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This post concludes my initial examination of evolutionary religious experience and the Evolution of Religion. I appreciate all who study here and share the adventure of the discovery of the universe reality perspective presented in the Urantia Papers!!
A couple of reiterations for reflection. One million years into the evolutionary progress of humans on this world, we are still bound by superstitions and primitive concepts and a reality perspective that remains far from objective or complete or even rational and logical. Evolution is far more than biological in nature and scope. Evolution effects every aspect of life and being. Social structures and civilization and science and religion and technologies are all evolutionary.
Evolution is the tool and the process of Deity in the creations of time and space. Everything evolves and progresses by experience. Suffering and failure deliver effective progress to alleviate suffering and overcome failure. Evolution is a function of perfecting. We are perfecting beings. Not perfect. Not to become perfect. The progressive process of perfecting is the experiential reality created by God which contributes to that which is created in perfection. The perfect is more perfect by the perfecting of the experiential realities of time and space.
To me the most profoundly important teaching in the Papers is the fact and truth of our natural connection to God and the Deity Gravity Circuits and the Spirit ministries in mind. We are born connected to God by the Holy Spirit and the Adjutant Mind Spirit circuit. This is the very definition of being human in the UB as opposed to being born as animals. It is this very connection to God and the Spirit ministry that makes us human!!
This reality has enormous significance and functionality in our religious experience and faith assurance and awareness of the Divine Presence within. So many religions teach that we must become religious or find God or know something or believe something and do something to become religious or to be saved or to survive death. All such teachings are superstitious fiction. We are connected to God at birth. For some 2000 years, children are indwelt by the God Fragment around age 6 upon our first moral choice…a choice only possible BECAUSE we are already connected to Deity and ministered to by Spirit. The birth of soul is not the beginning of the Deity Connection but, rather, it is the result of that connection!!
True salvation is an evolutionary experience that begins at birth.
That profound truth and fact leads to another unique and profound teaching in the UB: Religious experience is valid no matter what we believe and no matter how many false beliefs we may have. Our beliefs are different from our faith. Faith can be experienced and realized and be transformative regardless of our beliefs. Knowledge and experience are very important to the progress of our religious experience and eventual fusion but not critical to the birth of soul or faith experience or religious progress by faith or the soul’s survival.
Children, cave and tree dwellers, barbarians, cannibals, slavers, criminals, the uneducated, the pagan, nature and sun worshipers, those who believe in armageddon and hell fire and eternal damnation, and the superstitious of every kind are fully capable of valid and effective religious experience and true faith.
Consider the implications of those two facts and truths. We are born connected to God and our false beliefs cannot prevent the function of that connection!!
103:7.2 (1137.7) True salvation is the technique of the divine evolution of the mortal mind from matter identification through the realms of morontia liaison to the high universe status of spiritual correlation. And as material intuitive instinct precedes the appearance of reasoned knowledge in terrestrial evolution, so does the manifestation of spiritual intuitive insight presage the later appearance of morontia and spirit reason and experience in the supernal program of celestial evolution, the business of transmuting the potentials of man the temporal into the actuality and divinity of man the eternal, a Paradise finaliter.
100:6.1 (1100.3) Evolutionary religions and revelatory religions may differ markedly in method, but in motive there is great similarity. Religion is not a specific function of life; rather is it a mode of living. True religion is a wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind. And the outstanding characteristics of all religions are: unquestioning loyalty and wholehearted devotion to supreme values. This religious devotion to supreme values is shown in the relation of the supposedly irreligious mother to her child and in the fervent loyalty of nonreligionists to an espoused cause.
100:6.2 (1100.4) The accepted supreme value of the religionist may be base or even false, but it is nevertheless religious. A religion is genuine to just the extent that the value which is held to be supreme is truly a cosmic reality of genuine spiritual worth.
100:6.3 (1100.5) The marks of human response to the religious impulse embrace the qualities of nobility and grandeur. The sincere religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and is aware of making contact with sources of superhuman power. He is thrilled and energized with the assurance of belonging to a superior and ennobled fellowship of the sons of God. The consciousness of self-worth has become augmented by the stimulus of the quest for the highest universe objectives—supreme goals.
100:6.4 (1100.6) The self has surrendered to the intriguing drive of an all-encompassing motivation which imposes heightened self-discipline, lessens emotional conflict, and makes mortal life truly worth living. The morbid recognition of human limitations is changed to the natural consciousness of mortal shortcomings, associated with moral determination and spiritual aspiration to attain the highest universe and superuniverse goals. And this intense striving for the attainment of supermortal ideals is always characterized by increasing patience, forbearance, fortitude, and tolerance.
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