The Cosmic Citizen

The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance of personal survival. The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for: 1. Salvation from material fetters in the personal realization of sonship with God, who is spirit. 2. Salvation from intellectual bondage: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free. 3. Salvation from spiritual blindness, the human realization of the fraternity of mortal beings and the morontian awareness of the brotherhood of all universe creatures; the service-discovery of spiritual reality and the ministry-revelation of the goodness of spirit values. 4. Salvation from incompleteness of self through the attainment of the spirit levels of the universe and through the eventual realization of the harmony of Havona and the perfection of Paradise. 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings. 6. Salvation from time, the achievement of an eternal life of unending progression in God-recognition and God-service. 7. Salvation from the finite, the perfected oneness with Deity in and through the Supreme by which the creature attempts the transcendental discovery of the Ultimate on the postfinaliter levels of the absonite. (1112.4–1113.4) 101:6.8–15 Come join Chuck, Marvin, and André toexplore these ways of salvation made possible by Jesus. http://tobtr.com/12076053

This week, we continue our study of Paper 70, The Evolution of Human Government with §3. Early Human Associations and possibly §4. Clans and Tribes. How did our earliest aggregations of humanity develop to move us toward greater and greater need for even simple forms of government? Families became united by blood ties in clans, aggregations of kinsmen; and these subsequently evolved into tribes, territorial communities. Warfare and external pressure forced the tribal organization upon the kinship clans, but it was commerce and trade that held these early and primitive groups together with some degree of internal peace. The peace of Urantia will be promoted far more by international trade organizations than by all the sentimental sophistry of visionary peace planning. Trade relations have been facilitated by development of language and by improved methods of communication as well as by better transportation.  The absence of a common language has always impeded the growth of peace groups, but money has become the universal language of modern trade. Modern society is largely held together by the industrial market. The gain motive is a mighty civilizer when augmented by the desire to serve. (787.3–5) 70:3.3–5 The first peace group was the family, then the clan, the tribe, and later on the nation, which eventually became the modern territorial state. The fact that the present-day peace groups have long since expanded beyond blood ties to embrace nations is most encouraging, despite the fact that Urantia nations are still spending vast sums on war preparations. (788.3) 70:4.1 The clan headmen were always subordinate to the tribal chief, the early tribal governments being a loose confederation of clans. The native Australians never developed a tribal form of government. (788.11) 70:4.9  Please come join us! http://tobtr.com/12071704

This week, we continue our study of Paper 70, The Evolution of Human Government with §2. The Social Value of War.  Wars seem never to cease on our world and their consequences to each society so engaged is ever more devastating.  Still, in more primitive times war and its organizational imperatives were a decided step forward.  Let's examine some of those social values together. In past ages a fierce war would institute social changes and facilitate the adoption of new ideas such as would not have occurred naturally in ten thousand years. The terrible price paid for these certain war advantages was that society was temporarily thrown back into savagery; civilized reason had to abdicate. War is strong medicine, very costly and most dangerous; while often curative of certain social disorders, it sometimes kills the patient, destroys the society. (785.6) 70:2.1 During past ages war was a social ferment which pushed civilization forward; this result is now better attained by ambition and invention. Ancient warfare supported the concept of a God of battles, but modern man has been told that God is love. War has served many valuable purposes in the past, it has been an indispensable scaffolding in the building of civilization, but it is rapidly becoming culturally bankrupt — incapable of producing dividends of social gain in any way commensurate with the terrible losses attendant upon its invocation. At one time physicians believed in bloodletting as a cure for many diseases, but they have since discovered better remedies for most of these disorders. And so must the international bloodletting of war certainly give place to the discovery of better methods for curing the ills of nations. (785.14–786.1) 70:2.9–10 Please come join us for what ought to be a relevant discussion of recent developments in our current affairs! http://tobtr.com/12068652

This week, we commence our study of Paper 70, The Evolution of Human Government.  Our times demand knowing more about how our adaptations and maladaptations regulating our human contacts with each other, in smaller but progressively, larger and larger groupings, had their origins, have evolved, and where they seem to be going. On an evolutionary world, antagonisms are natural; peace is secured only by some sort of social regulative system. Social regulation is inseparable from social organization; association implies some controlling authority. Government compels the co-ordination of the antagonisms of the tribes, clans, families, and individuals. Government is an unconscious development; it evolves by trial and error. It does have survival value; therefore it becomes traditional. Anarchy augmented misery; therefore government, comparative law and order, slowly emerged or is emerging. The coercive demands of the struggle for existence literally drove the human race along the progressive road to civilization. (783.2–3) 70:0.2–3 War is the natural state and heritage of evolving man; peace is the social yardstick measuring civilization’s advancement....And wherever and whenever the fabric of civilization becomes stressed by the complications of society’s advancement, there is always an immediate and ruinous reversion to these early methods of violent adjustment of the irritations of human interassociations. (783.4) 70:1.1 Military mercy has been slow in coming to mankind. Even when a woman, Deborah, ruled the Hebrews, the same wholesale cruelty persisted. Her general in his victory over the gentiles caused “all the host to fall upon the sword; there was not one left.” (784.13) 70:1.17 Please join us for what should be a relevant discussion of recent developments in our current affairs. http://tobtr.com/12068337

We conclude our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §8. Dangers of Self-Gratification and a reprise of the final paragraphs of §7. The great threat against family life is the menacing rising tide of self-gratification, the modern pleasure mania. The prime incentive to marriage used to be economic; sex attraction was secondary. Marriage, founded on self-maintenance, led to self-perpetuation and concomitantly provided one of the most desirable forms of self-gratification. It is the only institution of human society which embraces all three of the great incentives for living.  ... it remains a fact that the evolving mores have failed to build any distinct institution of self-gratification. And it is due to this failure to evolve specialized techniques of pleasurable enjoyment that all human institutions are so completely shot through with this pleasure pursuit. Property accumulation is becoming an instrument for augmenting all forms of self-gratification, while marriage is often viewed only as a means of pleasure. And this overindulgence, this widely spread pleasure mania, now constitutes the greatest threat that has ever been leveled at the social evolutionary institution of family life, the home. (942.2–3) 84:8.1–2 ...Man has well earned some of his present-day joys and pleasures. ...Vanity and fashion cannot minister to home building and child culture; pride and rivalry are powerless to enhance the survival qualities of succeeding generations. ... Pleasures are indeed suicidal if they succeed in destroying property, which has become the institution of self-maintenance; and self-gratifications have indeed cost a fatal price if they bring about the collapse of marriage, the decadence of family life, and the destruction of the home — man’s supreme evolutionary acquirement and civilization’s only hope of survival. (942.5,943.1) 84:8.4,6 Join us!

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §7. The Ideals of Family Life. Sex mating is instinctive, children are the natural result, and the family thus automatically comes into existence. As are the families of the race or nation, so is its society. If the families are good, the society is likewise good. The great cultural stability of the Jewish and of the Chinese peoples lies in the strength of their family groups. (939.4) 84:7.1 ... new mores are emerging designed to stabilize the marriage-home institution: 1. The new role of religion — the teaching that parental experience is essential, the idea of procreating cosmic citizens, the enlarged understanding of the privilege of procreation — giving sons to the Father. 2. The new role of science — procreation is becoming more and more voluntary, subject to man’s control. In ancient times lack of understanding insured the appearance of children in the absence of all desire therefor. 3. The new function of pleasure lures — this introduces a new factor into racial survival; ancient man exposed undesired children to die; moderns refuse to bear them. 4. The enhancement of parental instinct — each generation now tends to eliminate from the reproductive stream of the race those individuals in whom parental instinct is insufficiently strong to insure the procreation of children, the prospective parents of the next generation. (939.6–940.3) 84:7.3–7 ...In an ideal family filial and parental affection are both augmented by fraternal devotion. (941.10) 84:7.29 ... The enforced associations of family life stabilize personality and stimulate [true morality's] growth through the compulsion of necessitous adjustment to other and diverse personalities. (942.1) 84:7.30 Come join us!  http://tobtr.com/12057227

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §6. The Partnership of Man and Woman and, time allowing, may proceed to §7. The Ideals of Family Life. The reproductive urge unfailingly brings men and women together for self-perpetuation but, alone, does not insure their remaining together in mutual co-operation — the founding of a home. Every successful human institution embraces antagonisms of personal interest which have been adjusted to practical working harmony, and homemaking is no exception. Marriage, the basis of home building, is the highest manifestation of that antagonistic co-operation which so often characterizes the contacts of nature and society. The conflict is inevitable. Mating is inherent; it is natural. But marriage is not biologic; it is sociologic. Passion insures that man and woman will come together, but the weaker parental instinct and the social mores hold them together. Male and female are, practically regarded, two distinct varieties of the same species living in close and intimate association. Their viewpoints and entire life reactions are essentially different; they are wholly incapable of full and real comprehension of each other. Complete understanding between the sexes is not attainable. (938.5–7) 84:6.1–3 The differences of nature, reaction, viewpoint, and thinking between men and women, far from occasioning concern, should be regarded as highly beneficial to mankind, both individually and collectively. ... Such dual associations greatly multiply versatility and overcome inherent limitations,... (938.9) 84:6.5 Men and women need each other in their morontial and spiritual as well as in their mortal careers. The differences in viewpoint between male and female persist even beyond the first life and throughout the local and superuniverse ascensions. (939.1) 84:6.6 Come join us! http://tobtr.com/12054474

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §5, Woman under the Developing Mores and, time allowing, may proceed to §6 The Partnership of Man and Woman. In self-perpetuation woman is man’s equal, but in the partnership of self-maintenance she labors at a decided disadvantage, and this handicap of enforced maternity can only be compensated by the enlightened mores of advancing civilization and by man’s increasing sense of acquired fairness. (936.5) 84:5.1 The modern idea of sex equality is beautiful and worthy of an expanding civilization, but it is not found in nature. When might is right, man lords it over woman; when more justice, peace, and fairness prevail, she gradually emerges from slavery and obscurity. Woman’s social position has generally varied inversely with the degree of militarism in any nation or age. But man did not consciously nor intentionally seize woman’s rights and then gradually and grudgingly give them back to her; all this was an unconscious and unplanned episode of social evolution. When the time really came for woman to enjoy added rights, she got them, and all quite regardless of man’s conscious attitude. Slowly but surely the mores change so as to provide for those social adjustments which are a part of the persistent evolution of civilization. The advancing mores slowly provided increasingly better treatment for females; those tribes which persisted in cruelty to them did not survive. (936.7–937.1) 84:5.3–4  Science, not religion, really emancipated woman; it was the modern factory which largely set her free...    ...Thus has industry won its unconscious and unintended fight for woman’s social and economic emancipation. And again has evolution succeeded in doing what even revelation failed to accomplish. (937.4–5) 84:5.7–8 Join us! http://tobtr.com/12051558

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §4, Woman’s Status in Early Society and may proceed to §5, Woman under the Developing Mores. Generally speaking, during any age woman’s status is a fair criterion of the evolutionary progress of marriage as a social institution, while the progress of marriage itself is a reasonably accurate gauge registering the advances of human civilization. (935.1) 84:4.1 The sexes have had great difficulty in understanding each other. Man found it hard to understand woman, regarding her with a strange mixture of ignorant mistrust and fearful fascination, if not with suspicion and contempt. Many tribal and racial traditions relegate trouble to Eve, Pandora, or some other representative of womankind. These narratives were always distorted so as to make it appear that the woman brought evil upon man; and all this indicates the onetime universal distrust of woman. Among the reasons cited in support of a celibate priesthood, the chief was the baseness of woman. The fact that most supposed witches were women did not improve the olden reputation of the sex. (935.4) 84:4.4 (936.4) 84:4.11 But primitive women did not pity themselves as their more recently liberated sisters are wont to do. They were, after all, fairly happy and contented; they did not dare to envision a better or different mode of existence. (936.4) 84:4.11 (937.4) 84:5.7 Science, not religion, really emancipated woman; it was the modern factory which largely set her free from the confines of the home. Man’s physical abilities became no longer a vital essential in the new maintenance mechanism; science so changed the conditions of living that man power was no longer so superior to woman power. Please join us on Saturday!  http://tobtr.com/12048951

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §2, The Mother Family and may procede to §3, The Family under Father Dominance. The woman’s periodic hemorrhage and her further loss of blood at childbirth early suggested blood as the creator of the child (even as the seat of the soul) and gave origin to the blood-bond concept of human relationships. In early times all descent was reckoned in the female line, that being the only part of inheritance which was at all certain. (932.7) 84:2.1  Under the mother-family mores the wife’s mother enjoyed virtually supreme authority in the home; even the wife’s brothers and their sons were more active in family supervision than was the husband. Fathers were often renamed after their own children. (933.1) 84:2.3 The earliest races gave little credit to the father, looking upon the child as coming altogether from the mother. They believed that children resembled the father as a result of association, or that they were “marked” in this manner because the mother desired them to look like the father. (933.2) 84:2.4 The transition from the mother-family to the father-family explains the otherwise meaningless prohibitions of some types of cousin marriages while others of equal kinship are approved.(933.3) 84:2.5 The stupendous change from the mother-family to the father-family is one of the most radical and complete right-about-face adjustments ever executed by the human race. This change led at once to greater social expression and increased family adventure. (933.5) 84:2.7 The scant courtesy paid womankind during the Old Testament era is a true reflection of the mores of the herdsmen. The Hebrew patriarchs were all herdsmen, as is witnessed by the saying, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” (934.1) 84:3.2 Please join us! http://tobtr.com/12045967