Paper 92

Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 92
THE LATER EVOLUTION OF RELIGION

1. Man possessed a religion of natural origin as a part of his evolutionary experience long before any systematic revelations were made on Urantia. But this religion of natural origin was, in itself, the product of man's superanimal endowments.

1. The adjutant of worship

2. The adjutant of wisdom

3. The Holy Spirit

These influences are later augmented by Thought Adjusters, seraphim, and the Spirit of Truth, all of which accelerate the rate of religious development.

2. Religion progressed from nature worship up through ghost worship to fetishism throughout the savage childhood of the races. With the dawn of civilization the human race espoused the more mystic and. symbolic beliefs, while now, with approaching maturity, mankind is ripening for the appreciation of real religion, even a beginning of the revelation of truth itself.

3. Religion...is the last thing to perish or change in a race. Religion is society's adjustment, in any age, to that which is mysterious...And it is impossible entirely to divorce purely evolved religion from either magic or sorcery.

4. Fear has always been the basic religious stimulus...As civilization advances, fear becomes modified by reverence, admiration, respect, and sympathy and is then further conditioned by remorse and repentance...Jesus, the revelation of the highest type of religious living, proclaimed that "God is love."

5. Religion is the most rigid and unyielding of all human institutions...Slowly, surely, but grudgingly, does religion (worship) follow in the wake of wisdom—knowledge directed by experiential reason and illuminated by divine revelation.

6. When modern man wonders at the presentation of so much in the scriptures of different religions that may be regarded as obscene, he should pause to consider that passing generations have feared to eliminate what their ancestors deemed to be holy and sacred. A great deal that one generation might look upon as obscene, preceding generations have considered a part of their accepted mores even as approved religious rituals.

7. But it is only foolish to attempt the too sudden acceleration of religious growth. A race or nation can only assimilate from any advanced religion that which is reasonably consistent and. compatible with its current evolutionary status, plus its genius for adaptation.

8. Religion has at one time or another sanctioned all sorts of contrary and inconsistent behavior, has at some time approved of practically all that is now regarded as immoral or sinful. Conscience, untaught by experience and unaided by reason, never has been, and never can be, a safe and unerring guide to human conduct. Conscience is not a divine voice speaking to the human soul. It is merely the sum total of the moral and. ethical content of the mores of any current stage of existence; it simplyrepresents the humanly conceived ideal of reaction in any given set of circumstances.

9. But when tempted to criticize evolutionary religion, be careful. Remember, that is what happened; it is a historical fact. And further recall that the power of any idea lies, not in its certainty or truth, but rather in the vividness of its human appeal.

10. Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision...Evolved religion commands respect because its followers believe it is The Truth ...The cult resists development because real progress is certain to modify or destroy the cult itself; therefore must revision always be forced upon it.

11. Religion has handicapped social development in many ways, but without religion there would have been no enduring morality nor ethics, no worth‑while civilization.

12. Revelation is evolutionary but always progressive. Down through the ages of a world's history, the revelations of religion are ever‑expanding and. successively mere enlightening. It is the mission of revelation to sort and censor the successive religions of evolution…Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man's capacity of receptivity.

13. There have been many events of religious revelation but only five of epochal significance. These were as follows:

1. The Dalmatian teachings

2. The Edenic teachings

3. Melchizedek of Salem

4. Jesus of Nazareth

5. The Urantia Synopsis of Papers. The Synopsis of Papers, of which this is one, constitute the most recent presentation of truth to the mortals of Urantia...

But no revelation short of the attainment of the Universal. Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space.

14. Most great religious epochs have been inaugurated, by the life and teachings of some outstanding personality; leadership has originated a majority of the worth‑while moral movements of history ...Many races have conceived of their leaders as being born of virgins; their careers are liberally sprinkled with miraculous episodes, and their return is always expected by their respective groups.

15. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of religious leaders in the million‑year human history of Urantia from Onager to Guru Nanak...In considering the teachers of recent times, it may prove helpful to group them into the seven major religious epochs of post‑Adamic Urantia:

1. The Sethite period...they have continued, to the present time as the Brahmans of the Hindu faith...

2. Era of the Melchizedek missionaries ...

3. The post‑Melchizedek era. Though Amenemope and Ikhnaton bothtaught in this period, the outstanding religious genius.. .was ...Moses...The greatness of Moses lies in his wisdom and sagacity. Other men have had greater concepts of God, but no one man was ever so successful in inducing large numbers of people to adopt such advanced beliefs.

4. The sixth century before Christ. Many men arose to proclaim truth in this, one of the greatest centuries of religious awakening ever witnessed on Urantia. Among these should be recorded Gautama, Confucius, Lao‑tse, Zoroaster, and the Jainist teachers...

5. The first century after Christ…Aside from Jesus, Paul of Tarsus and Philo of Alexandria were the greatest teachers of this era ...

6. The sixth century after Christ. Mohammed founded a religion which was superior to many of the creeds of his time...

7. The fifteenth century after Christ. This period witnessed two religious movements: the disruption of the unity of Christianity in the Occident and ...In the Orient the combined teachings of Islam, Hinduism, and. Buddhism were synthesized by Nanak and his followers into Sikhism, one of the most advanced religions of Asia.

16. The future of Urantia will doubtless be characterized by the appearance of teachers of religious truth...But it is to be hoped that the ardent and sincere efforts of these future prophets will be directed...toward. the augmentation of the religious brotherhood of spiritual worship among the many followers of the differing intellectual theologies which so characterize Urantia of Satania.

17. Twentieth‑century Urantia religions present an interesting study of the social evolution of man's worship impulse...The Pygmies of Africa...are today just where primitive man was when the evolution of religion began...The Dyaks have evolved only the most primitive religious practices ...Present‑day native Australians have only a ghost fear, dread of the dark, and a crude ancestor veneration. The Zulus are just evolving a religion of ghost fear and sacrifice. Many African tribes...are not yet beyond the fetish stage of religious evolution.

18. 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.

19. The Christian religion is the religion about the life end teachings of Christ based upon the theology of Judaism, modified further through the assimilation of certain Zoroastrian teachings and Greek philosophy, and formulated primarily by three individuals: Philo, Peter and Paul.

20. New religions cannot be invented; they are either evolved, or else they are suddenly revealed ...The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring men to God ....It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth...There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth.

21. As religion evolves, ethics becomes the philosophy of morals, and. morality becomes the discipline of self by the standards of highest meanings and supreme values—divine and spiritual ideals. And. thus religion becomes a spontaneous and exquisite devotion, the living experience of the loyalty of love.

22. Religious meanings progress in self‑consciousness when the child transfers his ideas of omnipotence from his parents to God.. And the entire religious experience of such a child is largely dependent on whether fear or love has dominated the parent‑child relationship. Slaves have always experienced great difficulty in transferring their master‑fear into concepts of God‑love.

23. It is most unfortunate that those who have come to venerate the divine and risen Christ should have overlooked the man—the va1iant and courageous hero—Joshua ben Joseph.

24. Thinking men and women want religion redefined, and this demand will compel religion to re‑evaluate itself. Modern man is confronted with the task of making more readjustments of human values in one generation than have been made in two thousand years. And this all influences the social attitude toward religion, for religion is a way of living as well as a technique of thinking.

25. True religion must ever be, at one and the same time, the eternal foundation and the guiding star of all enduring civilizations.

Discussion Questions

1. Why has fear occupied such a large place in Christianity in spite of Jesus’ teaching about the love of God?

2. How are conscience and the will of God related?

3. Why is religion the most rigid and unyielding of all human institutions?

4. How does one bring change in religion and condition religionists to be open to change?

5. How close to evolutionary religion are the teachings of the Urantia Synopsis of Papers?

6. Will the Urantia Synopsis of Papers bring a “suddenly revealed” religion to our world?

7. Can the teachings of the Urantia Synopsis of Papers serve as both the eternal foundation and the guiding star of humankind?