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Tagged: measure of life
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leon14ParticipantChildren are born with bodies, personalities and minds, but not souls. Faith is born with the birth of the soul, which is that recognition process I mentioned above. The soul comes into existence the moment the child recognizes and accepts the gift of faith. It usually happens between 5 and 6 years old. I would provide quotes for you, but since you haven’t read the book, I think the language would be too confusing for you right now. Perhaps after you read those first 17 pages as Nigel suggested.
^^ This is of a great concern to me because of the likes of “Professor” Peter Singer who seems to be in favour of ‘post-birth’ abortion. He has stated that a child is not conscious of itself until the ages of approximately 4-6, and therefore it is no big deal to murder them (I will say murder because it is killing for a perceived material gain and is pre meditated).
So my query is that – Does the UB have specific texts in relation to abortion or is it up to each individual to decide on this matter?
Or else does the UB have nothing to say on this matter?
My email - [email protected]
BradlyParticipantGreetings Leon!
Historically, the UB teaches that abortion and infanticide are practices that have been with us since very early times in many forms and cultures. While the UB does not address the morality of many forms of primitivism and barbarity, it does show the long evolutionary progressions over time and also gives a view to the long distant future delivered by planetary epochal progress with guidance on that which is superior and ideal and that which is neither. And also how the inferior may yet bring progress to a world and did so on our own.
For example – slavery is an inferior and primitive practice. However, slavery mostly ended genocide and cannibalism. The more inferior replaced by the less inferior.
Many human beliefs and practices today remain less than ideal or superior…except perhaps in some cases, today’s inferior practices are superior or less inferior to those before. It’s an evolutionary process that takes time, the spiritization of more and more individuals, which affects the group positively, as we are led more and more by the Spirit and less and less by our animal nature and material attachments.
This means, to me, that there are innumerable social and moral issues in need of correction/adjustment/progress to grow and prosper into our planetary destiny. Ideally, there should be no need for or desire to act and choose in many ways people today act and choose. Abortion would be but one of many of those. Is abortion right? Is it ideal? The need or impulse for it is not right reflecting society’s failure thus far to advance sufficiently to abandon the practice. But it is not the practice so much, IMO, but the reality of a society in which unwanted pregnancies result in children without a home OR any institutional/social system of nurturing, loving, and raising such children. Children having children is the true problem IMO. Unwanted pregnancy is the true problem IMO regarding the social strains and struggles. So it is a moral issue….but is it the issue you raise? I think not.
Ideally, when the Adam and Eve arrive on a world, coupling and birthing are socially matured, over time, so that all or most all children are planned, desired, well prepared for, socially and familialy supported, and raised in a nurturing culture. So, the failure, IMO, is to live in a society where this remains the ideal and not the functional reality. Many things will change when love for God and one another is the primary motive for living.
The Papers teach us a wonderful lesson on universe reality that helped me with this issue. Children united with body, mind, personality but prior to soul birth and TA endowment, are spared in heaven and reside in a nursery where great love, family, education, and nurturing raise them to their own potential destiny! I have no idea when mind and personality join with body during, before, or after birth.
Hope this helps.
From Bonita’s post on Challenging our Faith:
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.
MaraParticipantBradly wrote: Historically, the UB teaches that abortion and infanticide are practices that have been with us since very early times in many forms and cultures. While the UB does not address the morality of many forms of primitivism and barbarity, it does show the long evolutionary progressions over time. . . .
I like how you put this Bradly.
New readers do need to realize that the UB is not an encyclopedia, a compendium, nor a complete body of knowledge about our origin, history and destiny. The book is meant to de-confuse us about ourselves and our place in the universe- illuminating and shining a light on the origins of everything that was, is, or ever will be. It shines a light on our planetary history, including the life and teachings of Jesus. The book shines a light on our destiny. We, ourselves, are children, even though we feel all grown up.
1:0.3 The enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal Father, the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In love and mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.
It is easy to see, as one looks back over recorded history, that there exists a slow but forward moving trend for improvements in civilizations, in societies and in cultures across our world. People with questions such as your Leon will be disappointed not to find definitive answers in the UB.
Why? The reason is really very simple and can be summed up in one word: Time. Improvements in civilizations, in societies and in cultures across our world take time. Where we are right now in your country, in my country and in every country is not where we are going to be in one hundred years, two hundred years or one thousand years. Why would the Urantia Book give a definitive answer to your question, when it is easy to see that what is a hot topic now in the present moment will not trouble us later at some future time as improvements take place?
Times change. Bradly mentioned slavery as an example of change. We have yet to eradicate racism. Lots to do, but it cannot be legislated away any more than abortion can be legislated away.
Bradly wrote: For example – slavery is an inferior and primitive practice. However, slavery mostly ended genocide and cannibalism. The more inferior replaced by the less inferior.
Times are a’changin slowly. These problems will be resolved in the future.
BradlyParticipantThanks Mara!!
I have found that the time-unit perspective is so important to such issues. It is immature and illogical to focus attention on the symptoms or results of the actual causes of the maladies and confusions and consternations so many so intently focus on, rather than to discern how materialistic and animalistic instincts themselves are the cause of much that needs elimination/improvement/progress and the related failure to discern that it is the spirit led life within by the each of us that is the cure for both the causes and the symptoms (results) of so much suffering!
The love of God and the love for one another will cure much that we suffer from today. Honor in service will alleviate much, but only spirit led leadership and citizenship delivers wisdom to experiential progress….for the each and for the all.
In this example/query, abortion is not a cause…it is a symptom of the cause. We cannot cure the cause by addressing the symptom IMO. We are dual natured beings…the cure to material problems/challenges are not social, political, or moral….it is spiritual in nature – the higher nature of our dual natured being. Ethics, mores, and morality are related to the higher nature….where self serves others in love rather than…but these are not the cause or cure either….they are the reflection of how reality-based our perspective is….or should be!
leon14ParticipantYes to be honest it will always be a personal choice, I’m against abortion when I hear of ditzy bimbos who get abortions because they dont want to be pregnant on a summer holiday at a beach resort etc. But I cannot condemn a woman having an abortion if she has been raped.
I suppose its between them and God, seeing how personal it is then who is anyone to intervene?
I’m more concerned with those in the abortion industry such as the hardcore feminist staff who seem to take a delight in providing abortions. This seems to be bloodlust.
My email - [email protected]
KerynParticipantWow. leon14 seems to think having a living fetus surgically removed, resulting in copious bleeding, pain and long term side effects, including possible infertility afterward is a joy ride.
I sincerely doubt any “bimbos”, be they “ditzy” or not, would casually endure the trauma, guilt, and pain of such a procedure and nor would the loving medical professionals who help these women do so casually or ‘lustfully’ as you seem to assume. What a sad and dark view of the world someone must have to believe such nonsense.
I do agree with this statement, “I suppose its between them and God, seeing how personal it is then who is anyone to intervene?”
Free will is sovereign.
MaraParticipantWow. leon14 seems to think . . . .
Thank you Keryn. Perhaps this reference can sweeten the subject.
132:3.4 Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit. 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. There is never conflict between true knowledge and truth. There may be conflict between knowledge and human beliefs, beliefs colored with prejudice, distorted by fear, and dominated by the dread of facing new facts of material discovery or spiritual progress.
WagnerParticipantDear forum members,
Each personality must decide whether it is in favor (or not) of each situation on abortion by itself, ever since personality has had an intrinsic relationship with free will.
It is a mistake to believe that the Urantia Book would impose some kind of “rule” on the specific subject.
Mankind should mature as to our expectations of gospel and especially, those who have not read the book in its entirety content must refrain from questioning or placing abortion opinions related with the Urantia Book.
Any relationship of the Urantia Book with abortion is nothing more than slander/speculation of mankind.
It is time to us mature.
Sincerely,
MaraParticipantDear forum members, Each personality must decide whether it is in favor (or not) of each situation on abortion by itself, ever since personality has had an intrinsic relationship with free will. It is a mistake to believe that the Urantia Book would impose some kind of “rule” on the specific subject. Mankind should mature as to our expectations of gospel and especially, those who have not read the book in its entirety content must refrain from questioning or placing abortion opinions related with the Urantia Book. Any relationship of the Urantia Book with abortion is nothing more than slander/speculation of mankind. It is time to us mature. Sincerely,
On the subject of beliefs (in this case beliefs about abortion), I found this interesting reference today about beliefs in terms of a group possession. I think the reference has to do with religious beliefs, but I suspect opinions on the subject of abortion are very much linked to religious dogmas and doctrines. What do you think? Here’s the reference…
101:8.2 Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.I completely agree the UB does not “impose some kind of ‘rule’ on the specific subject.”
WagnerParticipantI’m sorry, Mara. I will leave it to local governments to regulate abortion issues. My advice was given in the previous review (do not relate UB to abortion). We will not build up personal religion by discussing this topic here in the Urantia Book forum. Regards,
murphbParticipantThe act of abortion is an indicator of human value, which today is somewhere near that of a dog or cat. Devolved humans are celebrating abortion. I do have hope for the future however, as long as it takes to evolve us out of this death cult we find ourselves in.
BradlyParticipantThe act of abortion is an indicator of human value, which today is somewhere near that of a dog or cat. Devolved humans are celebrating abortion. I do have hope for the future however, as long as it takes to evolve us out of this death cult we find ourselves in.
Or….perhaps….women’s emancipation from the cruel barbarity of male domination and subjugation, and gaining freewill self determination, equal rights, and access to professional medical care are indicators of an evolving human value?
Don’t know of anyone “celebrating” abortions. Each is an act of personal turmoil and choosing from a short list of bad choices, often by children, and victims of violence or seduction, and usually in desperate and deeply vulnerable and very private situations which defy generalizations and harsh judgements.
Political and constitutional protection for personal liberties and equal rights is certainly worthy of “celebration”. Not hopefully but certainly, we will eventually evolve to a place where children are not neglected, abused, abandoned, or burdened by the deprivation of care and affection and safety and opportunity and that time to come when families and homes reflect the ideals and hopes we all share.
So many obstacles to overcome….
The American “death cult”, to me, is demonstrated more by the gun culture and video games and movies celebrating death, mayhem, carnage, chaos, and the grotesque barbarity of violence.
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