Jim Watkins

Asserting Our Spiritual Influence; Why Do We Not Lay Siege?

Published on October 3, 2020October 3, 2020 by Jim Watkins2 Comments

In Paper 155 of the Urantia Book Jesus, as he discusses “why the heathen rage,” asks why it is that those who know spiritual truth do not ‘lay siege’ as do the heathens; why do we vacillate, why do we yearn for better days but do little to make those days happen when we can openly share the truths we know with our fellows?

Here is the actual quote: UB 155:1.3)

{The Heathen|Because their outlook is small and narrow, they are able to concentrate their energies enthusiastically. Their goal is near and more or less visible; wherefore do they strive with valiant and effective execution. You who have professed entrance into the kingdom of heaven are altogether too vacillating and indefinite in your teaching conduct. The heathen strike directly for their objectives; you are guilty of too much chronic yearning. If you desire to enter the kingdom why do you not take it by spiritual assault even as the heathen take a city they lay siege to? You are hardly worthy of the kingdom when your service consists so largely in an attitude of regretting the past, whining over the present, and vainly hoping for the future. Why do the heathen rage? Because they know not the truth. Why do you languish in futile yearning? Because you obey not the truth. Cease your useless yearning and go forth bravely doing that which concerns the establishment of the kingdom.”

There is a lot to unpack, but for this article I draw attention to the primary point which is why those with small, yet precise causes are more effective in gaining victory, meanwhile here we are are full of revelatory knowledge and yet, we keep it to ourselves for fear of being rejected, misunderstood or both.

Is there no way to share new truth?

I am not calling for corner prophets to evangelize the Urantia teachings, nor do I believe in the revolutionary approach to sharing new truths, which we have discussed on my podcast previously. But surely there is an in-between, a way of seizing opportunity to lay siege when you hear someone say something that is not true about God, for example, or about Jesus,, or some teaching that is misinterpreted.

As a for example, when one of my progressive friends drops a comment about “Jesus freaks”, or ‘religious nuts,’ or ‘idiot Christians,’ I am not afraid to condemn the comment, or engage as to why they feel that way. If I see an article that is patently false when it displays something about faith, or people of faith as being weak or somehow non-intelligent, I am not afraid to go toe-to-toe.

People need not marginalize people of faith. We must defend our ground.

Another arena that I like to ‘lay siege’ to is Science.

Scientist are very arrogant, equally dogmatic, as we know. And they like to assert truth when there is not truth, there is only theory.

I come from the position that the revelators know more about science than human scientists, so yes, in my own dogmatic way, I assert the Urantia Book is a touchstone on certain things about science that Scientists themselves are completely ignorant of, such as how the cosmos came into existence, and how could physical existence produce will creatures of wisdom-capacity?

In fact, the very physics of science (The Laws of Thermodynamics) display no indication as to why we even exist? and yet our hubris asserts there is no such super-reality capable of orchestrating a living universe. How can we, barely much higher than a sea slug , even presume to know why the universe is here? and yet we assert the Big Bang as if it is a settled question, much like we do with climate science, human origins, and even whether or not religion has any real value.

Science completely operates upon the foundation of an accidental, or non-causational emergence theory, the Big Bang. Scientists also say that ‘the big bang’ happened just under 14 billion years ago. The number is based on what we can detect and how far we can detect things like pulsars and CMBR; but how can we really know how ‘old’ the universe really is, this universe, or any clear understanding of where the universe begins and ends, with an degree of certainty?

Science also says that modern man came out of Africa.

Again, the Urantia Book says we came from Asia, new evidence seems to indicate this is true, just like new evidence shows that there were three forms of early humans and the timeline is meshing more and more with the Urantia timeline. All of which sustains my point that I trust the revelators because they have no reason to mislead, and in fact, have been vindicated so many times I have lost count.

Every single week there is yet another find or discovery which confirms Urantia pre-history.

Enough said.

The truths of the Urantia book, or any religion, are what count, and the truth of human spirituality is more important than the fact of religion; the truth that life is not worthless and there is real meaning inspires people, not the fact that we evolved from nothing. And right now the world needs more truth and less fact, especially when so-called facts keep being adjusted because human beings simply cannot admit we don’t have all of the answers.

The Revelators state “only when man is finally sick of himself will he turn to God,” but today’s generation has forgotten who God is, what he is, and there is no better place to make that discovery than on the pages of this most recent revelation, a true gift of the Gods, if you ask me.

These days present plenty of opportunity to lift people up and out of misery or temporal grief.

So as one idea, forward a paragraph from the Urantia Book to a friend once in a while, perhaps post it on social media, something small but potent.

Jesus used parables because truth has a way of revealing itself through parable. But something more, which is to ask people questions and draw them out. Ask them what they think about this, or that and listen.

These are small ways to assert spiritual ideas and get people to elevate their thinking. It’s the only way we can lift civilization UP. We must be torchbearers of truth and ambassadors of revelatory insight.

And we can do it “as we pass by,” in our daily living.

The act is ours; the consequences, God. Truth eventually asserts itself and is revelaed just as a flower emerges from a drought-stricken desert.

Eventually life, and the forces behind it, win.

Sign of The Times

Published on August 15, 2020August 15, 2020 by Jim Watkins1 Comment

(Reposted from May 2019)

Even if you just extrapolate the intersectional coincidence of two consecutive solar eclipses occurring seven years apart – and at the exact location of a huge Christian cross, the incident itself is quite extraordinary.

Why the press never picked up on this event is astounding, after all, isn’t every day you have two consecutive solar eclipses criss-cross on a huge cross that just happens to be at the right place at the right time – 7 years apart!

Let’s back up so I can unpack this for you.

On August 21, 2017 the United States was in a perfect position to observe a solar eclipse that started in Northwest Oregon and crossed as it were, like a black marker being written on a map, from the Northwest to the Southeast U.S.

The next solar eclipse, slated for April 8, 2024, will take a perpendicular path that intersects near Carbondale, Ill, in the Shawnee National Forest at the exact site of an 1,100- foot cross known as the Bald Knob Cross of Peace.

Cool, right? A criss-cross eclipse intersects at the exact spot where there happens to be a gigantic “cross of peace.”

Okay, so a solar eclipse isn’t that rare, nor are crosses of large size and structure, so while cool in concept, not as uncommon as one might think. It isn’t as random, statistically speaking, that such an event doesn’t occur whenever any eclipse criss-crosses; it’s just a humorous happenstance.

Until you observe the dates.

August 21 and April 8 share two distinctions that very few people know about, and the fact that they share this distinction makes it self evident that if there was ever a sign from heaven, this might be it – if you knew what you were looking for….

You see, there is an obscure and unknown book called The Urantia Book that, in addition to many things, also claims to be a new revelation of truth.

One large section of The Urantia Book is a 700-plus narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. In this section, they state that Jesus was born on August 21, 7BC (later adjusted from the Julian, to the now used Gregorian calendar). This narrative also states that Jesus was crucified on Friday, April 7th, 30 AD, and he rose on Sunday morning April 9th at 3am. If you account for the fact that Sunday 3am in Jerusalem is still 6pm Saturday night in the U.S., or, if we speculate that the process of Jesus’ resurrection probably took place on Saturday (the intervening time between his death and his resurrection) either way, we could agree that Saturday April 8th was the day Jesus “returned from the bosom of the Father” to rise as the resurrected Christ (dating software we can confirm that April 8th, AD 30 did fall on a Saturday)

So back to our solar eclipse.

How strange is it that two eclipses, seven years apart (seven is a spiritual number), occurring on two significant dates (Jesus’ birthday and Jesus’ resurrection day) intersecting as they did, on the exact site where there is an enormous Christian symbol?

What can we deduce from this event?

Some have suggested that, taking this event into account as I have described, the solar event marks a seven-year “tribulation,” a time of making choices about one’s spiritual commitment; that this event symbolizes a period from the “birth of Jesus to the death and re-birth of Jesus as the Christ suggesting an intervening period of reconciliation and dawning of a new age.

Halpert Katzen, a Urantia Book researcher who attended the first eclipse in 2017, and also drew the same comparisons in noticing the coincidental eclipse, also adds the connection to the Shawnee National Forest is significant because its Native American Prophet is actually mentioned in the Urantia Book (with regard to true spiritual teachers who arise from time to time in human history):

(90:2:9) Ever and anon, true prophets and teachers arose to denounce and expose shamanism. Even the vanishing red man had such a prophet within the past hundred years, the Shawnee Tenskwatawa, who predicted the eclipse of the sun in 1806 and denounced the vices of the white man.

For Katzen, he senses the two eclipses signify a period of choosing, or perhaps a closing of one dispensation, or “age” and the beginning of another.

And he might not be alone in this assessment of “end times” forecasting.

THE THIRD CONNECTION

While most mainline Christians have no knowledge of this particular event with relation to the Urantia Book, many evangelical teachings today denote this period as the “end times,” using quotes from Revelations as examples of prophecy:

(Rev 8: 10-12) 10 “The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11 the name of the star is Wormwood.[a] A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

12 The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark.A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.”

Many believe, because of statements like these littered throughout scripture, that a natural event like an impact of a destructive comet or asteroid is actually prophesied to occur during the “end days,” and this event may actually usher in a new era that lasts ‘a thousand years.’

So we now can draw our attention to an event that is timed to occur just after an extremely unusual second eclipse, and an equally important astronomical event set to occur just before the 2000th anniversary of Jesus’ resurrection, all of this set to occur in the year 2029 when earth will have a strange and spectacular visitor.

Of course scientist are saying today that the asteroid, called Apophis (The Greek God of Destruction) will miss earth by 19,000 miles. But it’s ten years from now, even just a slight deviation in the Earth’s trajectory or speed, or that of the asteroid, by even a few seconds or minutes over the 3,652 days between now and then could spell disaster on a global scale.

In the picture below you see the earth and the thousands of satellites circling the earth’s orbit. To the right you see Apophis’s trajectory on February 13, 2029. While there is a bit of a comfort zone, this is only an estimated trajectory. We still don’t know what effect Earth’s gravity might have on the approaching asteroid.

Some speculate that Apophis could be “pulled” closer to the earth creating a much greater chance of impact.

It would literally be hell on earth if this were to occur, and because of our dependence on tech and our current societal infrastructure, most people would simply not know how to react. We would literally be thrown back into the stone age in a matter of days or weeks, and it would be a long, slow recovery if a major asteroid hit a city or a coastline in proximity to a major city. More than half of the world’s population lives near or within 50 miles of the coast.

The current trajectory prediction, has it passing over the United States after 6pm ET on Friday, February 13, 2029. It will be visible to most North Eastern and North Central residents.

2029 also makes the last year, 1,999 years since the last dispensation began, for that was the day Christ rose from the dead, an event which ushered in a new age, or dispensation.

We know from the Urantia Book that dispensations are periodic and usually occur just before, or just after a divine revelation occurs, and since we have been informed that the Urantia text is a revelation, what we don’t know is whether a dispensation has passed, or is about to occur. Could this eclipse, the subsequent asteroid, coupled with a world war or some societal calamity finally crack civilization into pieces, setting us back a thousand years or more?

URANTIA BOOK CREDIBILITY

Let me add one more item to give my conspiracy some weight.

As I explained in my 2015 book, The Urantia Papers: Exploring a New Revelation, one of the remarkable things about the Urantia Book is that it correctly asserts a multiple of scientific positions that have all later proven correct.

Let me offer one that lends credibility to its claim of authenticity:

In the paper narrating the birth of Jesus and the legend of the Star of Bethlehem, the author states that, in the year of Jesus birth (7BC), there was a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter that occurred three times that year. The dates of this conjunction are May 29th, September 29th and December 5th in 7 BC.

These dates, though seemingly plucked out of thin air, are accurate and can be proven by astronomy star-map tracking programs.

Dr. Phillip Calabrese, a retired University of San Diego teacher who also holds a degree in mathematics and physics says the statistical chance of correctly guessing three exact dates from over two-thousand years ago, and choosing the correct planets and the correct constellation, tabulates to a greater than ten-million to one chance they would be correct.

There is little chance these dates were approximated or randomly guessed in 1934, when the Urantia Book was written.

And yet….

Has anyone ever explained the now famous astronomical event (the Star of Bethlehem) with this kind of pinpoint accuracy?

The answer is no. Does anyone clsim to know why a brilliant star led three Iranian priests to seek out a newborn baby in Jerusalem?

This astronomical event isn’t recorded as being significant in any publication except the Bible as an supposed ‘miraculous’ event, but more reasonably explained by verifiable science in the Urantia Book – just as this same book also provides for Jesus’ birth date- which many scholars now believe most likely did occur in the late summer or fall, when census was known to have taken place in Jerusalem (as detailed in the biblical narrative), and just as we are now provided, by the text, the actual resurrection date of Saturday, April 8, 30AD, which can be absolutely confirmed by modern dating programs as falling on Saturday in AD 30.

Look for the signs of the changing seasons.

All if this speculation proves nothing. It only proves that there could be some sign being given to us, depending on our interpretation of said events, and how much these things may be coincidences – but also might be symbolic involving several different circumstances taking place simultaneously now on our world at this time.

There is simmering global turmoil, a solar eclispe that puts us in a seven year reconciliation periodic that has direct links to Christ, and a potential astronomical calamity that, in addition to be prophecied, could also take place at about the time humanity is entering a new millineum.

Or it could be the fanciful imagination of a blogger who is able to loosely piece together a rather interesting conspiracy, pulling strands from space, as it were, that have interesting – if not compelling evidence to suggest something interesting is about to happen?

I welcome your thoughts.

5 Things Everyone Wants To Know

Published on July 24, 2020September 26, 2020 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

What five astonishing things people want to believe are true and are disclosed in the Urantia Book?

Consider the following:

1. Life on other worlds is common, we are not alone

2. The universe is administered to by highly spiritual and loving beings whom we we will meet someday, including those loved ones who passed on.

3. We, as a society, are supposed to be progressing towards universal peace and goodwill, it is our destiny as a species because we are indwelt by Deity for that purpose. Hence the mandate in the Bible, “Be your perfect even as I am perfect.”

4. That Jesus really was a high order Son – the literal Son of God, who came to live as a mortal man for the specific and planned purpose of revealing new truth to humanity about God’s nature, but that his message got absorbed by a lot of different religions that pushed his teachings into several different directions. But that his entire life is of record – and is now accessible.

5. That there is an afterlife and each of us have equal standing in being able to be a part of that afterlife, but that our choices here now, do matter, not so much with our survival, which we receive through faith, but with our own inner growth.

Which Side is God Rooting For?

Published on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

A recent article by Cameron Hilditch in National Review on July 2nd talks about how there is an assertion of dominance going on between the West and the East, between what is referred to as a civilization-state, like Russia and China, and a nation-state, like the U.S., Mexico, or Canada.

Cameron writes, when describing the difference, “The nation-state, properly defined, is a territory in which a single sovereign government wields the geographic monopoly on violence.” and further, “Whereas Westerners think of their countries as nations, men such as Putin and Xi think of their own as civilizations. The idea of the civilization-state allows a polity to extend the story of its own history back to a time before its current constitutional settlement.”

“The role of the government in a civilization-state is therefore different from its role in a nation-state. In the former, the purpose of government is to maintain the unity of the civilization across time and space and prevent its dilution, rather than secure the individual rights of its citizens.”

“The very different relationship between conscience and coercion envisaged by America’s enemies demonstrates what is at stake in the coming great-power struggle,” he concludes:

“In the coming clash of civilizations, the United States would appear to be at a severe disadvantage EXCEPT for the fact that the beliefs about human nature and religious freedom that underpinned American Revolutionary thought have a rich and hard-won history that reaches back to the earliest days of Christianity.”

In other words, what distinguishes us from the rest of the world is our foundational Christian heritage.

When one asks, “Does God have a special mission for the U.S?. It would appear we have an answer.

Dennis Prager stated recently in an Interview for The Epoch Times, that “if something as powerful as the 10 commandments isn’t relevant, then what’s the point? It has to be relevant for it to matter.”

By the same rule, if the Urantia Book isn’t relevant, what’s the point? But in this discussion about the U.S., about the differences between a godless-Civilization State, and a nation-state that treasures the human spirit, we can ask an important and relevant question. Does God, or at least what we might imagine to be the principles of Godliness, favor one kind of nation or another?

From this we can find and answer in paper 69 on the Human progress, we can read specifically that communism is NOT the ideal form of government, at least beyond its earlier stages in the earlier times of human evolution…pause to consider the following passages:

“Communism was indispensable scaffolding in the growth of primitive society, but it gave way to the evolution of a higher social order because it ran counter to four strong human proclivities:

1. The family. Man not only craves to accumulate property; he desires to bequeath his capital goods to his progeny. But in early communal society a man’s capital was either immediately consumed or distributed among the group at his death. There was no inheritance of property—the inheritance tax was one hundred per cent. The later capital-accumulation and property-inheritance mores were a distinct social advance. And this is true notwithstanding the subsequent gross abuses attendant upon the misuse of capital.

2. Religious tendencies. Primitive man also wanted to save up property as a nucleus for starting life in the next existence. This motive explains why it was so long the custom to bury a man’s personal belongings with him. The ancients believed that only the rich survived death with any immediate pleasure and dignity. The teachers of revealed religion, more especially the Christian teachers, were the first to proclaim that the poor could have salvation on equal terms with the rich.

3. The desire for liberty and leisure. In the earlier days of social evolution the apportionment of individual earnings among the group was virtually a form of slavery; the worker was made slave to the idler. This was the suicidal weakness of communism: The improvident habitually lived off the thrifty. Even in modern times the improvident depend on the state (thrifty taxpayers) to take care of them. Those who have no capital still expect those who have to feed them.

4. The urge for security and power. Communism was finally destroyed by the deceptive practices of progressive and successful individuals who resorted to diverse subterfuges in an effort to escape enslavement to the shiftless idlers of their tribes.

And then there is this specific statement where, as the revelators state, from paper 70, paragraph 12, where they state the following exhortation to us on the best path for civilization to take, on what they offer to us as the way for humans to live:

“The universe administrators have learned from experience that the evolutionary peoples on the inhabited worlds are best regulated by the representative type of civil government when there is maintained proper balance of power between the well-co-ordinated executive, legislative, and judicial branches.”

It would appear then, that the Revelators, indeed, the Most Highs whole rule in Kingdoms of Men, are absolutely specific on what provides the best impetus for a truly progressive civilization.

What makes this comment most intriguing is its clarity. Rarely does the Urantia Book proffer specific advice on how we should manage our earthly affairs., preferring for us to find our own way.

Amidst the current global tension, its nice to have some good avice.

America is on the right track. The question now is whether we can maintain this path.

…

Race Reconciliation

Published on June 7, 2020June 7, 2020 by Jim Watkins1 Comment

There can be no question mankind must mete out our social stigmas as they have accumulated over time; one of these imperfections is our racial discrimination, and it isn’t just one race doing it to another, to be sure.

We can all admit that there is racial discord. Thank God we have moved out of the barbaric times of our not-so-distant past where there was such a thing as legal slavery.

Today the scars still run deep, and there is still racism, an inherent reflex to judge someone based upon the color of their skin. Reconciliation doesn’t happen overnight, but great strides will be made as Black Americans and White Americans learn to come to grips with the fact that they must co-exist as equal partners. Let us recognize our differences, but let us also share in the appreciation of what our ancestors did to pay the heavy price for us to get to where we are today. This country belongs to all of us, to everyone who believes in the strength of ‘Of many, one.”

We are all God’s children, and if we start there great things can and will continue to happen. If we can find our spirit-commoness, true reconciliation can be achieved.

For now, our common enemy are those forces who would like to see the United States fail, who would like to see our liberty and our free speech diminish. The United States belongs to all of us who cherish true liberty, the right to exist unfettered.

The Urantia Book tells us that the different colored races wer eintended to provide stimulative co-operation, to learn tolerance and trust, to learn how to get along and to become stronger as one progressive race as time moves forward, that is our shared destiny.

History is replete with racial strife, most of it pretty ugly, which is why when we see honest protests as we are witnessing today, we can be joyous that better times are ahead; already mankind has made great strides towards settling his dfferences peacefully instead of picking up a sword, a knife or a gun to solve his problems as was the old fashion way.

Let us be encouraged in that recognition as we continue to find common ground on what brings us together as Americans; and as we do so through intelligent discourse and a desirous pursuit of mutual understanding, we remain a beacon of hope for the world.

The Urantia Book clearly outlines racial reconciliation as the better way, the more advanced way for any progressive society seeking to establish goodwill and peace on earth.

Urantia Book 52:6:4

“Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love.”

God 2.0

Published on May 27, 2020June 7, 2020 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

God Must Be Redefined

The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised. (UB 99:1:6)

The revelators tell us that the father concept is the highest concept we can have of our heavenly father-creator.

“The Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.” (UB 196:3:35)

It’s the last sentence in the book. But what of a generation, or even a world, of which half of the children are born out of wedlock and these children never know their father? What of their concepts of a loving heavenly father?

Do you think today’s young person will cling to the idea of a loving father as God?

We know Jesus portrayed God as a loving father, and we know that the father concept is appropriate when loving fathers are what populate the majority of a truly progressive civilization. When the strong family-unit is emphasized, then yes, God as a father is a perfect concept because a society of children who know what a loving father is makes its best appeal when we then present God as the ideal spiritual parent.

Today’s world is different. You know this. God must be redefined to appeal to a new generation of people who may not understand the fraternal connection, who may not understand the value of fatherhood as a spiritual concept, or even of the way our ancestors showed respect for the father-figure. How, then, do we convey the loving character of the Creator, the Deity Supreme, as real?

How do we make God make sense to a new generation of Nones?

God-consciousness is inherent in us. People are hard-wired to seek truth, and the desire to seek, find and understand truth is a spiritual cause.

Only the spirit value of any experience survives the mortal experience.

Let’s pour new wine into new wineskins and stay away from the ghost-cultish old wine-skin way of thinking about God is an anthropomorphic angry white guy whose main job is to make you feel guilty all of the time.

We need to update to God 2.0

Consider these last two paragraphs from the Urantia Book.

196:3.34 (2097.2) The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness—contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.

196:3.35 (2097.3) And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual reality. Only the spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Sons’ sons—mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.

…and then there is this nugget from the first paper in the Urantia Book where it talks about God’s name as Deity is known and expressed throughout the known universe of intelligent living beings.

1:1.3 (22.6) When you have once become truly God-conscious, after you really discover the majestic Creator and begin to experience the realization of the indwelling presence of the divine controller, then, in accordance with your enlightenment and in accordance with the manner and method by which the divine Sons reveal God, you will find a name for the Universal Father which will be adequately expressive of your concept of the First Great Source and Center. And so, on different worlds and in various universes, the Creator becomes known by numerous appellations, in spirit of relationship all meaning the same but, in words and symbols, each name standing for the degree, the depth, of his enthronement in the hearts of his creatures of any given realm.

In the end, whatever your designation of what God is, only represents your own highest concept of what you think Deity represents. But in any scenario God must also be a personality, even the source of all personality, just as we are personalities who can know and be known.

The Dangers of Revelation

Published on May 18, 2020 by Jim Watkins2 Comments

Forgive me my absence. It has been sometime since my last post. Time has been preoccupied with a pandemic and a desire to thrust myself into the podcast world to report it. I felt compelled to provide honest information. Most do not.

All of this at the sacrifice of my Urantia website and podcast. But all is not lost. To take the edge off of these contentious times I have been listening to hours upon hours of audio from the Chris Halvorson study sessions they have archived on the Perfecting Horizons website.

These are audio files of Urantia Book study groups conducted at his Perfecting Horizons Institute in Boulder.

There are two parts to this blog. The first is how much I appreciate what Chris has done. The second is on the key takeaway points I wish to share with you regarding the revelation itself, and credit again goes to Chris for providing the impetus for the commentary I am about to share.

There is a lot to learn by the way Mr. Halvorson does his study groups. There is no doubt his knowledge of the Urantia Book is replete. Also, having a person who has a doctorate in Physics explain the Urantia Book is a unique and enjoyable listening experience. I invite you to listen. Most of my experience has been listening to people expressing how they feel about the papers, but Chris leaves his own feelings out, as it were, and instead, focuses on the intent of the book in presenting new truth instead of mere facts.

At some point while I was listening to Chris (reading and discussing Paper 72 on the Lucifer Rebellion from the Urantia Book), I realized that I, too, have also fallen into the trap of thinking about the facts of the UB as opposed to the truth; I have tried to use facts to share the revelation instead of truth. By using facts to share truth, the truth gets lost.

For example, when we talk about the fact that Urantia is the 606th world in a system of other worlds, we miss the truth that God’s creation is filled with life – that is the revelation, not our planetary numerical order. Which concept has more meaning? the number of our world, or that our world is not alone? Today our world is on the precipice of discovering other worlds with life. How well-received would it be to have a book that confirms such things are true?

Here is another example of focusing on facts instead of truth. I can focus on the fact of there being a seraphic government of varying groups of angels helping us, or I can convey the truth that there is indeed an economy of loving spiritual beings who are part of our growing experience of existence. and that it is being revelaed to us for the first time who they are and what they do?

Always look to the truth behind the facts.

The Urantia Book is a collection of facts that attempt to show an orderly and well-guided universe of living systems. Chris points out repeatedly the Urantia papers as whole, is a revelation of new truth of the fact that there is a real purpose and sublime destiny that exists beyond the material order. The Urantia Book explains these things to us because we, according to the revelators, are ready to receive this expanded cosmology.

The Urantia papers are a revelation, not an affirmation. We can’t simply “pour new wine into old wineskins.”

The Urantia Book will be unsettling because it clarifies evolutionary religion, it clears up many misconceptions we have developed in our many religions, and in doing so, many people of authority within these various religions will be challenged by what the Urantia Book states. People’s own preconceived notions of God, Deity and divinity will be challenged by the revelation.

Revelation is new wine being poured into old wineskins when we attempt to reveal too much too soon because people have a tendency to take new information and view it through the lense of pre-conceived and cherished ideas. “The influence of the ghost cult,” Professor Halvorson says, “doesn’t go away easily.”

It’s a good lesson to remember.

The audio recordings which can be found on Perfecting Horizons are an intimate way of sharing truth, instead of just the facts.

We early adapters must be patient with the world at large. The good news though, according to Halvorson, is all is proceeding as it should.

The fifth epochal revelation is new to all of us, so the experience of what to do with it? Well, only the future will tell.

A Virus, Angels and a Revelation

Published on February 21, 2020August 9, 2020 by Jim Watkins1 Comment

I have to admit, I’m not an end-of-the world kinna of guy, but this coronavirus thing has me a little worried, and it serves as a great reason to explore why having this revelation is especially vital during these times. Jesus reminded us to discern the turning of the leaves and the changing seasons.

No doubt the coronavirus is starting to get people’s attention. The ramifications of its spread should provide people with a reason to worry, especially since there is no vaccine. The world is so interconnected that what happens to 1.4 billion people affects everyone on numerous levels, least among them is the fact that people die from this sickness and it spreads easily, not to mention the economic effects that will ripple to every corner of the earth. I wouldn’t say God is causing this or punishing us, but clearly mankind is being tested for his “less than spiritual behavior” that has brought us to this event (I will get to China in just a moment).

Now, I have no doubt that we are in good hands, as we are told about in Paper 113 of the Urantia Book, that among the seraphic personalities who minister and care for us during our earthly sojourn, “are the seraphic ministers assigned to the assistance of those mortal agencies dedicated to the promotion of health and the prevention of disease.”

Seems pretty clear. While our earth doctors and biologists seek containment and hopefully find a cure, the angels of health are assisting in this endeavor. I believe this because I believe the revelation. We would remember that we Urantians are at a bit of a disadvantage to withstand some diseases because we failed to get the full measure of Adams’ blood 40,000 years ago, so we would be correct to accept the premise that angelic influence would better aid us in finding a cure for not just the COVID-19 virus, but all diseases that affect us. Our spiritual administrators want us to be healthy, even when our own bad behavior causes us to be sick.

But how do they help?

113:4.3 (1245.3) Seraphim function as teachers of men by guiding the footsteps of the human personality into paths of new and progressive experiences. To accept the guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease.

“…the urge to pray so often experienced by God-conscious mortals very often arises as the result of seraphic influence. The guarding seraphim is constantly manipulating the mortal environment for the purpose of augmenting the cosmic insight of the human ascender to the end that such a survival candidate may acquire enhanced realization.”

“They are not overlords or directors; they are simply guardians. The seraphim guard you; they do not seek directly to influence you; you must chart your own course, but these angels then act to make the best possible use of the course you have chosen.”

There is a quote where it states angels will bring like-minded people together, sometimes by manipulating the environment, or having forethought to coordinate events in such a way as to provide a favorable environment of unity function between minds given to a specific task or project – like finding a cure for a global virus, perhaps?

We are are told that people are at their best in crisis, that true character is displayed when heroism and courage are at work. and it is usually in crisis where true character emerges.

From Paper 3, paragraph 5 we are reminded…

The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:

1. Is courage—strength of character—desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.

2. Is altruism—service of one’s fellows—desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.

3. Is hope—the grandeur of trust—desirable? Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.

4. Is faith—the supreme assertion of human thought—desirable? Then must the mind of man find itself in that troublesome predicament where it ever knows less than it can believe.

5. Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.

6. Is idealism—the approaching concept of the divine—desirable? Then must man struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.

7. Is loyalty— devotion to highest duty—desirable? Then must man carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default.

8. Is unselfishness—the spirit of self-forgetfulness—desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.

9. Is pleasure—the satisfaction of happiness—desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.

So, these scenarios, even under the worst of circumstances, become opportunities to see which of us are faithful, loyal, courageous, and are willing to serve a cause higher than ourselves.

But there is another part of this current virus outbreak that gives pause to a greater dilemma of the modern age. The problem of secularism and the fruit it produces.

PART 2: THE DANGERS OF BEING RULED BY SECULAR WORLD GOVERNMENTS

From paper 195 we are warned about the dangers of secularism, about governments and civilizations that think that the secular humanist approach to governing can bring about world peace or universal brotherhood, but never does.

In fact, we are told the opposite, and to look for the unwanted harvest of death and destruction when man loses or discards spiritual truth predicated on the singular notion of a first source and center, a higher purpose other than simple material gain.

Homeless Encampment – Los Angeles – August 2020 – Courtesy AP

From Paper 195, Paragraph 8 on Materialism:

it threatens to establish a new and godless type of mastery over the hearts and minds of modern man. The tyrannical and dictatorial political state is the direct offspring of scientific materialism and philosophic secularism

Also, from the same paragraph:

Twentieth-century secularism tends to affirm that man does not need God. But beware! this godless philosophy of human society will lead only to unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster….Secularism can never bring peace to mankind. Nothing can take the place of God in human society.

From Paragraph 8, 11:

And because the secularistic revolt went too far and lost sight of God and true religion, there also followed the unlooked-for harvest of world wars and international unsettledness.

And then there is this final remark on the dangers of a secular world, Paper 195, Paragraph 8, 13:

The complete secularization of science, education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. During the first third of the twentieth century Urantians killed more human beings than were killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come.

Also from Paper 195

“Religion is now confronted by the challenge of a new age of scientific minds and materialistic tendencies. In this gigantic struggle between the secular and the spiritual, the religion of Jesus will eventually triumph.”

Christianity – the teachings of Jesus are clearly under attack from the secular East and the Atheist West. Indeed, religious persecution is at a fever-pitch in modern times. Faith itself is under attack as if it a form of danger. The struggle between materialism and secularism is in full swing, between globalists who seek world domination, and those who who are trying to keep the idea of God and spirituality alive and central to human conducr because we (people of faith) assert that without them, we are mere animals part of the animal kingdom, destined for eventual self-annihilation.

No doubt we could see some dark times ahead, just as the Nodites, the Adamites, the early Sumerians, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus dealt with the spiritual blindness of thier times.

We who know spiritual truh, eternal realities and understand God’s purpose must push back against athiestic philosophy and secular totalitarian government. That, and our spiritual growth on this world, must be our first priority if we are the minimize the dark times ahead.

Despite the pandemic, which we know will be controlled eventually, this is where the foot soldiers of faith, the faith-sons and daughters of our creator spiritual father and divine holy spirit will shine. This is our time.

A Jubilee Like No Other

Published on February 7, 2020 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

Below is an article by Joshua Wilson, a Urantia Book reader and pastor in Northern Arizona.

When the Urantia Book talks of the “jubilee of Jubilees” it is in reference to a significant event regarding the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit, a consummation of sorts, which Joshua explains in full detail below.

Thank you in advance to Joshua Wilson for allowing us to reprint his letter.

Proclaim the Holiday of Holidays—May 18 Michael Confirmed as Universe Sovereign, Mother Personally Revealed

Bro. Joshua J. Wilson April 18, 2018

The Coronation

May 18 is a good day to celebrate our universe’s Jubilee of Jubilees.

August 21 is a big day also: Jesus’ birth as a mortal. April 9 was an astounding day—Jesus’ resurrection into morontia form. But on May 18 the people of Urantia have the opportunity to lead the way in all Nebadon—on Salvington, Edentia, Jerusem, and all inhabited planets—the jubilee celebration of Michael’s confirmation from the Paradise Father of his universe sovereignty, and of the Mother’s greater and personal revealing.

This is great news. So what happened on May 18, 30 AD? Two great universe events occurred on that jubilee of jubilees day:

1. Michael, our Creator Son and universe father, departs for his enthronment on Salvington (UB 33:3.5), and his ascent to the right hand of his Father to receive formal confirmation of his sovereignty of Nebadon.

193:5.5

2. Mother, our Creative Spirit, becomes personally knowable by all contacting individuals.

34:2.1 To many universe types of being, even this representation of the Infinite Spirit may not appear to be wholly personal during the ages preceding the final Michael bestowal; but subsequent to the elevation of the Creator Son to the sovereign authority of a Master Son, the CreativeMotherSpirit becomes so augmented inpersonalqualities as to be personally recognized by all contacting individuals.

Personal relationship with Michael

As part of God the Sevenfold, our Creator Son and our Creative Mother Spirit are, to us, God. They are our creators, our parents, father and mother to us. To be personally related to Michael, the one requirement is that you share your inner life with him.

111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God—with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible. Sharing is Godlike—divine.

Michael is the divine word expression of the Father’s thought. He is the designer and creator of the patterns and plans for superhuman, human, animal, and plant life on our world and universe. Michael is the minister of the mercy of the Father to all who struggle and are in need. Our relationship with him through his Spirit of Truth, endowed to all believers on Earth after his ascension, imbues us with power to live and share life on the intellectual and spiritual levels of truth-revealing.

It was about seven forty-five this morning when the morontia Jesus disappeared from

the observation of his eleven apostles to begin the ascent to the right hand of his Father,

there to receive formal confirmation of his completed sovereignty of the universe of Nebadon.

Personal relationship with Mother

The Thought Adjusters/Controllers do not speak English to us, ordinarily, but rather communicate with us in the symbols of the superconscious. However, the Mother does speak our Earth languages. You may share your thoughts and feelings with her continually throughout the day, which develops into a real and personal dialogue. The conversation begins to take on true meaning through closeness and working out all the details of our life; through listening and obeying; through sincere adoration.

Over 200 billion years ago our Mother began giving life and nurturance in our universe through her divine spark of life; through her Holy Spirit, through her assisting mind spirits, her angels, and many supernal beings. She likewise initiated life on our little world 550 million years ago, one among many of such loving and creative efforts by her throughout her universe.

Since Mother is our universe source of mind, it is quite natural that we may find it easier to form concepts of her than of either the Son Michael or the indwelling Father (compare 9:5.4). She draws all minds in our universe unto herself. She is the flexible actor focalizing all spiritual influences; initiating and upholding all life; coordinating all energy, material, and minds; and pervading all local universe space. The Mother ministers the combined love of the Father and the mercy of Michael, and is therefore also known to us as our Divine Minister.

34:5.5 (paraphrased) The Holy Spirit of the Mother is partly independent of your human attitude— and partially conditioned by the decisions and co-operation of your will. The ministry of the Holy Spirit becomes increasingly effective in sanctifying and spiritualizing your inner life as you more fully obey the divine leadings. Do what Mom says.

The Holiday: The Jubilee of Jubilees

On May 18 . . .

call an assembly,
send out “Universe Jubilee of Jubilee” cards,
feed the poor,
ring the bells,
have a reading of these passages and a celebration in your living room,
distribute copies of the “Proclamation of Equality” regarding Michael and Mother, gather with believers outdoors,
take the day off,
pray and meditate,
commune with God and the believers,
create a new ceremony, and write and sing new songs.

For God’s sake, do something to celebrate this great occasion. The rest of the universe—on the capital worlds and the many enlightened planets—already celebrates it as the high holy day. Don’t

be left out. We, of all peoples, must lead the charge, as it was the events on our planet that made this possible: Michael’s seventh and final bestowal. A jubilee is defined as an “anniversary celebration.”

I hope to hear a word of good cheer from you on—mark your calendar—May 18! Glory to God in the highest! Gloria in excelsis deo!

33:3.5 Upon the completion of the Creator Son’s seventh and final creature bestowal, the uncertainties of periodic isolation terminate for the Divine Minister, and the Son’s universe helper becomes forever settled in surety and control. It is at the enthronement of the Creator Son as a Master Son, at the jubilee of jubilees, that the Universe Spirit, before the assembled hosts, first makes public and universal acknowledgment of subordination to the Son, pledging fidelity and obedience. This event occurred in Nebadon at the time of Michael’s return to Salvington after the Urantian bestowal. Never before this momentous occasion did the Universe Spirit acknowledge subordination to the Universe Son, and not until after this voluntary relinquishment of power and authority by the Spirit could it be truthfully proclaimed of the Son that “all power in heaven and on earth has been committed to his hand.”

33:3.6 After this pledge of subordination by the Creative Mother Spirit, Michael of Nebadon nobly acknowledged his eternal dependence on his Spirit companion, constituting the Spirit coruler of his universe domains and requiring all their creatures to pledge themselves in loyalty to the Spirit as they had to the Son; and there issued and went forth the final “Proclamation of Equality.” Though he was the sovereign of this local universe, the Son published to the worlds the fact of the Spirit’s equality with him in all endowments of personality and attributes of divine character. And this becomes the transcendent pattern for the family organization and government of even the lowly creatures of the worlds of space. This is, in deed and in truth, the high ideal of the family and the human institution of voluntary marriage.

33:3.7 The Son and the Spirit now preside over the universe much as a father and mother watch over, and minister to, their family of sons and daughters. It is not altogether out of place to refer to the Universe Spirit as the creative companion of the Creator Son and to regard the creatures of the realms as their sons and daughters—a grand and glorious family but one of untold responsibilities and endless watchcare.

33:3.8 The Son initiates the creation of certain of the universe children, while the Spirit is solely responsible for bringing into existence the numerous orders of spirit personalities who minister and serve under the direction and guidance of this selfsame Mother Spirit. In the creation of other types of universe personalities, both the Son and the Spirit function together, and in no creative act does the one do aught without the counsel and approval of the other.

~~~

Suggested further reading of essays by the author: “Adoration of the Mother,” “The Adult Lives of Michael and Mother,” and “Morphogenesis: The Mother’s Creative Way.”

Available upon request by writing to musical@cox.net.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joshua J. Wilson is a pianist, composer, pastoral counselor, and essayist who writes on historical, psychological, and scientific subjects, harmonizing science, philosophy and spirituality. He discovered The Urantia Book in 1977 and had served in various capacities with the Grand Canyon Society in Arizona.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Decision Information Systems, specializing in Human Behavior in Organizations, and certificates in Not-for-Profit Management and Active Parenting Instruction.

***

We Have To Be Hungry For the Truth

Published on January 21, 2020June 7, 2020 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

There is an argument to be made that the world may not ready for this revelation, the Urantia Book, or for that matter, any revelatory message that might come down from God, and the immediate task is to continue to grow the revelation quietly, just as the Salem Missionaries spread monotheism throughout the world, inspiring and influencing all of the major religions that would emerge right down to the times of Jesus.

It was the work of Machiventa Melchizedek, “the Sage of Salem,” an emergency Son who rescued the truth of God from being extinguished, to keep the light burning in the hearts and minds of men and prepare the way for the Son of Man. In this same way our work in spreading the new revelation will be slow, but sure.

Most of the current readership will never see the fruits of our labor translated into the lives of millions of people who found the revelation. Most of those who study this revelation now will never see mainstream acceptance of this book until such a time when people are spiritually and intellectually prepared to accept the premise of the revelations’ message, which is that we are part of a much larger reality beyond our brief mortal life in the flesh.

China is actually the future for the world as the dominant form of government unless there is a spiritual revival, or else through some revelation, something akin to, or even perhaps the Urantia Book itself, that will create a push-back to this emerging nihilistic throughout Asia, one in which every individual is reduced to a “netizen,” giving total submission and loyalty to the State who controls every move through technology.

China is a living model of a world that lives in spiritual darkness. Just this month the ruling party of China, the Chinese Communist Party, ruled that all religions must enforce the States’ central ideology or they will not be allowed to exist. All religious ceremonies will need to be approved by the government. In a society that is fast-becoming 100% monitored, there will be no dissenters. This ideology should send a shock wave to every human being, but it doesn’t.

And there are even some leaders in this country who advocate even now for this kind of a system in the U.S.. Secular progressives also want God out of humanity; they deem religion moot in the age of science, and see no value in its heritage, or its contributions to human knowledge or culture.

More and more nations are beginning to adopt policies that do not allow for spiritual or religious expression. Once people in free countries give up on faith and religion and its valuable contributions to society, the desire to push back against secularism becomes lessened.

From the West there is little, if any, outrage to the slaughter of thousands of Christians every month worldwide. We don’t care because secularism marginalizes religion, ignores it without regard. We have become desensitized to religious oppression.

America only represents 5% of the worlds population. Yet our influence is great. Perhaps this is the Urantia Book was given to us?

And because our country uniquely allows for religious pluralism, because its liberties are premised on the very teachings of Christ himself, as well as the great truths going all the way back to Greece and Rome, America, the United States. remains the sole country that promotes – by law – the exercise of individual free will, and this makes America in the 21st century a unique place to be, especially when you consider the other secular forces that exist.

Despite the U.S. being the shining beacon on the hill, Today’s Christianity seems powerless to fight back against the secularist tyranny that is on the rise.

In the Middle East and Africa, religious minorities, mostly Christians, are being slaughtered. In China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and elsewhere, religious freedom are strictly controlled. In the West religion faces a different, more subtle enemy: Atheism.

Atheism is cleverly disguised in the West as Materialism, the belief that only the physical reality exists; that there is no spiritual process or ‘plan’ behind any of life other than what we make of it. It is ‘Big Bang’ science that has replaced Deism, the belief in a spiritual power or force for all that is good, true and holy.

Religion is now portrayed in the West as bigoted, oppressive, part of a patriarchy that is both racist and sexist. Religious instruction is disallowed in public schools; in media religion is ignored on television, and in movies, hero-worship is extended to many celebrities themselves are proud secularists who give glory to themselves.

In the West great emphasis is put on material pursuits, so, as the Urantia Book states, “while the atheist denies the reality of existence of God, secularism simply ignores him.”

But what happens when a planet whose very existence was planned by God, denies God? What happens to a people who forget eternal realities, forgets the language of faith and all of the great truths we learn from Scripture, from the other great religious books, including the Urantia Book? What happens when our very language is unable to find expressions for words like God, the soul, spiritual living, because there is no context to what those words mean anymore? Our modern culture has sought to elimnate the classics from our academia, authors who long sought for truth, but who are ignore in the neo-modernist age where only the NOW is regarded as having value.

How can world progress towards peace and spiritual unity when the very word God has little value? What happens to a people when they turn their backs on the idea of eternal life or even of eternal values, when the vary notion of God is seen as silly or against Reason itself.

The answer is a dark world has already come.

In order for truth to spread, truth must be desired, truth must be wished for. Only an enlightened people can embrace ideas of free will and self determination and not be self-destructive.

As Urantia Book readers, our goal is simple: to keep the light of truth burning, just as did the Salem Missionaries, just as the early Disciples of Jesus. But just like the early beginnings of the Christian church, there was also a long period of darkness that followed after Jesus’ truth were proclaimed. The Urantia writers ponder what would have happened had Rome embraced Christianity sooner, would it have survived?

We have to accept that we may be entering a dark age of Atheism and Humanism, where powerful governments take the place of the Church, the place of even God.

Only when the people have grown weary and seen the worst of materialism will they be willing to turn to Deity. Only when man is fully disgusted with his own hubris will he be willing to seek a better way. As it has always been.

Christianity

Published on December 30, 2019January 2, 2020 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

David Kantor, Facebook

WHY CHRISTIANITY DESPERATELY NEEDS TO DISCOVER JESUS

The greatest crisis in the long and checkered history of Christianity will strike Christian civilization like a bolt of lightning on the day NASA announces irrefutable evidence of intelligent life on another planet. Christianity, based largely on the personal experience and philosophy of the apostle Paul, is only locally relevant to a particular culture, particular beliefs of Greeks and Jews living at a particular time in the conceptual evolution of a particular planet–a religion involving blood sacrifices and apocalyptic end times mythologies?

By contrast, the teachings of Jesus are transplanetary in context, and are relevant to any world of intelligent persons in any stage of evolutionary development.

The Urantia Book–as an epochal revelation–gives us an advanced context for recognizing Jesus, the Son of God, incarnated on our world who came with a message about how to live as a creative citizen in an eternal spiritual civilization–a message relevant to an entire universe teeming with intelligent life.

The future is just one news release away.

The Horrible Feeling of Non-Belief

Published on October 24, 2019May 18, 2020 by Jim Watkins2 Comments

by James R. Watkins

Non-Belief is a horrible place.

I am a rare person. I have been a faithful believer in God since I was about 7. I just knew there was a God and I spoke with him frequently and as casually as I would speak to you if I saw you in person.

I didn’t listen for God to talk back to me because I knew he was probably getting messages from everywhere. I trusted he would hear me but I did not need to hear from him in that moment. It was that trust that saved me from a life of disaster. You hear people say it all of the time, God saved me from myself.

Most people either start out believing because they were raised with religious teachings, or are not raised with religion and convert at some point because of a revelation or event that pushes them towards needing spiritual answers.

Or there are people who just don’t connect with religion for a number of reasons.

And I want to talk to about the people who do not find religion, and the effect it can have on a person’s life, even if they don’t realize it.

I also want to add to all of this what the Urantia Book has taught me about non-belief and the toxic effect it has on a society when religion (or faith) loses its influence.

Is it not true that at our core, most people would like to believe in the following things?:

That there is meaning in life, that life is not just an accident.
That our own life has meaning, that we are here for a purpose.
That there is a higher power who cares about me and I am loved.

Now, perhaps you are the kind of person who doesn’t care about these things. You accept that life is about none of these things and instead, is about what you make it, and the only thing that matters is your legacy, what you leave behind.

On some level this is probably satisfying enough. I know many people who are satisfied with this world view. It is a safe place because it requires no commitment to faith in something that cannot be proven by physical means.

But let me tell you what I have seen, and you tell me if you have seen this also:

People who do not believe in spiritual values, or spirit realities like the afterlife, or Deity, or worship, prayer, submission to a greater higher purpose, are toxically anxious, depressed or bitter, continuously pre-occupied by other people’s business, as many of them have no idea what is missing in their own lives.

Not all non-believers are like this, mind you, but many.

People who are antagonistic about religion or the church (usually because of a bad experience, or for selfish reasons) are among the most hateful, depressed and bitter of people you will meet. Many who are not faithful oftentimes never engage in altruism or service; they have an overriding superior belief that life owes them something.

Many who turn their backs on religious faith live life without hope, they give in to nihilism, the belief that there is no belief, only superstition.

To the faithful there is everlasting hope, And with this faith comes the understanding of purpose that is not in vain, one that allows us to serve with greater purpose.

Faith, not nihilism, takes courage, and it is this saving courage that transforms millions of people from giving in to the seemingly futile nature of human life into agents of positive living.

Hope allowed me to keep my sanity during the many dark times of living, it kept me sane.

I fear that as more people lose religious faith and lose hope, societal structure will start to break down just as the individual starts to break down when he or she loses hope and faith in that greater purpose in living.

I fear that someday, Mental Health Institutes will determine that religion is a disorder and must be treated, when it is in fact, the exact opposite which is the true.

Faith and spiritual conviction most likely PREVENTS or cures many forms of mental illness.

The rise in mental illness is most likely a result of, and inversely proportional to, our cultural distancing from the agelong antidotal effect of religious faith. Our faith is intrinsic to oue mind; it is part of who we are as human beings of will dignity. We are not orphans to a purposeless universe.

Meanwhile, there are leaders who want to diminish or marginalize religious institutions, and believe churches must be forced to adopt secular social policies or face legal action. Catholic services are being forced to adhere to secular law when there are spiritual conflicts such as nurses who are Catholic being forced to perform abortions; churches who wish to remain tax-exempt must provide gender neutral bathrooms despite the teachings of those who attend that church; bibles and other religious literature have been removed from public school libraries because some administrators (and atheist parents) hold that Bibles promote “hate-speech,” by not being “inclusive” of LGBTQ lifestyles.

Our Mental Health industry, fueled by enormous profits, disregards the role of faith in mental health care to the tune of billions of dollars a year in mental health “management.”

But isn’t it more likely that the lack of spiritual faith is a precursor to poor mental health? What is depression, anxiety, loneliness and nihilism? these could be signs of a restless human soule who doesn’t know where he fits in life because he or she has been convinced he has no soul, that only the physical world matters, that there are no eternal meanings, only present meanings? Millions of lost souls have been convinced that there is no God, through our education and media, that there is no afterlife, there is no real purpose other than the here and now, and that this world view is the only reasonable worldview; anything that deviates from this world view must be recognized as a disorder.

I feel like I am watching a scene from the 1950’s moving Inasion of the Body snatchers were society becomes soulless and the few remaining people are hunted down and converted to this nihilistic worldview.

The Urantia Book says that secularism supposes that man does not need God, Recently, such attitudes have become more aggressive, almost antagonistic towards Deity. Marxism and communism provide fair examples of the secular world view being embraced on a global scale.

In our education and media we see that religion has become a politically charged word, which means it is one step away from being regulated as hate speech. the word God, may one day be regarded as the G word, a word that causes great stress when uttered to those who are “deity-neutral.”

The Urantia Book also warns that a society without God cannot last, quote, “any more than a solar system could be supported without gravity,” paper 195.

What does a world without God look like?

Mental illness, lax morality, gender confusion, the celebration of vice as virtue, the promotion of fetishism in place of character-building, the pursuits of self in place of service, breakdown of family life, a general debasement of culture, crime, drug use, youth violence, religious persecution and oppression.

Non-belief requires no commitment on the part of the self, no skin in the game, no emotional commitment, no real pursuit of character building. Non belief requires nothing on the part of the believer. Non-belief leads to little or no truth discernment or even the pursuit. of truth itself, except as expressed in physical reality.

Only a belief in a supreme being or external force greater than himself enabled mankind to grasp eternal realities that sustain civilization from one generation to another,” but if this generation no longer values the past truths, or the religious heritage that is the result of thousands of generations of truth seekers who produced vast wealths of knowledge and wisdom, then what happens when that society loses or destroys such wealth of wisdom?

What happens to a society that prioritizes present truth, while disregarding the past, because it is relative only to immediate needs? What happens is we are truly one step away of global tyranny if this trend continues.

It is feasible that there may be yet another religious underground, people who must hide their faith or face persecution, as is already the case for a1.4 billion people.

These are my words, gained from what I have learned from the Urantia Book and from Christian beliefs in general. As a Jesusonian, one who believes in the divinity of Jesus and also follows his teachings, the pocket of believers is getting smaller as the world’s troubles increase.

This is best exhibited in the friend I spoke of earlier.

There comes a point in a person life where they have the make decision as to whether they accept the divine plan of perfection attainment, or as our Christian friends tell us, growing in grace and doing the Father’s will, or reject that plan. And we all know that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can make that decision.

I believe the world has not yet hit rock bottom, and it won’t as long as people still hold on to faith.

Without it, we are lost.

And this is why we do Urantia Radio, to tell people there is something fantastic waiting for them, but it starts with one simple thing. Faith.

Right now the greatest challenge os for people of faith to unite and pushback against social policies that advocate religious persecution. Social Justice warriors will use social advocacy to merit a legal defense against religious institutions. We must push back by calling people out when this happens.

And in our personal lives, don’t be afraid to talk about the value of faith in ones life. People always hear about treatment by medical means,but no one talks about treating mental anguish with a spiritual approach, and that just means pray, get down on your knees and ask for help.

Email us at urantiabookradio@gmail.com or join us on line at Urantia Radio.net

The Trinity in All Of Us

Published on October 23, 2019June 7, 2020 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

I want to talk about the Trinity.

It might not be something that you think matters. But it does.

The Trinity represents the pattern by which all creation is imprinted.

But I want to tell you a story first. It’s about creation.

At some theoretical point in time, the perfect Deity decided that existential perfection was incomplete. Existential simply means always and eternal. It is perfection MINUS experience.

In order to have experience and in order for perfection to become experiential, which means always experiencing, there had to be a dynamic living and experiential relationship between the self and “the other.” Two selves experiencing a mutually shared relationship constitutes experience.

And so the 2nd person of Deity came into existence, the Son, the Word, the expression of personality that is co-equal with the 1st PERSON of Deity.

So at this theoretical moment in time, and I say theoretical because we are finite beings, everything we know has a beginning and an end. For the Trinity in which everything is infinite and eternal, in order fo us to grasp meaning, infinite concepts have to be expressed in finite terms.

So when this theoretical moment when the Father and the Son, the first and second persons of Deity, had their first shared experience, there came into existence a conjoint mind that makes it possible for person to communicate and have a relationship, and thus the Third Person of Deity, the Infinite Spirit, the Universal Mind, the Conjoint Actor, came into exosteince to facilitate and expand the trinity relationship.

We know the trinity as The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost or Spirit. This triune relationship makes possible the myriad of relationships which make up creation.

Moving outward from Paradise where the Trinity is centered, there is Mind, Matter and Spirit. In terms of value, the Trinity is express in Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

In the human experience, we exist in physical form, matter, we we have mind, and our spirit provides our ability to discern means and values in living experience which provides for personality growth- experiential wisdom.

So know you can get a sense of why the Trinity is important. Google it sometime. There is much written about it, and it has intrigued mankind for thousands of years. Almost every major religion embraces the trinity concept.

The Trinity also helps understand the relations we have with the difference persona of Trinity, and especially, how they administer to us.

For example, the Urantia Book says that while God the Father is the source and center of personality, as well as the primordial controller of all physical energy throughout the existence of Paradise, the centrifugal gravity source of all matter in the universe, God is also the spirit that indwells all ascending mortals of time and space. God is not only “out there,” but he is also “in here,” and because God is a person, and you are a person, this makes it possible for every human being to have a personal relationship with the first person of Deity.

God the Son is the creator of all the Sons and Daughters of God who oversea universal growth and perfection attainment. Remember, God started all of this because he wanted to attain experiential perfection – and this means that as each of us perfect, so does the Supreme become more perfect everyday.

Many sons have been here. Lucifer is a fallen son, a grand child, or sorts of the Father, Adam was a Son, Gabriel is a son, but they are creations, expressions really, of God the Father and God’s the Son in personality form.

It’s why Jesus was the only begotten son, the only son who perfectly expresses that aspect of God’s infinite character. As an analogy, think of a very large family, all of your material offspring represent an aspect of your combined DNA, but in a spiritual sense, The Trinity expresses itself in the creation of all kinds of spirit personalities.

God the Father and God the Spirit “expressed” and economy of angelic beings who range from extremely high functioning and lower functioning, and like mortal ascenders, they too gain experience through living, through serving, through DOING.

So that Trinity not only provides a pattern between varying realities of mind, matter and spirit, but they also express by producing economies of beings who serve in and through these three reality environments, and Mind, Matter and Spirit each co-exist, just as the Trinity co-exists.
So, from paper 10, the opening introduction we read:

10:0.1 THE PARADISE TRINITY of eternal Deities facilitates the Father’s escape from personality absolutism. The Trinity perfectly associates the limitless expression of God’s infinite personal will with the absoluteness of Deity. The Eternal Son and the various Sons of divine origin, together with the Conjoint Actor and his universe children, effectively provide for the Father’s liberation from the limitations otherwise inherent in primacy, perfection, changelessness, universality, absoluteness, and infinity.

Keep ‘Em Coming Kanye

Published on September 30, 2019 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

I think it is so great that Kanye West’s new movie Jesus is King is being promoted and is supposed do very well (it’s even in Imax!).

The thing is, today Jesus gets a bad rap. I mean, he is very controversial these days, at least from folks who feel a little riled up if you bring up Jesus, or whatever. Right?
In general, I think people do not feel comfortable talking about religion. Perhaps among similar minds there is religious discussion, but in general, we keep things to ourselves, and for the exact reason that we don’t want to rock the boat on specifics of what we believe.

My own experience is that even among very close friends, religion is like the least talked about subject. I think that is why when someone like Kanye, who is not exactly the poster boy for Christian virtues, goes to this length to express his Christian beliefs, I feel encouraged. I think Justin Bieber is trying to do the same thing. Young people could use a dose of Jesus. They grew up not ever hearing about him from their parents, who didn’t think it was cool to be a Christian in the sixties.

The young kids today have been thoroughly secularized by the mainstream media. Religion, if depicted or portrayed, is usually in the negative light, or an adjunct to some social right being denied to someone because religious people are supposedly intolerant.In other words, mostly younger people today don’t know about the positive aspects of faith, the part where you feel connected to a greater cause, that there are statements that provoke deep and satisfying thinking, that spirituality is inspiring and ennobling. That faith gives us courage.

Congratulations to Kanye and keep ’em coming.

Casting Pearls Before Swine

Published on September 15, 2019September 16, 2019 by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

You want to know what I think about the Urantia Book? I think the world is crying out for this book and they don’t even know it.

I think people in this world are lost and hopeless, and the ones who have great comforts are not bothered by it so much because they are distracted by things, but the overall trajectory of humanity, based on current events, does not look good, and it has nothing to do with climate change or political corruption, or illicit moral decadence. These are symptoms of a greater disease, which is global nihilism.

The Urantia Book is telling us, “hey, don’t you realize you are part of a much larger universe, an ecosystem, if you will, than you even realize?”

And here we are, sitting in darkness.

Evil really does rule the day, and there is rampant evil increasing, but not only evil, but an almost cultish embrace of selfish and exalted humanism that stands to strip every single soul from the bodies in whom they are possessed.

There is less harmony among us. It is even more dire when you consider the rise in the tyranny of oppressive governments and regimes who enslave people, either by ideology or by restrictions of liberty, where we have hundreds of millions of people dying or being deprived right now of basic human needs every single day

“The complete secularization of science, education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. … And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come.” (UB 195:8:13)

On the one hand we have excelled in science, The arts, technology and communications, but on the other hand, people are lonely and sick, hungry, for food, and for truth, and here you have this wonderful book that contains the entire picture of reality—truth in beautiful form.

The Urantia Book puts forth thousands of spiritual concepts that provide real human insight into the cause and purpose of our existence.

Many have said the Urantia Book is arguably one of the best constructed documents on the planet, replete with scientific, philosophical and religious truths that stir the soul and imagination, but yet, owing to its unique nature and mysterious origins, remains unknown while life on earth continues to be a living hell for so many.

This book, the Urantia revelation, offers not only a much wider view of reality which gives relief to the complexity of life, but it also presents a living revelation of Jesus, the exhaustive and complete narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus that is destined to resurrect a resurgence in our curiosity of his actual, unabridged teachings.

“What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions! “ (UB 196:1:2)

I challenge you.

Pick it up, read it online.

Spend a half hour reading just one section of a paper in the Jesus section.

Put your preconceived notions aside. Be open to the idea of having something in your hands that has substance and value, and it will touch with its authenticity, as so many others have experienced when perusing the words.

The Urantia Book is a revelation no less important than Adam and Eve, Melchizedek and Jesus, in the sense of this fact: It comes from above.

Now, many of us modern humans scoff at that idea completely. We have accepted the fact that there is no “above.”

300 years of secularism has convinced most of us that belief in heaven and God, or eternal life is not rooted in science, so then you have to kind of ‘sort of believe,’ just because it might give you some comfort. This is how most of us approach religion, almost like a custom. It has become unimportant.

Many say that because we have lost faith we have lost hope.

But.

What if the question of the afterlife and of life in the universe could be satisfactorily answered?

Would that merit some interest?

So hete is the challenge.

You say the world deserves an answer from God, a new message, a new and clear idea of what is going on here, what is the meaning of our life – both here in the flesh and afterwards?

Then if you are sincerely looking for that answer, I strongly urge you to read the Urantia Book.

Not from the beginning, but from a part that interests you.

There are 196 papers, pick one.

It’s not fiction. Consider it God’s history book, the history of God and the future of God’s creation; our world and also a road map to the future.

If the world adopted this book, seriously, we would end wars because we would see the futility of them; we would end the sickness of modernity and the loneliness that comes with it, the moral ambiguity of it all, the feeling that no matter how hard we try, we fail.

We would begin to serve each other.

The Urantia Book reconnects you with a living God, and a living path that inspires you to get up in the morning because you know you are part of something eternal and meaningful.

This new spiritual infusion would provide new grace with accepting the creature-Creator kinship, and people would have hope again.

It would also go along way in preparing us for the next visit of great spiritual importance, whether it be the Son of Man or some other Divine being.

The Urantia Book says to expect this, even multiple times. It has been 20 centuries since people have heard this message.

Will it fall on deaf ears?

We are not alone, we never were.

The universe is filled with angels and ascended beings of all shapes and sizes. Right now there are at least 600 planets within 30- to 50 light years from us that have spawned life, and they too, have a spiritual yearning, and they too, have emerged from savagery, just like us, and we all ascend to be a part of God’s creation which is the expanding universe.

Read about all of this, and your life will be changed because you will know the truth about God’s plan, a real plan that makes sense and doesn’t ask you to give up your intellectual integrity in order to believe it. Faith will make sense, instead of making you feel apprehensive.

There is our challenge. Humanity wants a revelation? We got it.

Now what are we going to do?

James Watkins is the editor and creator of UrantiaRadio.net and the Urantia Radio Podcast

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