet dream. Granted, here it is more an idealization of hope since we do not have the City of the Prince and the Garden but that idealization has a historical source in legend and fact.

    And I don’t recall any hammer and anvil in Havona or Paradise at all….the hammer and anvil are evolutionary tools of progress in the universes of time and space.

    All architectural worlds are examples of “Eden” in their unique ways. The quote is saying their is purpose and value in evolution but that evolution follows pattern….the eventuation of that pattern on material worlds IS Utopian.

    Or so I understand.

    My use of the word utopia is related to humanist secular thinking. TUB uses it once to describe the age of light and life.
    Do you think that light and life describes eden?

    Do you think architectural spheres are created edens?

    “Your anxieties and sorrows, your trials and disappointments, are just as much a part of the divine plan on your sphere as are the exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe”

    Don’t you think that the clip above from the quote I posted tells us that perfection and adaptation in the central universe are synonymous with anguish and necessity on Urantia? Hammer anvil?

    Why do you think the Garden sunk? Is it possible that eden was never destined to survive because it would eliminate anguish and necessity?

    How is it possible for our decimal planet to exist as a hammer anvil world of necessity and anguish alongside of eden which we are told the creators would not create? The garden disappeared for a reason, don’t you think?

    Why are we told the creators will not create eden?

    What’s your description of eden? Does finding it imply that anguish/necessity or that “exquisite perfection and adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose” has ceased to be something that we deal with?

    Are finalaters beyond the need to deal with adaptation and perfection to supreme purpose?

    What really is an accurate concept of eden? I don’t really have one.

    Am I the only one who finds it curious that the author would state that creators would not create an eden while at the same time prepare an eden for Adam and Eve?
    What does it mean?
    I’m nuts?

    #29621
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    Why do you think the Garden sunk? Is it possible that eden was never destined to survive because it would eliminate anguish and necessity?

    Huh? That doesn’t make sense to me.  Eden was evolutionary; revelation is evolutionary 92:4.1.

    (587.1) 51:6.3 Think what it would mean on your world if somewhere in the Levant there were a world center of civilization, a great planetary university of culture, which had functioned uninterruptedly for 37,000 years. And again, pause to consider how the moral authority of even such an ancient center would be reinforced were there situated not far-distant still another and older headquarters of celestial ministry whose traditions would exert a cumulative force of 500,000 years of integrated evolutionary influence. It is custom which eventually spreads the ideals of Eden to a whole world.

     

    #29622
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    Am I the only one who finds it curious that the author would state that creators would not create an eden while at the same time prepare an eden for Adam and Eve? What does it mean? I’m nuts?

    Gene, they’re using the word “Eden” as a metaphor for paradise.  They can’t create a paradise for us because we have to build it ourselves by evolutionary means.  The use of the word “Eden” does not mean a garden.  It’s a cultural metaphor for what most people think, that humans were thrown out of paradise and if woman hadn’t messed everything up, we’d all be happily laying around naked on green grass eating fruit and enjoying perfection.

    #29623
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    Am I the only one who finds it curious that the author would state that creators would not create an eden while at the same time prepare an eden for Adam and Eve? What does it mean? I’m nuts?

    Perhaps just not well read on the topic?  On Urantia, Van and Amadon and a host of volunteers built the Garden in all its humbleness.  Consider Paper 73.  Perhaps I don’t understand your perspective  or points?  The Gardens are all built by the Prince’s staff and mortal volunteers on evolutionary worlds.

    And all 7 trillion inhabited material worlds evolve into a unique Utopia…an expression of each planet’s Mortal Epochs progress.

    Still waiting for any quote that Paradise suffers from the evolutionary hammer and anvil…..

    14:0.1 (152.1) THE perfect and divine universe occupies the center of all creation; it is the eternal core around which the vast creations of time and space revolve. Paradise is the gigantic nuclear Isle of absolute stability which rests motionless at the very heart of the magnificent eternal universe. This central planetary family is called Havona and is far-distant from the local universe of Nebadon. It is of enormous dimensions and almost unbelievable mass and consists of one billion spheres of unimagined beauty and superb grandeur, but the true magnitude of this vast creation is really beyond the understanding grasp of the human mind. *

    14:0.2 (152.2) This is the one and only settled, perfect, and established aggregation of worlds. This is a wholly created and perfect universe; it is not an evolutionary development. This is the eternal core of perfection, about which swirls that endless procession of universes which constitute the tremendous evolutionary experiment, the audacious adventure of the Creator Sons of God, who aspire to duplicate in time and to reproduce in space the pattern universe, the ideal of divine completeness, supreme finality, ultimate reality, and eternal perfection.

    #29624
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    Gene
    Participant

    Still waiting for any quote that Paradise suffers from the evolutionary hammer and anvil…..

    “Your anxieties and sorrows, your trials and disappointments, are just as much a part of the divine plan on your sphere as are the exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe“

    It’s clipped from the original quote but clearly summarizes hammer anvil being tied to a divine plan that extends to the central universe. We deal with it on our level and central people deal with it on theirs.

    #29625
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    Gene
    Participant

    Am I the only one who finds it curious that the author would state that creators would not create an eden while at the same time prepare an eden for Adam and Eve? What does it mean? I’m nuts?

    Gene, they’re using the word “Eden” as a metaphor for paradise. They can’t create a paradise for us because we have to build it ourselves by evolutionary means. The use of the word “Eden” does not mean a garden. It’s a cultural metaphor for what most people think, that humans were thrown out of paradise and if woman hadn’t messed everything up, we’d all be happily laying around naked on green grass eating fruit and enjoying perfection.

    At the beginning of my post I put out the idea that the authors may have intended multiple meanings for the eden word. Clearly this is the case.

    #29626
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    “It’s a cultural metaphor for what most people think, that humans were thrown out of paradise and if woman hadn’t messed everything up, we’d all be happily laying around naked on green grass eating fruit and enjoying perfection.”

    Good one and I did put out there that I was curious how people interpret eden.

    I don’t think eden was ever intended for Urantia and the Garden was not the eden I’m thinking about.

    #29627
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    Gene
    Participant

    When the author states the creators have the power to create a Paradise, an eden on Urantia – what do you think they are describing? How are they conceptualizing eden?

    I really don’t think they are talking about Adam and Eves garden, do you?

    #29628
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    I really don’t think they are talking about Adam and Eves garden, do you?

    No, I think they’re talking about the final stages of light and life, the manifestation of heaven on earth.

    Also, do you think that the “. . . exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe . . .“ is the same as hammer and anvil adaptation?  Adaptation to supreme purposes in the central universe does not require a hammer or anvil as it does here. What they’re saying is that it doesn’t matter if  adaptation is taking place on the worlds of time and space or in the central universe, it is all part of the divine plan.  I don’t think they’re saying that the mechanism of adaptation is the same however.  Hope I’m explaining that well.

    Life of any kind and in any place requires adaptability.  Misadaptation results in disharmony.  Both perfect and perfected beings are all alive and constantly adapting to universe harmony.  We sad-sacks out here in the farthest realms of the universe require hammers and anvils in order to adapt.  Those perfect folks in the central universe do it naturally.  Nevertheless, it’s all part of the divine plan.

    #29629
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    Gene
    Participant

    “exquisite perfection and infinite adaptation of all things to their supreme purpose on the worlds of the central and perfect universe”

    Thank you, and yes I did interpret the above statement as not necessarily the same as hammer/anvil, but never the less similar, adaptation to purpose happens as they state. I saw it as more like explaining a process that evolves and extends beyond our lives here.

    “What they’re saying is that it doesn’t matter if adaptation is taking place on the worlds of time and space or in the central universe, it is all part of the divine plan.”

    Interesting you should say that. It’s something the original quote made me think about but I didn’t bring up.

    But still they give no real interpretation of exactly what eden is so my thoughts are it’s more analogous to a quest. Something humans have quested for for ages and everyone has an ideal eden.
    All such questing possibly motivated by hammer anvil.
    Maybe there is an eden somewhere but from the quote, it makes me think that if we find it, adaptation to purpose (or questing if you will) stops. I can’t imagine the quest ending.

    #29630
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    All survivors find Eden/Utopia upon the first Mansion World, unless you depart a world settled in L&L already…in which case you depart utopia to arrive at an even finer one.

    Of course Eden is called that by us locals due to the home of the Most Highs of Edentia….Constellation HQ….it’s a different utopian model in every Constellation I would think.  The Gardens of Eden are named for Edentia.

    I like utopia….it is an ideal until realized and actualized….or reached by ascension.

    #29631
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    But still they give no real interpretation of exactly what eden is so my thoughts are it’s more analogous to a quest. Something humans have quested for for ages and everyone has an ideal eden.

    Right. It’s the quest for ideals – values.  That’s the soul’s search.  We adapt by finding new meanings for values, thus growing and progressing towards perfection.  Eden is perfection, the ideal.  Our Adjusters are the source of both the ideal and the urge to quest for it.  If a person’s “ideal eden”, as you say, isn’t in line with the Adjuster’s, they can quest from here to kingdom come and not get anywhere. A false ideal cannot be acted out even if the quest is acted out . . . hence the frustration of many modern ideological idealists . . . like the folks questing equality, for instance.  A person’s “ideal eden” must come from the Adjuster, otherwise questing is just spinning around in circles going nowhere (no growth or progress).

    All such questing possibly motivated by hammer anvil.

    No, the motivation is not the hammer and anvil.  Motivation is the ideal itself.  The hammer and anvil is a metaphor for the directionalization of evolution which results in the expression, or actualization, of the ideal, the force for growth and progress.  The hammer and anvil is the work necessary to forge new meanings, i.e. adaptability.

    We are born imperfect animals.  The gift of personality gives us self-consciousness which makes us aware of our own imperfections and need for perfection (anvil of necessity).  But perfection is not gifted to us, we must choose to be perfected.  In order to choose we must be able to discern the difference between good choices and evil choices (hammer of anguish).  Anguish is suffering.  We suffer from evil choosing, both our own and that of others.  God has no use for robots created perfect who do exactly what he wants, when he wants.  He wants us to choose to love and serve him.  Therefore, the anguish inevitably comes from making mistakes as we evolve.

    The existential folks eventuated in the Central Universe do not need the same contrasts between good and evil as we do, but they still need to constantly adapt to God’s will by free-will choice.  They all have personalities and therefore also have free will, but none of them ever default or rebel.  That’s why they don’t need anvils and hammers.  Beings who live wholly in the spirit realm do not need to traverse the fringe of conflict as we do (159:3.7).

    Gene wrote:Maybe there is an eden somewhere but from the quote, it makes me think that if we find it, adaptation to purpose (or questing if you will) stops. I can’t imagine the quest ending.

    Right.  The quest for perfection never ends.  Even when we become finaliters we are only perfected in one area: perfection of purpose and divinity of desire (26:4.6).  In other words, we arrive at a perfected desire for the quest of universe adaptation according to the Father’s will.  Each person’s Eden, or Ideal, is the Adjuster.  Even after fusion the Adjuster continues to reveal the Ideal Eden for each individual person into eternity (110:7.4).

     

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