Episode:Jesus—The Legacy of His Life (Part 3)
No matter what the apparent conflict between materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. The sincere pursuit of goodness, beauty, and truth leads to God. And so, when you once start out to find God, that is conclusive proof that God has already found you.
Keywords: Materialism, Jesus, Urantia, God, Science
Summary by Kermit
Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one's nearness to God and the measure of one's usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. Spiritual development is determined by capacity therefor and is directly proportional to the elimination of the selfish qualities of love. [100:2.4]
195:6. Materialism
The religion of Jesus stands as the guarantor of the faith, hope, and moral security of mankind in the face of the materialistic-secular panic of our time.
Commentary on the philosophical emergency triggering the need for the 5th ER. Jesus spiritually uplifted our world with the powerful enhanced ministries of the Spirit of Truth and universal bestowal of TAs. There is no spiritual emergency!
The authors reiterate the promise that the teachings of the Master will fully triumph in any apparent conflict between materialism and Jesus’ teachings. Further that true religion is indifferent to science, but supremely concerned with the scientist.
Mere knowledge, devoid of the interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious experience eventually leads to pessimism and despair.
We are told that the high point of the materialistic age is behind us, even though former materialistic teachings continue to their influence over the rank and file of the people. True religion lives in the lives of Jesus’ believers, untouched by materialistic science. All science has done is to destroy superstitions, and the illusions of the misinterpretations of life.
Science deals with phenomena, religion with origins, values, and goals. The assignment of causes to explain physical phenomena, confessing ignorance of ultimates, only leads the scientist to the first great cause—the Universal Father.
The violent swing from an age of miracles to an age of machines has proved upsetting to man. The adroitness of the false mechanistic philosophies stands as silent refutation of their very contentions that the universe is a blind and purposeless energy phenomena.
Mechanistic naturalism and secularism, being concerned exclusively with things are barren of real values, sanctions, and satisfactions of a spiritual nature, as well as being devoid of faith, hope, and eternal assurances. All of which leads modern man to think he is too busy for spiritual meditation and religious devotion.
From a mechanistic viewpoint, man is only a cipher amidst the mathematics of a material universe. Science declares the primacy of matter and its conservation, but religion dares to declare the conservation of men’s souls through their experience with spiritual realities and eternal values.
While the life giving spiritual contribution of Jesus’ life to man’s inner experience has persisted for two thousand years, today’s call to spiritual battle must align with man’s current lexicon, if it is to be effective. Politics and false religions can never take the place of spiritual progress. Jesus’ gospel has introduced man to an eternal reality of spiritual progression. Thus no spiritual emergency.
The assertion that mind emerged from matter fails to account for the differing interpretations of observed phenomena. Value-concepts like truth, beauty, and goodness are not inherent in the physical sciences. A machine cannot know, much less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness.
While science may by physical, the mind of the scientist is supermaterial. Moral convictions based on spiritual enlightenment and rooted in human experience are just as real and certain as mathematical deductions based on physical observations, but on another and higher level.
The man as only machine lacks individuality, much less, personality.
The foundations of mechanism-materialism are valid, but not exclusive. The absolute mechanism of Paradise, and the unqualified volition of the Second Source and Center, expands the law of the cosmos to include moral convictions, spiritual enlightenment on another and higher level of reality.
It is the cosmic mind that constantly injects spontaneity into even the material worlds.
Freedom or initiative in any realm of existence can be traced to the function of spirit and cosmic mind. When you once start out to find God, that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you.
The sincere pursuit of goodness, beauty, and truth leads to God. And every scientific discovery demonstrates the existence of both freedom and uniformity in the universe.
195:7 The Vulnerability of Materialism
Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than attempting the overthrow of religious faith — human belief in spiritual realities and divine values.
Science should do for man materially what religion does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his personality.
The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is that if man were a machine in a merely material universe, how could such consciousness or awareness BE? Such a materialistic and mechanistic science is incapable of recognizing the fact of the spirit-indwelt mind of the scientist whose supermaterial insight formulates these mistaken and self-contradictory concepts. The very mechanistic concept of the universe is a nonmaterial phenomenon of mind, which itself is of nonmaterial origin notwithstanding all evidence of material conditioning and mechanistic control, to wit, the material conditioning of our genetics and the mechanistic control of our adjutant mind.
It requires the eye of faith in a spirit-born mortal to detect the Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness concealed within the facts of the finite domain.
Do not doubt the realities and values of spiritual progress. They represent forecasts of the spirit of God living in the mind of man. In striving for self-expression, neglect not to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your real and better self
Commentary on the difference between animal self expression and personalized self expression. Also, commentary reference to “relativity”, which upon reflection requires a reference to something “non-relative”, in this case the speed of light.
The very formulation of the philosophy of materialism is evidence of its error. All such supermaterial activity transcends the limitations of such a philosophy. A self-conscious and avowed mechanist is the best possible answer to mechanism. If materialism were a fact, there could be no self-conscious mechanist.
Commentary on the authors’ use of italics, by which they challenge the mechanist-materialist to stop using words that, on their face stand as refutation to such a philosophy.
