Episode:Jesus—The Legacy of His Life (Part 4)

From Symmetry of Soul


Secularism broke the bonds of church control, and now in turn it threatens to establish a new and godless type of mastery over the hearts and minds of modern man. But secularism can never bring peace to mankind; nothing can take the place of God in human society.

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Keywords: Urantia, Secularism, Humanism, Peace, Morality

Summary by Kermit

195:7.4

Commentary: We reiterated that planet earth is not presently undergoing a “spiritual emergency”, but a philosophical emergency, which is what has triggered the gift of the FER. With the repleteness of the spirit ministries bestowed upon us, we are able to resolve our spiritual issues in relatively short order. What is needed now is that we connect the inner spiritual life with our outer material existence harmoniously.

A major vulnerability of materialism rests in the contradictory position of the materialist in using his supermaterial faculties like mind and personality to fashion a philosophy (another supermaterial thing) that denies the existence of these very faculties.

Commentary on the mechanistic aspects of mortal man. We are reminded that machines aren’t intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual, and the degree to which those qualities are not manifest in one’s life is the degree to which a human is just a machine.

Citing Paper 118:8.2, p. 1301 it was pointed out that man is a machine, but more, being endowed with mind and indwelt by spirit. The dichotomous view of reality, that man is “either machine or spirit” obscures the truth of the nature of man, to wit, he is both. This dichotomy exists because there are two literal substances, matter and spirit. Through confusion and pathology we see reality as a manifestation of one substance or the other, neglecting to appreciate the association of these two substances through the mindal energy system. Thus, matter (individuality) comes into relationship with spirit (unity).

Commentary on the examination of art and science. Art demonstrates that man is not mechanistic, but does not prove that he is immortal. Art is described as being “mortal morontia”, the intervening field between, man the material and man the spiritual.

True art we are told serves to humanize science and itself is spiritualized by religion, thus serving as the bridge between the highest material pursuit of man (science) and man’s quest for spiritual and eternal values. In the utilization of the things of matter to suggest the higher realities of spirit, true art encourages man to “look up”.

Commentary on the danger when art fails to recognize the spirit standards and divine patterns reflected by eternity as the reality shadows of time.

Another commentary on the usage of the terms FACT and THING and the role of the cosmic reality response required to “move up” from THINGS to FACTS (to the recognition of the fact of things).

The remainder of the section highlights the indispensability of personality in the appreciation of the wholeness of this multilevel reality, matter, mind, and spirit.

8. Secular Totalitarianism

Here we are further instructed that even when materialism and mechanism are more or less vanquished, twentieth century secularism will continue to exert a devastating influence to blight the spiritual experience of millions of unsuspecting souls.

Secularism had its inception as protest against the domination of Western civilization by the institutionalized Christian church, and was further fostered by the atheistic science of the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Secularism did help free man from church domination, but went too far in attempting to take the place of the religion whose totalitarian bondage it once resisted. Secularism did secure many liberties and satisfactions, but made the great mistake of instituting a revolt against God himself. Because of this came world wars and international unsettledness. The blessings of the secular revolt: tolerance, social service, democratic government and civil liberties, all could have been secured without sacrificing faith in God. Neither is scientific secularism the sole parent to these recent gains in the enlargement of living, but also the unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual workings of the life and teachings of Jesus.

Scientific secularism, without religion can never coordinate and harmonize the divergences of the present day human race. Secularistic human society is disintegrating, and ironically, the chief force resisting such disintegration is nationalism, which is in turn the chief barrier to world peace.

The brotherhood of man can never be established while ignoring the fatherhood of God.

The authors end this section with the dire warnings of terrible destruction to come as the harvest of materialism and secularism.