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How old were you when you discovered the UB?

81 posts · 8 participants · started Dec 8, 2017, 1:16 AM

George ParkParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 2:23 PM

Gene wrote:

I always thought that self destruction was self inflicted, not God given

Like Bradly, I agree with your assessment. So does the Divine Counselor.

Mortal man may draw near God and may repeatedly forsake the divine will so long as the power of choice remains. Man’s final doom is not sealed until he has lost the power to choose the Father’s will. There is never a closure of the Father’s heart to the need and the petition of his children. Only do his offspring close their hearts forever to the Father’s drawing power when they finally and forever lose the desire to do his divine will—to know him and to be like him. (5:1.11)

God is a true Father who never closes his heart to his children. But he cannot finally prevent some of his children from forever closing their hearts to him.

Only by selfishness, slothfulness, and sinfulness can the will of man reject the guidance of such a loving pilot and eventually wreck the mortal career upon the evil shoals of rejected mercy and upon the rocks of embraced sin. (111:1.9)

The door to salvation is shut from the outside, not the inside.
BonitaParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 3:34 PM

Van Amadon wrote:

But do you also think that those who “nailed him to the crossbeam” were also actively hostile “towards the Adjuster’s mission of effecting the spiritual transformation of [their] material mind?”

Of course, in regards to that matter, but perhaps not in all matters. Without knowing each person intimately, it’s impossible to say what inroads the Adjuster made into each mind. Clearly, they weren’t all completely soulless. Most were probably misguided, and I think in some cases, misguided by stupidity. Deity forgives stupidity.
GeneParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 3:35 PM
From paper 2

The greatest punishment (in reality an inevitable consequence) for wrongdoing and deliberate rebellion against the government of God is loss of existence as an individual subject of that government. The final result of whole- hearted sin is annihilation. In the last analysis, such sin-identified individuals have destroyed themselves by becoming wholly unreal through their embrace of iniquity. The factual disappearance of such a creature is, however, always de- layed until the ordained order of justice current in that universe has been fully complied with

Cessation of existence is usually decreed at the dispensational or epochal adjudication of the realm or realms. On a world such as Urantia it comes at the end of a planetary dispensation. Cessation of existence can be decreed at such times by co-ordinate action of all tribunals of jurisdiction, extending from the planetary council up through the courts of the Creator Son to the judgment tribunals of the Ancients of Days. The mandate of dissolution originates in the higher courts of the superuniverse following an unbroken confirmation of the indictment originating on the sphere of the wrongdoer’s residence; and then, when sentence of extinction has been confirmed on high, the execution is by the direct act of those judges residential on, and operating from, the headquarters of the superuniverse.
When this sentence is finally confirmed, the sin-identified being instantly becomes as though he had not been. There is no resurrection from such a fate; it is everlasting and eternal. The living energy factors of identity are resolved by the transformations of time and the metamorphoses of space into the cosmic potentials whence they once emerged. As for the personality of the iniquitous one, it is deprived of a continuing life vehicle by the creature’s failure to make those choices and final decisions which would have assured eternal life. When the continued embrace of sin by the associated mind culminates in complete self-identification with iniquity, then upon the cessation of life, upon cosmic dissolution, such an isolated personality is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the evolving experience of the Supreme Being. Never again does it appear as a personality; its identity becomes as though it had never been. In the case of an Adjuster-indwelt personality, the experiential spirit values sur- vive in the reality of the continuing Adjuster

Sorry but highlight is not functioning.
So I’ll clip this part about what happens after end of existence: The living energy factors of identity are resolved by the transformations of time and the metamorphoses of space into the cosmic potentials whence they once emerged.

But then there is this: upon cosmic dissolution, such an isolated personality is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the evolving experience of the Supreme Being.

Never thought about it but what are the living energy factors of identity? They clearly are not personality as pointed out above.
Does this isolated personality that is “absorbed” into the over soul of creation remain an isolated personality with any conscious attributes?
What does it mean to “resolve” living energy factors of identity into cosmic potentials??
Are cosmic potentials the unqualified absolute?? Why resolve? Why not absorbe?
Personality absorbed and living energy resolved – thinking about this.
BonitaParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 3:55 PM

Gene wrote:

Never thought about it but what are the living energy factors of identity? They clearly are not personality as pointed out above.

The energy factor of identity is the physical body.

Gene wrote:

Does this isolated personality that is “absorbed” into the over soul of creation remain an isolated personality with any conscious attributes?

No. Personality is pattern. Pattern alone has no mind to think with.

Gene wrote:

What does it mean to “resolve” living energy factors of identity into cosmic potentials??

It means turning your body back to dust, to the basic elements, so they can become something else . . . like the grass and flowers growing over your grave.

Gene wrote:

Are cosmic potentials the unqualified absolute??

I think the Unqualified Absolute is, “the repository of the uncreated universes of the eternal future.(3:1.7)” Living energy factors of energy that make up the physical body are already part of the created universes.

Gene wrote:

Why resolve? Why not absorbe?

Absorb would mean the energy cycle ends in assimilation. Resolve means to turn into a different form which continues the energy cycle. Absorbed personality cannot function again and is therefore unresolved. The Supreme will need to compensate for that.

(1283.4) 117:4.2 Throughout the grand universe the Supreme struggles for expression. His divine evolution is in measure predicated on the wisdom-action of every personality in existence. When a human being chooses eternal survival, he is cocreating destiny; and in the life of this ascending mortal the finite God finds an increased measure of personality self-realization and an enlargement of experiential sovereignty. But if a creature rejects the eternal career, that part of the Supreme which was dependent on this creature’s choice experiences inescapable delay, a deprivation which must be compensated by substitutional or collateral experience; as for the personality of the nonsurvivor, it is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the Deity of the Supreme.
GeneParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 4:19 PM

Bonita wrote:

Gene wrote:

Never thought about it but what are the living energy factors of identity? They clearly are not personality as pointed out above.

The energy factor of identity is the physical body.

Gene wrote:

Does this isolated personality that is “absorbed” into the over soul of creation remain an isolated personality with any conscious attributes?

No. Personality is pattern. Pattern alone has no mind to think with.

Gene wrote:

What does it mean to “resolve” living energy factors of identity into cosmic potentials??

It means turning your body back to dust, to the basic elements, so they can become something else . . . like the grass and flowers growing over your grave.

Gene wrote:

Are cosmic potentials the unqualified absolute??

I think the Unqualified Absolute is, “the repository of the uncreated universes of the eternal future.(3:1.7)” Living energy factors of energy that make up the physical body are already part of the created universes.

Gene wrote:

Why resolve? Why not absorbe?

Absorb would mean the energy cycle ends in assimilation. Resolve means to turn into a different form which continues the energy cycle. Absorbed personality cannot function again and is therefore unresolved. The Supreme will need to compensate for that.

(1283.4) 117:4.2 Throughout the grand universe the Supreme struggles for expression. His divine evolution is in measure predicated on the wisdom-action of every personality in existence. When a human being chooses eternal survival, he is cocreating destiny; and in the life of this ascending mortal the finite God finds an increased measure of personality self-realization and an enlargement of experiential sovereignty. But if a creature rejects the eternal career, that part of the Supreme which was dependent on this creature’s choice experiences inescapable delay, a deprivation which must be compensated by substitutional or collateral experience; as for the personality of the nonsurvivor, it is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the Deity of the Supreme.

It seems to me that this information is more specific for us mortals – but process wise it is likely the same, even for high spirit beings like Lucifer who has no physical body to be returned to ash, his living energy systems are a bit different.
GeneParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 4:24 PM
Gene wrote:
Why resolve? Why not absorbe?

Absorb would mean the energy cycle ends in assimilation. Resolve means to turn into a different form which continues the energy cycle. Absorbed personality cannot function again and is therefore unresolved. The Supreme will need to compensate for that

Another circle, cycle or elipse, recycle.
BradlyParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 4:24 PM

Bonita wrote:

Van Amadon wrote:

But do you also think that those who “nailed him to the crossbeam” were also actively hostile “towards the Adjuster’s mission of effecting the spiritual transformation of [their] material mind?”

Of course, in regards to that matter, but perhaps not in all matters. Without knowing each person intimately, it’s impossible to say what inroads the Adjuster made into each mind. Clearly, they weren’t all completely soulless. Most were probably misguided, and I think in some cases, misguided by stupidity. Deity forgives stupidity.

Thanks Bonita!! Just a couple of thoughts on this question by nod/Enno.

First of all, Jesus is/was not the TA within. Second, the flood of TA’s had not begun yet at this time. Next, those who “nailed him to the crossbeam” were Roman soldiers following orders and whom had followed the same orders hundreds/thousands of times before and after and were completely indifferent and uninvolved in the charges, trial, and sentence and had no “hostility” in the matter. Finally, for now, Jesus was a direct material threat to the status quo power structure – a social structure (whereas the TA is a personal ministry within). Jesus was rejected (by those who rejected him) for failing to be The King of Israel as hoped by the Jewish people and by his own animosity and active hostility to those in power and with privilege.

IMO, the question/subject has nothing to do with any indifference or hostility toward the TA within. The spectrum of potential response to the TA includes many points to consider; from the failure of the TA to create the ‘yearn’ for inner peace and happiness due to a multitude of reasons in-mind, to the meager and immature response of the mind which delivers more hope than transformation, to the rigorous response within to seek T.B.&G and which brings forth the connection of branch to vine and resulting fruit. I’m not sure I understand what active hostility means exactly….but it does not mean or include the example chosen by Enno IMO.

I see we are still attempting the impossible – who’s going to survive and who’s responsive to the mind/soul ministries. Who needs to do what and who’s not….a fruitless exercise filled with downside opportunities for misunderstanding and faulty judgments which indicates a certain anxiety which is not conducive to personal progress….we are told that ignorance + prejudice is detrimental to progress. Uninformed opinions which direct our beliefs and cloud our vision of reality are of no help to anything that is real. Perhaps we should allow the gods to separate the tares and wheat?

Since we are off-topic here anyway, I am coming to see the wheat and tares parable as more about the internal life and choices of tadpoles (personal good and bad choices/motives, etc.) rather than about those who survive and those who do not. That which survives in-soul is the wheat harvest of life while those bad choices are the tares which are left in the field of the material world without worth, meaning, or value. The parable, IMO, is not about people at all but about choices that are real and those which are unreal.

This has become a most interesting discussion indeed. Thanks everyone!

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
GeneParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 4:54 PM
“Gene wrote:
Are cosmic potentials the unqualified absolute??

I think the Unqualified Absolute is, “the repository of the uncreated universes of the eternal future.(3:1.7)” Living energy factors of energy that make up the physical body are already part of the created universes”

I’ll make assumptions here that the same thing happens for all energy systems, living or non living and that what comes forth from the unqualified absolute stays and does not return, probably the reason that the universe is expanding.
George ParkParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 5:14 PM

Bradly wrote:

Since we are off-topic here…

Since this thread is about finding the Book, which involves faith, I wonder if those here who have had faith for as long as they can remember would be willing to share what “the good fight of faith” means to them?

There is but one struggle for those who enter the kingdom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubt—unbelief. (159:3.8)

I know what it means to fight against doubt from the perspective of finding faith much later in life; it is a struggle which may get easier over time, but it never really ends. What does the good fight of faith mean to those who cannot remember ever really having any serious doubts about God?
BonitaParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 5:32 PM

Bradly wrote:

I’m not sure I understand what active hostility means exactly….but it does not mean or include the example chosen by Enno IMO.

If the Adjuster is always urging us toward the more altruistic choice, then wouldn’t active hostility require a person to recognize the altruistic urge then consciously deny it?

(1131.6) 103:2.7 Moral choosing is usually accompanied by more or less moral conflict. And this very first conflict in the child mind is between the urges of egoism and the impulses of altruism. The Thought Adjuster does not disregard the personality values of the egoistic motive but does operate to place a slight preference upon the altruistic impulse as leading to the goal of human happiness and to the joys of the kingdom of heaven.
BradlyParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 5:40 PM

George Park wrote:

Bradly wrote:

Since we are off-topic here…

Since this thread is about finding the Book, which involves faith, I wonder if those here who have had faith for as long as they can remember would be willing to share what “the good fight of faith” means to them?

There is but one struggle for those who enter the kingdom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubt—unbelief. (159:3.8) I know what it means to fight against doubt from the perspective of finding faith much later in life; it is a struggle which may get easier over time, but it never really ends. What does the good fight of faith mean to those who cannot remember ever really having any serious doubts about God?

Well George….that’s a very personal, experiential question….and a most interesting one!!

For me there was a time when I rejected God due to the growing awareness of the hypocritical values, motives, and actions witnessed among those in my own church family and others, including preachers and teachers and deacons alike – and TV evangelists – many of whom seemed consumed by self interest and self importance and a smugness that smacked of much that Jesus warned about in the NT. But the yearn and whisper within did not allow much of a season for such personal immaturity and lack of discernment.

Then there was that season of philosophic pursuit in various esoteric studies (Zen, Tao, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and others both East and West) where my belief in God allowed my anger with God to flourish for a time, blaming God for mortal mayhem and suffering. But in those studies I came to understand that it is obvious enough that free will is the culprit and source of suffering….God cannot give free will without such potential and results….and it is far better to suffer from free will than to remove choice from mind and the liberty to self discover and personally embrace reality rather than all being little cloned automatons (Stepford Believers – yuck!).

As I matured in my experiential philosophy, I then began to doubt myself more and more. Not my relationship to God or God, but my own beliefs and perspective….I became aware of and alarmed with my personal prejudice and ignorance and began to notice how unique and personal were all perspectives and beliefs. I was impressed in my youth, but did not understand, Jesus’s teaching to do right for right’s sake and not to avoid punishment. As I studied karma – or the reciprocal forces of motive and act upon the mind – I became a karma-paranoid….fearful of the results of bad motives and choices (self centeredness).

It took the UB to integrate and harmonize all these truths, partial truths, and falsehoods into a far more practical and comfortable living-system based on the mortal ascension. I had never believed in instant-perfection by the mere act of dying and never believed God was a god of violence, threat, condemnation, and suffering. And I was certain this universe I could see and kept expanding by every scientific advance only held one inhabited world was ludicrous – I knew God was much greater and the universe much grander than anything I knew. Again, the UB explained so many perplexions and wonderments I carried and considered during my youth.

I think the good fight of faith is to remain steadfast throughout all the confusions and uncertainties each mind faces as we attempt to understand our dual nature and to discover the power of love and of faith in our daily walk. How does spiritization affect our material life? Because it certainly does do so! How do my material life outcomes improve by the faith led life? For they certainly do so! (Not wealth and power outcomes so much as the discovery of peace, contentment, patience, happiness, and even joy and the very real power such fruit brings to all future mind-responses and motivations and priorities of living….life is far more enjoyable to the faithful who believe in the realities of T.B.&G. – no matter the continued challenges, vicissitudes, disappointments, failures, and frustrations of relationships and material living).

I’m sure the story is the same and yet completely different for each of us. Great question and I look forward to other’s responses!

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
BonitaParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 5:48 PM

George Park wrote:

I know what it means to fight against doubt from the perspective of finding faith much later in life; it is a struggle which may get easier over time, but it never really ends. What does the good fight of faith mean to those who cannot remember ever really having any serious doubts about God?

Great question. I tried to broach this topic in an earlier post. It has to do with trust. The good fight of faith is the fight for ever expanding trust.

There are many types of doubt which have nothing to do with the existence of God, but rather with his will. It is common to get confused and doubt the will of God, either your ability to discover it, recognize it, interpret it or choose it. A person can dedicate his/her life to doing the will of God, but accomplishing such a thing is a fight filled with confusions, uncertainties and doubts. Jesus forewarned us that passing through the fringe of conflict must be traversed by all:

159:3.7 Forewarn all believers regarding the fringe of conflict which must be traversed by all who pass from the life as it is lived in the flesh to the higher life as it is lived in the spirit. To those who live quite wholly within either realm, there is little conflict or confusion, but all are doomed to experience more or less uncertainty during the times of transition between the two levels of living. In entering the kingdom, you cannot escape its responsibilities or avoid its obligations, but remember: The gospel yoke is easy and the burden of truth is light.

Uncertainty and doubt is inevitable, but the transition is accomplished through growth of faith-trust in one’s ability to discover, recognize, interpret and choose God’s will. The further along the psychic circles, the greater the trust, thus becoming easier to live God’s way. The communion within the relationship becomes more clear and instantaneous because it is trusted more.
George ParkParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 5:56 PM

Bradly wrote:

I’m sure the story is the same and yet completely different for each of us.

Thanks for your generosity in sharing this. It is very helpful and much appreciated!
George ParkParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 9:34 PM

Bonita wrote:

The good fight of faith is the fight for ever expanding trust.

Thanks for your thoughts highlighting all of the different kinds of doubt. The end of the above quote on the good fight says the battle “is against doubt – unbelief.” I have always assumed that “unbelief” is just a synonym for doubt, used here for emphasis. But now I wonder if doubt is something aligned more closely with intellectual experience, while unbelief aligns more closely with spiritual experience.

And then James of Safed spoke those long-to-be-remembered words of commingled faith and doubt, “Lord, I believe. I pray you help my unbelief.” (158:5.2)

On the other hand, this statement suggests that unbelief is a commingling of spiritual faith and intellectual doubt – neither faith nor doubt, but perhaps a doubting faith? or a tenuously trusting belief? Is the struggle against unbelief different is some ways from the struggle against doubt?
BonitaParticipant
Dec 13, 2017, 10:38 PM

George Park wrote:

I have always assumed that “unbelief” is just a synonym for doubt, used here for emphasis.

I have always assumed that “unbelief” is a synonym for lack of faith, or a need for greater faith. And in my personal experience, such a thing only occurs when there is a lack of trust in my inner guidance system. A lack of trust leads to suspicion and suspicion leads to doubt, doubt leads to confusion and uncertainty concerning one’s faith. All this is what happens when the animal mind (material intellect) takes over dominance and mistrusts the spiritual mind (soul). I think unbelief is what happens when the balance between our two natures swings too far toward the material end of reality. There are plenty of reasons for this. Fear is one of them, but many people just get confused directionally; they aren’t sure what thoughts they should allow to dominate their thinking. They’re not sure whether to trust their intellect or their soul . . . so few are really familiar with their own souls.

(295.1) 26:9.3 The test of time is almost over; the race for eternity has been all but run. The days of uncertainty are ending; the temptation to doubt is vanishing; the injunction to be perfect has been obeyed. From the very bottom of intelligent existence the creature of time and material personality has ascended the evolutionary spheres of space, thus proving the feasibility of the ascension plan while forever demonstrating the justice and righteousness of the command of the Universal Father to his lowly creatures of the worlds: “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.”

p1098:4 100:5.1 The world is filled with lost souls, not lost in the theologic sense but lost in the directional meaning, wandering about in confusion among the isms and cults of a frustrated philosophic era. Too few have learned how to install a philosophy of living in the place of religious authority. (The symbols of socialized religion are not to be despised as channels of growth, albeit the river bed is not the river.)
George ParkParticipant
Dec 14, 2017, 4:59 PM

Bonita wrote:

I have always assumed that “unbelief” is a synonym for lack of faith, or a need for greater faith. And in my personal experience, such a thing only occurs when there is a lack of trust in my inner guidance system. A lack of trust leads to suspicion and suspicion leads to doubt, doubt leads to confusion and uncertainty concerning one’s faith.

You draw a straight line between faith and doubt with unbelief as a lack of trust located somewhere in-between. This makes complete sense to me. What strikes me about this description is the unspoken assumption that the nature of faith is already known. I could easily be wrong, but I surmise you make this assumption because you have told us you have had faith in God since you were a little child. You hold a spiritual memory of a simple and uncomplicated faith that arises from “the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child.” What an eternal treasure this spiritual pearl is.

I can tell you from experience that faith is a more or less completely mysterious idea for those who begin their search for God later in life. They typically lack this spiritual memory, so they really know only one end of the line you draw, the doubting end. For the material mind seeing is believing, so the idea of believing before seeing seems utterly backwards, like leaping before looking, reaching a conclusion before considering the evidence, putting the cart before the horse. Nevertheless, it did not take very long for the Book to explain such puzzles in a satisfactory way and resolve virtually all of my intellectual doubts. I came to fully believe the Book is truly a revelation from God.

But it gradually became apparent over a longer period of time that the relative absence of intellectual doubts about God is not really the same as the presence of faith. (A very obvious and simple realization for some but not for others.) Belief can overcome the doubts of philosophic confusion, but a theory, no matter how true and believable, cannot really satisfy “the consuming thirst of mortal discontent and that indescribable hunger of the unspiritualized human mind.” And it begins to dawn that there is something beyond the satisfactions of a truly cosmic philosophy, something above the unbelief of mere intellectual certainty and conviction, something with the spiritual purity of “the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child.”

The kingdom of heaven is also like a merchant seeking goodly pearls; and having found one pearl of great price, he went out and sold everything he possessed that he might be able to buy the extraordinary pearl. (151:4.5)
BradlyParticipant
Dec 14, 2017, 5:53 PM
Interesting…..I think faith brings immediate and accumulating/aggregating proofs/fruits….no matter when it comes in life. For faith requires changes in motives, intentions, priorities, and choices. Faith is an act…belief is not. The fruits follow the faith connection of the branch to the vine…and they come soon. Perhaps a visit and study of those fruits would be good? Consider confidence in destiny and ultimate outcomes now along with the confusions of today…this changes everything! As trust and faith grow, more and greater fruits attend.

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
George ParkParticipant
Dec 14, 2017, 8:04 PM

Bradly wrote:

Interesting…..I think faith brings immediate and accumulating/aggregating proofs/fruits….no matter when it comes in life.

I fear you have misinterpreted what I wrote. I never said faith was not involved in the beginning of the search for God (or even before this), that it is not present where there is intellectual belief in God, or that it does not bear immediate spiritual fruits. The point I hoped to convey was that faith is not merely the absence of intellectual doubts and is something more than the conviction of belief.
AndréParticipant
Dec 14, 2017, 10:29 PM
Only religious confidence—living faith—can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems.” 111:6.8
Faith is :
- religious confidence. 111:6.8
- value 195:5.8
- saved—justified 196:3.4 Rom 5:1
- ensure that an individual accept/admit/believe …the truth 1:5.4 Prov 8:31
- Faith unites insight and values. 101:1.6
Faith is an act…belief is not.

mumble/mumble/mumble !!!

Both have a purpose. And “act” to do so.

Bradly, I associated acting with processus inside mind to take decision/action due to beliefs enhancement, faith’s uniting fonction.

101:8.1 Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living.

… belief which has grown into faith.” 102:6.4

… fears,beliefs are the primitives avenues for living faith in spiritual realities.” 102:5.2 spirit potentials over mind.

Bradly, did I make cleared sense about your statement ?

“If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith.”

I want to point out here “challenging the certainty of faith” for most religionists is part of ascension.

John the baptist was greatly challenged with his faith, almost unbearable in last hours of his captivity. 135:11.4
BradlyParticipant
Dec 14, 2017, 11:08 PM
Yes Andre, you understood very well…..

101:8.1 (1114.5) Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

101:8.2 (1114.6) Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.

George…I did not mean for my post to be directed at you or your post specifically….just trying to add to the discussion. My point is that faith, when true in direction and scope, is self confirming by the fruits of the Spirit and that belief only has no such verification. Even misguided or misdirected faith (in ceremony, totem, false gods, etc.) does have result and bears fruit when that faith in that and those who are greater than the faither adjusts motives, intentions, and priorities related to choices….or so I am coming to understand the UB to say.

The more reality aligned is faith, the stronger is the branch attached to the vine. The more firm the attachment, the more fruit resulting in more poise, more confidence (even within confusion), more happiness, more patience, more kindness….etc. One feels connected and feels the gravity circuits affecting us in profound ways in the very midst of free will choice.

George says above: “The point I hoped to convey was that faith is not merely the absence of intellectual doubts and is something more than the conviction of belief.”

I certainly agree with that George!! Faith is very interesting and a little complicated…as it is completely separate from belief or knowledge or understanding. Intellectual doubts, as Bonita points out, has more to do with experiential wisdom attainment….there is always a better choice to make regarding strategy, tactic, etc. even with full faith and confidence. Doubting oneself in the intersections of choice does not, or not for me anyway, contradict faith, trust, loyalty, etc. But faith in destiny and purpose delivers confidence and contentment when mistakes are realized, the better to do better next time around. Thus we are given repetitive decision points until our responses become reflexive by experience.

"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."

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