There is critical information you’ve omitted Enno. We all need to know, what the “stereotyped religious doctrines and dogmas” of the Urantia Book are. Please give us an outline, a list, a few examples perhaps. If TUB readers have fallen into self-deception, as you say is possible, then it would be a great service to reveal the pitfalls. What has been stereotyped? What has turned into a doctrine? What has become dogma about the Urantia Book? It would be helpful if you provided specifics. Otherwise, there’s nothing to discuss.
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Intellectual crystallization of religious concepts.
87 posts · 7 participants · started Jun 16, 2017, 1:59 PM
What are the “stereotyped religious doctrines and dogmas” of the Urantia Book?
The key word is stereotyped.
Unless you don’t think it’s possible for the things the Urantia Book says to become or already are “doctrinal” and “dogmatic,” there is no point in discussing it further. It’s clear to me that there most certainly is Urantia Book doctrine and dogma.
But that’s not the problem.
The problem is in stereotyping it, fixating it, oversimplifying it, standardizing it making it conventional.
So what has turned into a doctrine? What has become dogma about the Urantia Book?
All of it, depending on a certain point of view, or none of it.
But if evolutionary man does not naturally relish hard work, and is inclined to that species of ingenious self-deception (which I am sure I’m guilty of) how does this factor into the distraction it may cause from being wholeheartedly committed to the business of doing the Father’s will?
Unless you don’t think it’s possible for the things the Urantia Book says to become or already are “doctrinal” and “dogmatic,” there is no point in discussing it further.
Got that right!
But if evolutionary man does not naturally relish hard work, and is inclined to that species of ingenious self-deception (which I am sure I’m guilty of) how does this factor into the distraction it may cause from being wholeheartedly committed to the business of doing the Father’s will?
Just what is the business of doing the Father’s will according to Enno? Why isn’t studying the Revelation doing his business? It is essentially his book isn’t it? Didn’t he, through his agents, commission it? Are you saying that people who study TUB are not wholeheartedly committed to the business of doing the Father’s will? If so, why are you here? And don’t tell me you’re here to warn us. Don’t tell me that warning us is what God wants you to do, that you’re here in service of God who wants us all to step back from reading the Revelation and get busy doing his work. If you think that, then there’s a problem . . . a huge sanctimonious problem . . . not one easily solved either.
Van Amadon wrote: It’s clear to me that there most certainly is Urantia Book doctrine and dogma.
Well, it’s not clear to me. Are you suggesting that there has developed a single unified way of interpreting TUB? Would you mind elaborating on exactly what you think has become doctrine and dogma? Please be specific. Using phrases like “all of it” or “none of it” is not helpful.
Van Amadon wrote: The problem is in stereotyping it, fixating it, oversimplifying it, standardizing it making it conventional.I also can’t see where TUB has become stereotyped if you mean it has become a standardized formula. That would mean everyone would be in lockstep, and that’s certainly not the case. I don’t see any rituals forming or creeds being recited. Do you? Where does this exist exactly?Obviously we are not oversimplifying TUB here on this forum because we pick it apart and study it in detail every day, and it appears that none of us have the exact same interpretation or opinion concerning it. Are you more concerned about turning TUB into a fetish? Now that has some merit and might be worth talking about.Wouldn’t the danger of stereotyping be more in line with those who are endeavoring to churchify the Revelation? There are groups out there forming creeds and doctrines around TUB, evangelizing and proselytizing to win converts to the cult. Don’t they have an oversimplified message?So, I’m inclined to think that you’re not concerned about stereotyping, fixating and standardizing as much as you’re just railing against what you’ve referred to as the “Bonitian and Bradlynian sensorship board of what the Urantia Book says you can say (UAI Forum, October 15, 2016).”Right Iris?
Hey, you finally got something right! Not Rexford but Iris. That was my first user name. Actually, not totally true. I had another flower user name on another unrelated forum once, which was actually my very, very first user name ever. I can’t even remember what year it was, so long ago. Something like 2002 maybe? Can’t recall. But it was back in those days when I was researching the Teaching Mission. (Not sure I’m allowed to mention them here.) Does anyone remember if I used Iris on the UAI forum two generations ago? I don’t think I did. I think that’s when I decided it was best to use my real name after the dust up using “adelfo” (which I used because it’s Greek for brotherhood). That didn’t go well because people thought I was a guy. When they found out the s**t hit the fan. I learned my lesson with that one. Even got an in-person visit from the administrator to “set me straight”. So, I think using your real name is the best way to go unless you’re trying to hide something, which I’m not.
There’s the problem discussing it with you. How can you? You’re sanctimoniously never wrong about anything.
I keep telling my kids that. They don’t buy it though.
- Van Amadon wrote:You’re just playing a game aren’t you Iris. You know exactly what the revelators insinuated when they said “ingenious self-deception.”You use the name Iris like it’s a bad thing. Irises are beautiful, a truly noble flower, which is why I chose it. It’s one of my favorites. I have several beds of them in various colors. But that aside, I do know what the revelators mean when they use the words ingenious self-deception. Isn’t that how they referred to Lucifer? Do you think I’m Lucifer? Do you think I’m evil, sinful and full of iniquity?
Van Amadon wrote: For you to indicate that “you got that right” that you don’t think the religious concepts of the Urantia Book cannot be PERSONALLY turned into personal doctrine and dogma, like I see it presented on these forums by some all the time, puts the ingenuity of why intellectual crystallization occurs on display.
So I’m right. This topic is just another attempt by you to cast aspersions on those of us who take TUB study seriously. I know you don’t like me and I know you don’t like Bradly. You criticize everything we say, but I think that’s your problem, not mine or Bradly’s. I think your attempt to start what looks like a legitimate thread on a legitimate topic is actually a ruse to spew hatred towards the two of us. Now, if that isn’t nasty, I don’t know what is. Your intentions and motivations are now on public display. Let the readers decide for themselves . . .
Van Amadon wrote:Is reading the Urantia Book “the doing of the Father’s will?” Is riding a bike with training wheels “riding a bike?”
Just added that little gem to the Van/nodisms Collection. Can anyone explain it to me?
One of my favorite sayings is: The UB says what it says and does not say what it does not! A good place to begin discussing the contents is to allow the authors to speak for themselves first for they purposefully wrote what they meant and meant what they wrote. Now whether one believes what they wrote is another issue.
For those of us who have come to believe that the authors’ claims in what they wrote is true and important, then the 5th Epochal Revelation contains very important information for us to learn and come to understand and apply in our daily walk with God. If such study inspires ideals and actions which express the inner life in the daily walk, then study of the UB can certainly be an important task and choice for the believer…and to discuss it with others is a form of dissemination. Study groups (and on-line discussions groups are one form of those) remain central to dissemination and provide for the interaction of a diverse group of religionists and their personal experiences. If it is what it says, then certainly the UB needs to be spread far and wide and studied deeply and applied to life.
As no creeds or dogmas have been offered by Van/nod but merely accusations of creeds and dogmas, the question arises about the contents of the UB. Since delivered in written form, one might say the book itself has been crystalized or set in its contents. But the real student of the book soon realizes how the meanings and values of the words so presented certainly can, will, and do change based on the increasing discernment and experience of the student in the living of a believer’s life. This religious life cannot be crystalized or its not going on.
"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."
Many of us have had the experience in which reading the TUB is a different experience every time one reads it. I am on my 4th time reading cover to cover, and I am finding entirely new gems of wisdom and spiritual ‘salt’ to savor on each and every page.
Van Amadon wrote:Is reading the Urantia Book “the doing of the Father’s will?” Is riding a bike with training wheels “riding a bike?”
I prefer a uni(ty)cycle.
P1732:2, 155:6.9 The religions of authority can only divide men and set them in conscientious array against each other; the religion of the spirit will progressively draw men together and cause them to become understandingly sympathetic with one another. The religions of authority require of men uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in the present state of the world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience — uniformity of destiny — making full allowance for diversity of belief. The religion of the spirit requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. The religion of the spirit does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration.
I rest my case.
Since delivered in written form, one might say the book itself has been crystalized or set in its contents. But the real student of the book soon realizes how the meanings and values of the words so presented certainly can, will, and do change based on the increasing discernment and experience of the student in the living of a believer’s life. This religious life cannot be crystalized or its not going on.
That’s exactly right Bradly. We have been given words. Words have meanings . . . but which meanings? How do we figure out what the words mean? I think the best approach is to internalize the words and allow the spirit influences within the soul to do the sorting and interpreting for us. If we are as we say we are, truth seekers, then we will recognize the truth within. Truth is something found in the soul. I won’t reproduce the quotes for that because I think everyone already knows it. It’s my belief that the words we read in TUB are meant to foster that inner reflection in which we exercise our spiritual insight muscles to discover, recognize, interpret and choose meanings with value . . . with truth, beauty and goodness. I believe that once those gems are discovered, they are best shared, which is what we are doing here.
May I suggest that if Enno cannot recognize truth, beauty and goodness in the meanings and values we share here, that perhaps he would be happier elsewhere? I don’t think we have to change our thinking to make him happy, do you? Don’t you think a persistent malcontent might be seriously trying to put unreal things into action? We know that truth makes us happy because it can be acted out. If you’re constantly unhappy here Enno, perhaps it’s because your way of thinking about what’s going on here is not true. Have you ever considered that?
I’m not the one marching around my room Iris. When you told us you did that, what made you it?
- Van Amadon wrote:You’re just playing a game aren’t you Iris. You know exactly what the revelators insinuated when they said “ingenious self-deception.”You use the name Iris like it’s a bad thing. Irises are beautiful, a truly noble flower, which is why I chose it. It’s one of my favorites. I have several beds of them in various colors. But that aside, I do know what the revelators mean when they use the words ingenious self-deception. Isn’t that how they referred to Lucifer? Do you think I’m Lucifer? Do you think I’m evil, sinful and full of iniquity?
Van Amadon wrote: For you to indicate that “you got that right” that you don’t think the religious concepts of the Urantia Book cannot be PERSONALLY turned into personal doctrine and dogma, like I see it presented on these forums by some all the time, puts the ingenuity of why intellectual crystallization occurs on display.
So I’m right. This topic is just another attempt by you to cast aspersions on those of us who take TUB study seriously. I know you don’t like me and I know you don’t like Bradly. You criticize everything we say, but I think that’s your problem, not mine or Bradly’s. I think your attempt to start what looks like a legitimate thread on a legitimate topic is actually a ruse to spew hatred towards the two of us. Now, if that isn’t nasty, I don’t know what is. Your intentions and motivations are now on public display. Let the readers decide for themselves . . .
Van Amadon wrote:Is reading the Urantia Book “the doing of the Father’s will?” Is riding a bike with training wheels “riding a bike?”
Just added that little gem to the Van/nodisms Collection. Can anyone explain it to me?
old saying: doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results = insanity. Troll feeding is such a waste.
Totally agree with you.
I think the best approach is to internalize the words
Totally agree with you.
I think the best approach is to internalize the words
Totally agree with you.
That’s what I meant about riding a bike.
We’re talking the same language.
Many of us have had the experience in which reading the TUB is a different experience every time one reads it. I am on my 4th time reading cover to cover, and I am finding entirely new gems of wisdom and spiritual ‘salt’ to savor on each and every page.
Keryn, why do you think this is? Where it would seem that the text is changing as we read from time to time, or our understanding of its context, is different? Either way, it seems to be alive.
Are there any specific things that stand out as having changed? I noticed, in the past, as did Bonita, that there was a reference to being able to change weather patterns, under certain circumstances, and what she posted, I agreed with, although when searched, it was presented differently. So, we can see what is written in text today, but what of those things that we might remember as having changed. Is this crystallization or dynamic thought or memory?
I noticed, in the past, as did Bonita, that there was a reference to being able to change weather patterns, under certain circumstances
I thought it said we would learn to control the weather. I think Rick thought he read that too. We all looked and no one found anything that said those words, only we found something akin to it. So, obviously when I read it the first time, I read something into it that wasn’t there. I think that happens a lot, which is why the book should be read multiple times. We simply cannot process everything in it with one pass through. Which is why we study it. The fact that we need to keep studying it is an indication that it has not yet crystallized.
Many of us have had the experience in which reading the TUB is a different experience every time one reads it. I am on my 4th time reading cover to cover, and I am finding entirely new gems of wisdom and spiritual ‘salt’ to savor on each and every page.
Keryn, why do you think this is? Where it would seem that the text is changing as we read from time to time, or our understanding of its context, is different? Either way, it seems to be alive. Are there any specific things that stand out as having changed? I noticed, in the past, as did Bonita, that there was a reference to being able to change weather patterns, under certain circumstances, and what she posted, I agreed with, although when searched, it was presented differently. So, we can see what is written in text today, but what of those things that we might remember as having changed. Is this crystallization or dynamic thought or memory?
I do not think the ‘text is changing as we read’. It is definitely because *we* are changing, as we read. I mean, think about it; a book as long as TUB means one cannot, in ordinary circumstances, read the entire tome more than once every 9 months – a year or more. As we are reading it, the concepts become more and more alive to us. Then, when we re-read it, new concepts become more clear and seem new but really, it’s just that now we have the background, the new eyes, with which to see the new concepts.
And on and on it goes, like a wonderful spiral moving us inward, closer to God. What could be more alive than that?! “Intellectual crystallization”? Not in my experience! Unless the word “crystallization” means to make more clearly defined. Then, maybe, yes. But not only intellectually but internally as well, from the heart to the head.
