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Organized religion has proved to be conservatively tardy. The prophets have usually led the people in religious development; the theologians have usually held them back. Religion, being a matter of inner or personal experience, can never develop very far in advance of the intellectual evolution of the races.

  ^144:8.4 "Verily, verily, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is but small in the kingdom of heaven is greater because he has been born of the spirit and knows that he has become a son of God."

 About Prophecy

Isaiah tells us that God’s ways are not man’s ways. God’s words, the words of true prophecy, are also not like man's words.  God’s words start as small seedlings and over time they grow, give off branches, form buds, and finally, burst into bloom.  Just so, the word "Israel" starts out as the tiny seed of one man named Abraham, but through the ages, the word "Israel" grows, changes, and finally bursts forth into the brotherhood of all mankind.  

Words of prophecy often have past, present, and future connotations. Each word demands tremendous respect and study of all the contexts of its usage.  Reverence for the source of prophecy is the key to its study, for it is God who must lead our minds into the understanding of what He himself has inspired?  

Without the indwelling spirit there would be no prophecy and no interpretation of prophecy.  But reason and the scientific method are also critical for the elimination of error, and for the building of a strong foundation from whence inspired intuition may leap safely.  

Therefore, both reason and faith are necessary for the complete appreciation of prophecy, just as they are for the full appreciation of all other phenomena.

  ^99:5.11 What a mistake for Christians to make when, in presenting Christ as the supreme ideal of spiritual leadership, they dare to require God-conscious men and women to reject the historic leadership of the God-knowing men who have contributed to their particular national or racial illumination during past ages.

  ^5:2.3 The divine presence cannot, however, be discovered anywhere in nature or even in the lives of God-knowing mortals so fully and so certainly as in your attempted communion with the indwelling Mystery Monitor, the Paradise Thought Adjuster. What a mistake to dream of God far off in the skies when the spirit of the Universal Father lives within your own mind!

^26:11.5 The mortal creature must find God. The Creator Son never stops until he finds man -- the lowest will creature. Beyond doubt, the Creator Sons and their mortal children are preparing for some future and unknown universe service. Both traverse the gamut of the experiential universe and so are educated and trained for their eternal mission. Throughout the universes there is occurring this unique blending of the human and the divine, the commingling of creature and Creator. Unthinking mortals have referred to the manifestation of divine mercy and tenderness, especially towards the weak and in behalf of the needy, as indicative of an anthropomorphic God. What a mistake! Rather should such manifestations of mercy and forbearance by human beings be taken as evidence that mortal man is indwelt by the spirit of the living God; that the creature is, after all, divinity motivated. 

  ^92:6.2 On Urantia, evolutionary and revelatory religion are progressing side by side while they blend and coalesce into the diversified theologic systems found in the world in the times of the inditement of these papers. These religions, the religions of twentieth-century Urantia, may be enumerated as follows:

 

1. Hinduism -- the most ancient.

2. The Hebrew religion.

3. Buddhism.

4. The Confucian teachings.

5. The Taoist beliefs.

6. Zoroastrianism.

7. Shinto.

8. Jainism.

9. Christianity.

10. Islam.

11. Sikhism -- the most recent.

  ^92:6.3 The most advanced religions of ancient times were Hinduism and Judaism, and each respectively has greatly influenced the course of religious development in Orient and Occident. Both Hindus and Hebrews believed that their religions were inspired and revealed, and they believed all others to be decadent forms of the one true faith.

 

The religions of men grow up over long periods of time, while the revelations of God flash upon earth in the lives of the men and women who reveal God to their fellows."

Religion Evolutionary and Epochal

[player url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCFcdAVWN4&feature=youtu.be" title="The Urantia Book - Big Questions - 4K" summary="Who are we? Where are we going? Who is God? How did the Universe come to exist? Reality’s biggest questions, answered. The Urantia Book - a revelation. Gary ..."]

Religion is both evolutionary and revelatory. The traditional evolutionary religions grow up over long periods of time while the personal revelations of God flash on earth through the lives of the human teachers of truth that appear in every generation of man.

Epochal Revelations are new divine enlightening revelations of truth made by Divine Sons of God who periodically appear on earth as Representatives of God in the Spiritual upliftment of the human family.

Because so few human beings comprehend the ways in which the Most Highs infuse new spiritual truth into the stream of the evolutionary religions of time these new revelations are most often rejected by the majority of the world’s citizens. Not until those early students who embrace the new teachings begin to manifest a higher and newer revelation of God in their personal lives do ever greater numbers become attracted to the new teachings and their living manifestations of brotherly love and ever greater demonstrations of fatherly love and divine service to the human family.

While the religions of the world have a double origin — natural and revelatory — at any one time and among any one people there are to be found three distinct forms of religious devotion. And these three manifestations of the religious urge are:

1. Primitive religion. The seminatural and instinctive urge to fear mysterious energies and worship superior forces, chiefly a religion of the physical nature, the religion of fear.

2. The religion of civilization. The advancing religious concepts and practices of the civilizing races — the religion of the mind — the intellectual theology of the authority of established religious tradition. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confusism, Judaism, etc. etc.. A Theist or Deist can also be included if the religion is held only as a theory and does not become a personal living spiritual experience.

3. True religion — the religion of revelation. The revelation of supernatural values, a partial insight into eternal realities, a glimpse of the goodness and beauty of the infinite character of the Father in heaven — the religion of the spirit as demonstrated in human experience.

True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations with the Creator; organized religion is man’s attempt to socialize the worship of individual religionists.

True religion is man’s heartfelt loyalty to his highest and truest convictions.

  ^196:3.4 The full summation of human life is the knowledge that man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved -- justified -- by religious faith.

  ^196:3.5 Physical certainty consists in the logic of science; moral certainty, in the wisdom of philosophy; spiritual certainty, in the truth of genuine religious experience.

  ^196:3.6 The mind of man can attain high levels of spiritual insight and corresponding spheres of divinity of values because it is not wholly material. There is a spirit nucleus in the mind of man -- the Adjuster of the divine presence. There are three separate evidences of this spirit indwelling of the human mind:

  ^196:3.7 1. Humanitarian fellowship -- love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.

  ^196:3.8 2. Interpretation of the universe -- wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.

  ^196:3.9 3. Spiritual evaluation of life -- worship. Only the spirit-indwelt man can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of divinity.

  ^196:3.10 The human mind does not create real values; human experience does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight, the recognition of moral values and the discernment of spiritual meanings, all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.

  ^196:3.11 The moral values of the universe become intellectual possessions by the exercise of the three basic judgments, or choices, of the mortal mind:

1. Self-judgment -- moral choice.

2. Social-judgment -- ethical choice.

3. God-judgment -- religious choice.

  ^196:3.12 Thus it appears that all human progress is effected by a technique of conjoint revelational evolution.

  ^196:3.13 Unless a divine lover lived in man, he could not unselfishly and spiritually love. Unless an interpreter lived in the mind, man could not truly realize the unity of the universe. Unless an evaluator dwelt with man, he could not possibly appraise moral values and recognize spiritual meanings. And this lover hails from the very source of infinite love; this interpreter is a part of Universal Unity; this evaluator is the child of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality.

  ^101:4.3 Truth is always a revelation: autorevelation when it emerges as a result of the work of the indwelling Adjuster; epochal revelation when it is presented by the function of some other celestial agency, group, or personality.

  ^101:4.4 In the last analysis, religion is to be judged by its fruits, according to the manner and the extent to which it exhibits its own inherent and divine excellence.

  99:5.11 What a mistake for Christians to make when, in presenting Christ as the supreme ideal of spiritual leadership, they dare to require God-conscious men and women to reject the historic leadership of the God-knowing men who have contributed to their particular national or racial illumination during past ages.