Episode:Religion in Depth—Foundations of Faith (Part 3)
Science sorts men; religion loves men, even as yourself; wisdom does justice to differing men; but revelation glorifies man and discloses his capacity for partnership with God. Real religion leads to increased social service.
Keywords: Urantia, Religion, Philosophy, Revelation, Reality
Summary by Kermit
Commentary on Review
Following some final words on Bertrand Russell’s attainment of a level of logical intellectuality regarding the truth and beauty found in an appreciation of mathematics, only to be there arrested in his appreciation of cosmic reality, we examined the implications of the statement that there is no real religion apart from a highly active personality. For examples of what a highly active religionist looks like we are referred back to [101:3] and the list of twelve negative situations and the characteristic manner in which the real religionist chooses a positive response.
102:3. Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight
This section begins with four paragraphs challenging our reflection on what constitutes genuine religion. Constitutional mental deficiency or educational deprivation both interfere with higher religious attainment. A well-formed and functioning mind is a required space within which genuine religion can exist. All normal minded mortals of requisite age are encircuited in the Holy Spirit and beneficiaries of the three cosmic intuitions. As children of God this is a superconscious endowment. The purpose of education is to develop and sharpen these cosmic endowments into a wholeness wherein true religion can exist as a conscious phenomenon. Deficient education deprives religion of the philosophic connection with science, knowledge. On the other hand, the intellect, over emphasized is not a substitute for relationship with spirit. No degree of exaltation of mind is equivalent to spirit attainment. Neither is the discovery of a previously unconscious domain of mind to be mistaken for the domain of spirit. Through reflective thought one can cultivate an anchor point in eternity, and leverage spirit in temporal activities.
Religious speculation, while unavoidable, has the negative effect of falsifying its object, representing religion as something material or humanistic. Thus does the distinction between matter and spirit become blurred, disrupting logical thought causing religion to appear as a function of the temporal world. Lacking an experiential connection between the material and spiritual levels of universe reality (morontia mota), religion becomes characterized by paradoxes.
These paradoxes are illustrated in the way material feelings, human emotions, lead to material actions, selfish acts. In the realm of so-called religion this amounts to committing apparently altruistic acts for selfish reasons. Genuine religious insights give rise to unselfish acts of social service.
Real religious experience leads to increased social service as the result of the overflow of the welling-up of eternal goodness that comes with the realization of the consciousness of having found God.
The remaining twelve paragraphs of the section consists of various ways in which the components of three-fold functional reality, science, philosophy, and religion upstepped by revelation play out to move mankind forward along the path of advancing civilization. The final three-quarters of an hour of the broadcast are full of commentary and insights that are worth revisiting.
Notes by Brad
- Can you have an unnatural (artificial) positive reaction to a negative stimulus? If so (and only if), you may have had a seldom-seen religious experience, not merely a spiritual experience.
- There are no facts that the Supreme Mind cannot use in a positive mode. Can you try to be more like the Supreme Mind? Can you discover your true humanity?
- Have courage. Try! Invariably you will mess up. But that's where wisdom comes from.
- superphilosophic stands in contrast to mere human philosophy (the other half of this sphere of philosophy). Revelation can provide us the upper (superior) hemisphere of philosophy.
- Religious speculation may be detrimental, but philosophic speculation is not a problem at all! And it's a lot of what we do here, to say nothing of the 5th ER itself.
- If the reason you're acting "altruistically" because of you and your feelings, then you're being selfish. Some anti-religious people have actually figured this out.
- On social media, I saw someone ask for their friends to pray for someone. But they didn't explain who it was or what to pray for. So it seems clear this person was asking for prayers for their own sake, to be relieved of their distress.
- Soul can be used specifically to refer to the morontia phenomena. Or more generally to describe a holistic realm of mind--the upper-domain of the hourglass.
- There's nothing evil about knowledge leading to placing men. You cannot have altruism without social strata.
- We are created equal But we are not born equal. Put these together and you can discover altruism.
- Remembering the inevitabilities in [Paper 3] helps while studying this.
- Section 3 is a master course in pairing things in 3's. Even the section title has 3 words.
