What steps can Christianity take to re-invent itself?

[Vern]

Christianity can achieve much if believers were to pool their respective spiritual possessions

“Fear, envy, and conceit can be prevented only by intimate contact with other minds” the mind of one augments the spiritual values of the other to mutual benefit.

Thus does the mind of one

augment its spiritual values

by gaining much of the insight of the other.

In this way men enrich the soul

by pooling their respective spiritual possessions.

Likewise, in this same way,

man is enabled to avoid that ever-present tendency

to fall victim to distortion of vision,

prejudice of viewpoint, and narrowness of judgment. 

^{[Paper 160:3.7, page 1776:1]}

 

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[Sabinatu]

Hey, has anyone done a word count for how many times “father” appears in TUB and how many times “mother” appears?  Is it equal?

If not an equal amount of times, how can that be interpreted?  That motherhood is spiritually UNEQUAL?

Humor always needed when “logic” is applied.

In the “mother” word search, here is this tale of “history” not forgotten by everyone else out there:

^{“98:2.11 (1080.1)} All Greece became involved in these new methods of attaining salvation, these emotional and fiery ceremonials. No nation ever attained such heights of artistic philosophy in so short a time; none ever created such an advanced system of ethics practically without Deity and entirely devoid of the promise of human salvation; no nation ever plunged so quickly, deeply, and violently into such depths of intellectual stagnation, moral depravity, and spiritual poverty as these same Greek peoples when they flung themselves into the mad whirl of the mystery cults.”

@Vern, thank you for the continuing discussion, in the spirit of “brotherhood”.  Good stuff, good thinking.  Unity in “spirit”…

I do not hold out hope for the self-appointed “leadership” that concerns itself only with the current psychological management of “religion”.  Especially when the prevailing philosophies that accompany their secular power over others is Nihilism, Hedonism and Anarchy. Their personal experience with “religion” has been limited to finding what gives them most power over others.

As for the Math God of the Shamans of Gizmology, the introduction of “0” (zero) into their “beliefs” has destroyed any possibility for their “god” to create success in establishing a HIGH QUALITY man to land ratio.

So if you can’t even do that, how can that be the leadership that has its paws on the levers of “genetics” AND “religion”?!

Bottom line, they also broke every single “interpretation” of the First Amendment – freedom of speech – and the RIGHT to religious freedom.

They slithered, temporarily, out of the grasp of justice AND mercy, for pre-emptive strikes against humanity economically and physically, but the trap has been set by Freedom of Religion in USA.  That’s going to be one humdinger of a debate….:-)

[Vern]

Sabinatu wrote:  …self-appointed “leadership”…

If we look honestly a this, we all are self-appointed leaders of ourselves, self-mastery is the foundation of strong character, however, the attempt to have mastery over others is delusional. There is a huge difference between self-forgetful service for others and self-willed egoism by self, for self.

Unbridled self-will and unregulated self-expression equal unmitigated selfishness, the acme of ungodliness. Liberty without the associated and ever-increasing conquest of self is a figment of egoistic mortal imagination. Self-motivated liberty is a conceptual illusion, a cruel deception. License masquerading in the garments of liberty is the forerunner of abject bondage.  ^{[Paper 54:1.5, page 613:7]}

The truth shall set people free, true liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration.

True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.  ^{[Paper 54:1.6, page 614:1]}

When we view the actions of those in positions of  leadership we have this measure to now them by their fruits. In what measure have they strayed into the moral quicksand of self-admiration? Why have they allowed themselves to wallow in the swamp of selfishness as they sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings? Can they be called back from the brink by the light of compelling truth? If a brother wanders off the track, another brother aught call the brother back.

Christianity needs to be watchful to retain the capacity to recognize true leaders when they appear

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.  ^{[Paper 170:5.19, page 1866:2]}

There must come a revival of the actual teachings of Jesus, the ball of revealed truth is in our court and it is up to each “self-appointed” leader within the family of man to make those marvelous gains of self-mastery that show such individuals as paragons of altruistic service. Such a personal manifestation of  “true liberty” is progressively related to reality and is ever regardful of social equity, cosmic fairness, universe fraternity, and divine obligations. Such a person is socially fragrant and exhibits “charismatic” drawing power of a love saturated soul.

[Sabinatu]

@Vern – “….There must come a revival of the actual teachings of Jesus, the ball of revealed truth is in our court and it is up to each “self-appointed” leader within the family of man to make those marvelous gains of self-mastery that show such individuals as paragons of altruistic service. Such a personal manifestation of “true liberty” is progressively related to reality and is ever regardful of social equity, cosmic fairness, universe fraternity, and divine obligations. Such a person is socially fragrant and exhibits “charismatic” drawing power of a love saturated soul…..”.

Someone had to change your diapers and feed you and love you and shelter you and….well, you get the point….until you could evolve to entertain the possibility of that kind of mastery, no? The pressure is needed from above, right? The first egg had someone other than a chicken hatch it so that then the chicken could keep the chicken life force in motion…

Need a safe place to hatch. Urantia’s story is still getting past the barbarism of 3 defaults in order to get to that place where raising an immortal soul is the TRUE goal of the human species – origin, purpose, destiny.

Here’s the only TUB text that showed up in a word search for “austerity”:

“87:6.16 (965.3) Next came the practice of ritual vows, soon to be followed by religious pledges and sacred oaths. Most of these oaths were accompanied by self-torture and self-mutilation; later on, by fasting and prayer. Self-denial was subsequently looked upon as being a sure coercive; this was especially true in the matter of sex suppression. And so primitive man early developed a decided austerity in his religious practices, a belief in the efficacy of self-torture and self-denial as rituals capable of coercing the unwilling spirits to react favorably toward all such suffering and deprivation.

87:6.17 (965.4) Modern man no longer attempts openly to coerce the spirits, though he still evinces a disposition to bargain with Deity. And he still swears, knocks on wood, crosses his fingers, and follows expectoration with some trite phrase; once it was a magical formula.”

Hmmm, who will the Zero Money God require tortured and sacrificed as “payment” for THEIR “sins”?

[Vern]

Sabinatu wrote:  Need a safe place to hatch. Urantia’s story is still getting past the barbarism of 3 defaults in order to get to that place where raising an immortal soul is the TRUE goal of the human species – origin, purpose, destiny.

Hi Sabinatu, there is a place in the book that mentions the need for the “golden rulers” the idealists, to act in the interests of self-preservation and remove themselves from dangerous associations that could result in premature death. I don’t think it has got to that sage in your country yet which still is the land of hope and glory.

Humanity still hangs out for superhuman help

Most great religious epochs have been inaugurated by the life and teachings of some outstanding personality; leadership has originated a majority of the worth-while moral movements of history. And men have always tended to venerate the leader, even at the expense of his teachings; to revere his personality, even though losing sight of the truths which he proclaimed. And this is not without reason; there is an instinctive longing in the heart of evolutionary man for help from above and beyond. This craving is designed to anticipate the appearance on earth of the Planetary Prince and the later Material Sons. On Urantia man has been deprived of these superhuman leaders and rulers, and therefore does he constantly seek to make good this loss by enshrouding his human leaders with legends pertaining to supernatural origins and miraculous careers.  ^{[Paper 92:5.5, page 1008:7]}

So, we have this “instinctive longing in the heart of evolutionary man for help from above and beyond.”

We’ve got a bad record of killing the messenger of God, even put our Creator Son, God in person, on the cross to die and then still have the audacity to ask for “help from above” as if we’ve never had it all along. Talk abut the remedial class of 606….shish!

Now we’ve been given some plain talk in a book, do you think we’ve learned enough lessons from the past to run with it?

See it for what it is……………..”help from above and beyond?”

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[Sabinatu]

Vern wrote, “…..to act in the interests of self-preservation and remove themselves from dangerous associations that could result in premature death. I don’t think it has got to that stage in your country yet which still is the land of hope and glory….”

The reason I did this previous cut and paste:

“98:2.11 (1080.1) All Greece became involved in these new methods of attaining salvation, these emotional and fiery ceremonials. No nation ever attained such heights of artistic philosophy in so short a time; none ever created such an advanced system of ethics practically without Deity and entirely devoid of the promise of human salvation; no nation ever plunged so quickly, deeply, and violently into such depths of intellectual stagnation, moral depravity, and spiritual poverty as these same Greek peoples when they flung themselves into the mad whirl of the mystery cults.”

was to provide TUB service that a NATION can be plunged “….quickly, deeply, and violently into such depths of intellectual stagnation, moral depravity, and spiritual poverty…”

The Urantia Book exists because GOD et al came to the conclusion that we were ready for an “emergency” intervention – and 60 years later even fewer people know about it.

[Vern]

Sabinatu wrote:  …ready for an “emergency” intervention…

Yes, this shows that our universe family have faith in our ability to work this through using reason and by actual experience. You as one individual, cannot know the inner workings of the invisible spiritual tide when……….. Adjusters flock………..that is sweeping our planet. Your tiny moment of life is not an accurate measure for the outworking of a plan that is to span centuries.

What I’m thinking about that quote you shared, that was then, this is now. We have the benefit of lessons learned and spiritual ministry that has been augmented since the times of ancient Greece. Communication is now on a planetary scale, no longer confined to an isolated pinpoint of culture in the Mediterranean. Humanity has been largely weaned from subsisting on superstition. We are entering the “age of reason” where a premium will be placed on depth of thinking.

[Samuel Stuart Maynes]

Vern & Mara – Thanks for this thread. My suggestion is that Christianity can renew itself through religious pluralism. I have a new essay/website in which I show that an abstract version of the Christian Trinity can be a paradigm for the inclusion of all major faiths in a “minimal consensus” of religions, based on their underlying systematic unity (see “Trinity – the Soul of One God” at http://www.trinityabsolute.com ).
Basically, the first step to religious pluralism in the spirit of Trinity is panentheism (all in God). This unites Christianity and Krishnan Hinduism. Then, Shaivite Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism fall naturally into place, as descriptive of the Holy Ghost
“Jesus came to proclaim spiritual liberty” – free personality and spiritual originality – within the broad limitations of spiritual unity. 141:5:1 (1591C). His religion of the spirit is the “religion of personal spiritual experience.” 155:6:8 (1732A).

I’d love to have your comments.

Samuel Stuart Maynes

http://www.trinityabsolute.com

 

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