Category: Science

A Virus, Angels and a Revelation

Published on 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.

We Have To Be Hungry For the Truth

Published on 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.

Why We Fear Climate

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by James Watkins

If you said that we have religion because we have the bad weather, you would be partially correct. Man first began negotiating with the gods when there was thunder, lightening, hurricanes, even full moons and an occasional volcano, all which triggered the same reaction in man: we must do something. So we prayed, offered sacrifices and demanded something be done.

Sound familiar?


You hear it all of the time from climate change folks. We need to ‘do something.’ We need our leaders to do something, anything, to make sure the weather doesn’t harm us.

During the later part of the Mayan Empire, we know that they experienced a harsh drought. It was warm and dry from 800 to 1000 A.D. in Central America. We also know that these people were so desperate for rain they would try all kinds of things to sway the gods into bringing rain, even if it meant decapitating its citizens one by one (in reality it was a great way for the rulers to eliminate extra mouths to feed).


And when certain Mayan rulers figured out by calculation when periodic solar eclipses would come they used this knowledgae to manipulate a desperate society, by creating these grand spectacles and festivals, ceremonies really, in which the rulers and the people would sit and watch human sacrafice to get relief from climate change.

And when the sun went dark the ceremonies came to their thrilling climax. The sacrifices ended and all was at peace, except for the fact that the rains never came.

It was one of the reason the Spaniards were able to conquer what remained of this once great empire. They had grown weak, defenseless and stupid.

We also know that, about five-thousand years ago there was a tremendous flood in Mesopotamia.

The story in Genesis and the story of Noah, while a matter of faith to be sure, is most likely based on a real flood that occurred during this period of prehistoric history. Millions died. Most cultures speak of a “great flood that destroyed mankind.” Even back then we had climate change, and even back then, we cried for God to “do something!”

As mans’ nature would have it, early Hebrew writings explained it was God’s punishment for sin. It was man being reconciled by God for being evil (stemming from the fall of Adam and Eve).


In reality, though it was climate change; a combination of the Mediterranean sea floors sinking while regional mountain ranges rose, bring more rain in increasing amounts to the flood plains of north Syria and along the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. It was a flood of epic proportions, and man blamed himself, just as we do today.

From the very beginning of man’s recorded history we see this belief has been embraced when the weather effects humanity, we a) are the cause of it, and b) we must also be the ones who must change it by changing our behavior (or confessing our sins).

Flash forward to today. Today, there is vast energy. We are awash in cheap crude oil, natural gas and coal.

And this is a great thing.

Most of our activity is powered by cheap energy. Lives have vastly improved globally, mostly because cheap energy is so plentiful. This past week, when a Saudi oil refinery was bombed, thankfully, America could step in and keep the supply flowing. This is a testament of our ability to harness the earth’s energy and improve our living standards. 40 years ago gas prices would have shot up and people would have panicked.

Do you suppose that many in our society just feel guilty for having it so good, that we must somehow pay for our good graces? I think so, and it’s why so many people feel a need to atone for their guilt. What better way to do so that to blame something we don’t understand on ourselves, especially if there is a way to make money and seize control doing so.

Let’s agree on two things:

,
1) The climate is always changing, something we have NO control over, and

2) We do have a POLLUTION program, of which we can control.


We all recognize there is a problem with waste, overconsumption, and destruction of our immediate environment. Remember the 80’s when you would buy a CD that came in this big, hard plastic container? We waste raw materials, and we also pollute our waters.

I argue that, instead of trying to lower the global temperature, which we cannot do, we should instead, harness our efforts towards cleaning up the planet of the mess we have made, which is what I think is at the core of climate change activism anyway.

Most of us are old enough to remember that Earth Day used to about ending pollution, curbing oil spills and conserve because it s smart policy. Earth Day and climate activism has morphed into a very expensive notion that we are a primary driver of the earth’s environment. The current fear of climate change is also a reminder of how man has always feared nature because he fails to really understand the process, or predict it.

Almost every predictor of global warming is based on models that are premised on a calculation that ties global mean temperatures to carbon output. It sounds reasonable, except when you consider that the earth produces 97% of the global carbon all by itself. Man is only responsible for 3% of carbon output.


Look, we may not feel like we have to negotiate with the Gods like we used to when we have bad weather, but we also need to stop feeling guilt or fear every time there is a bad weather event. People are being scared into feeling personally responsible every time there is a hurricane, a flood, or a drought. Our kids have this tremendous nihilism instilled in them because they feel hopeless that they can’t change the world to make it less frightening.

And that’s when our leaders, just like the Mayan kings and princes did before, will use our ignorance and fear against us, to rule over us even more, and the more we scream “do something,” the more they control our behavior and use political control because they know we would be willing to ‘do anything’ to feel safe.

They won’t tell us they don’t have the answers,  but they do tell us we need to pay ‘for our sins’ by giving them more money, power, or both.

Pollution is the problem. If we just take care of pollution in our backyard, then that is something we we can get all get behind – and should.

But when you start talking about charging carbon tax dollars and having rolling blackouts to “save the planet,” then you know you are being hoodwinked. When “doing something” just means making energy more expensive and not having any impact on the environment, then you know we are being played for fools.

Yes, the climate is changing. We are in a warm period, just like in the a thousand years, and before that, around 100 b.c. to the 4th century a.d., which was also a very warm period.

We do have to prepare for things like more rain, floods, and perhaps a few more hurricanes, all normal weather events when the earth is warmer, just like blizzards, glaciers and frozen crops are the result of global cooling, which by the way, usually kills more people than warm periods.

Pause to consider the  great plague of 1347 which destroyed one third of the entire European continent, and the London Plague of 1666, and even the Potato Famine of 1845 in Ireland, all a result of global cooling).

Don’t believe me. Check the books.

Mankind has always look to the gods when it came to things he couldn’t control because we are fearful. Today is no different, and our leaders know this. 
F

ear is a great motivator and we all need to be diligent in making sure fear isn’t used to get us to do stupid things, like accept without question, when a 16 year old girl becomes the poster child for climate change, as she tells our elected leaders to “do something.”

Believe me, they will. Heads will roll.

Sign Of The Times

Published on by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

   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.

Screen Shot 2019-05-03 at 3.10.33 PM.png

   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.

Screen Shot 2019-05-06 at 12.49.42 PM

   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.

URANTIARADIOLOGO

 

 

 

Heaven Just Delivered A Huge Data Drop

Published on by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

There are four key distinctions that set the Urantia Book apart from other theologies; these distinctions, or positions on reality, are unique only to the Urantia Book.

     These four distinctions might be considered revelatory in scope and originality because, prior to 1955, these expanded concepts were non-existent in mainstream theological teachings.

Since 1955, when the Urantia Book became available, hundreds of thousands of readers have had a chance to study the text (over a million copies have been sold or downloaded); most are convinced the concepts are both possible and authentically original, hence their revelatory nature.

 

Screen Shot 2019-04-22 at 11.20.50 AM

   Consider these points in what the Urantia Book states:

   1. Eschatological Specifics on the Hierarchy of God’s Cosmic Family or “Offspring.” The Urantia Book provides specific details on who Deity is and its relationship to a long and exhaustive list of personality beings (including ourselves) who comprise the universe at the present time, beings we are told who do the work of universal administration and spiritual ministry throughout time and space. 

   Pause to consider that, long before our own solar system was formed, there was space and time evolution – 14 billion years of space and time, according to our theorists, plenty of time for other beings of varying natures to have been “born” or to have “come into existence,” in ways we can not even comprehend.  In the Urantia Book narrative, we are presented with the entire cosmic offspring of Deity –  made up of spiritual and material personalities with specific functions and purpose  – we are even told their names. The specificity given is both consistent and comprehensive. 

    2. Life after Death. We now have a specific and detailed narrative of what happens when we die, even being told the process of actual resurrection. The Urantia Book provides at least 4 specific chapters on the ascension process and what transpires between the time we pass from this life and what happens when we resurrect as newly born spirit-ascendant beings. No other theology dares an attempt to explain the process of personality or soul survival, but most religions propose an afterlife reality. The Urantia Book provides a plausible construct that is both logical AND comforting to all people who believe such a spiritual afterlife is not only possible, but inevitable.

    3. Extra Terrestrial, or Exo-Planetary Life. The Urantia Book is the only book (of which I am aware) that fully embraces the notion of ‘other worlds with life;’ going further, the Urantia Book expands upon this concept to include an entire universe of life-evolving spheres home to races and species of varying types. While none of this can be proven of course, the Urantia Book is the first extensive theology that combines evolutionary physical life (coordinated and administered to by spiritual beings) that runs parallel with an advanced spiritual community that awaits us when we pass from this life to the next. 

   In short, the Urantia Book describes a universe filled with ascendant beings just like ourselves who, at some point, will  progress away from the mortal time-space realm to a more advanced non-material realm. the Urantia Book states it is this reality that is actually happening now, we just don’t see it because 1) we are not spiritually advanced, 2) previous revelations that would have informed us of this fact (of other, more spiritually-advanced life forms) were cut-short and eventually lost to the world, and 3) we have yet to discover any life forms beyond our own to substantiate these claims.

   Astronomers now believe that there are most likely millions of worlds with life. When the Urantia Book was written in 1934 hardly anyone believed life was possible outside of our solar system (remember the goldilocks premise?). Hence the Urantia Book is not only advanced in presenting ET life, but goes into great detail on the kinds of life we can expect to discover once these discoveries are made (The Urantia Book states there is, in  “close proximity”  a world of living will creatures called “Non-breathers;” some believe this world may be one of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn).

    4. The Exhaustive Narrative of Jesus’s Life and Teachings. In no other writing is there such an exhaustive retelling of Jesus’s entire life that is both consistent with the Gospels (though not in all of their teachings and interpretations of events recorded in the New Testament), and is also historically accurate when depicting the cultural and living conditions of the times in which Jesus lived. The stated reason for this retelling is because Jesus’ life was not only significant to us, but the universe found great significance of his mortal life because Jesus was an incarnated Son of God the Father, “an only begotten Son,” who choose our world to live as a human being to reveal the Fathers’ nature and personality, and also to experience life as a mortal human being. 

   To summarize our thesis, we claim the Urantia Book is a revelation of new information because of at least four distinctions that sets this text apart from other theological teachings, which include:

    1. The spirit world specifically detailed

   2. A full narration of the after life is explained

   3. An explanation of life on other worlds is presented and explained (which is consistent with current astronomic theory)

   4. A full description of Jesus’ life, including his death, resurrection and subsequent ascendency after Pentecost.

   These distinctions are important because they denote potential transition of human development IF this revelation gains acceptance.

   This is what revelation does. It pushes evolution along (and it usually starts with a small group of “early adapters”). Once the printing press was invented illiteracy decreased and human knowledge increased, Having increased, human behavior starts to change faster, which is what we saw in the 17th and 18th Century. Once we harnessed electricity human engagement and performance became more efficient and productive – and life changed rapidly.

    In spiritual terms, once Jesus lived and taught new truth – and we saw that resurrection was possible – another world was opened to humanity, a world which included not just our life in the flesh, but an eternal life of continuous adventure and learning.

   Religion has evolved tremendously since Jesus’s time.  And so it is that if the Urantia Book is a true revelation, then it too will open the doors to new human understanding, and further, we will have gained new spiritual insight as to our purpose and destiny as will creatures of soul-potential, and as citizens of this beautiful blue planet they call Urantia.

 

James R. Watkins is a student of the Urantia Book and the producer of Inside Look, a new video web series that delves into the Urantia book teachings.

 

Progress, Part II

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   As we started off this brief overview of what “progress” really means in terms of endgame societal evolution, in this short dissertation, we look at the two predominant forces that seek to exert themselves, two driving forces that insure equilibrium.

JR Watkins is an author and host of Candidly Speaking on Urantia Radio.com

 

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The Importance of History

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One of the many reasons I love the Urantia Book is because it puts reality into context.

For example, Papers 69 to 70 retell the story of mans’ early beginnings as a communal and social creature. We have forgotten our past and so the behavior we see today in the world is a direct result of us having become so detached from the past; we have forgotten the pain and suffering of humanity over millennia and we take for granted our ease of life today, so much so that we act like crying babies who want our bottle and we want it NOW.

Man is not so far removed from the jungle from whence he came, and our selfish and self-centered behavior today warrants a trip back in time to review our early beginnings, which I hope you will do by streaming Urantia Radio.com all of this week.

We are reminded through the recital of these papers how and why certain societies emerge, what conditions influence migration, what the “rules” are in any society between otherwise bellicose people.

The authors of the book, the ones who were there and took note of our long ascent to lordship of the earth, put to rest any notion that entitlement behavior is acceptable as “rights” simply because we born into this time.

The law of evolutionary struggle is very clear, there is no room for entitlement or so-called Human Rights, at least as far as it concerns what we are entitled to simply by birthright. Man ascends because of hardship, while today our world is all about ease-seeking. We seek to minimize pain as an antidote from true happiness that only comes from real effort. Man was destined to work, to put the effort into the outcome, but life only becomes about comfort and material things, life becomes superficial, and this is why superficiality rules the western world today.

I love these four papers on the evolution of society and government. I hope you enjoy listening as well.

These are the lessons of the past. What you are hearing many are hearing for the first time ever on UrantiaRadio.com

Enjoy!

Listen Now

The Search for Extraterrestrial Life

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Last week NASA announced it was stepping up its game on the search for other life in the universe. SETI has also recently received a windfall of funding and is also partnering with various agencies who share a keen, if not heightened interest in finding life out there in the cosmos.

With improved telescopes we have discovered thousands of exo-planets circling suns all around us. Most agree that the discovery of life elsewhere is a game-changer for humanity. Finding intelligent life would be even more profound. The last step might be communication with said life form, but for now, we’re just trying to find the right place to look with so many options.

What if the Urantia Book could provide some clues as to where we might look? Clearly, the Urantia Book gives an entire narrative of the various kinds of life forms there are in existence, and while is doesn’t violate its “prime directive” of giving us the answers as to where they are, it does give us clues that they probably anticipated would help in our search for life in our universe (remember, the book was written in 1934 when idea of ET life seemed more science fiction that science reality).

They give us an overview of the different kinds of life forms that evolve on worlds’ because of the differing environmental factors each planet possesses, heat, gravity, size of the world, proximity to its solar parent, size of the sun, kinds of suns, kinds of atmospheres, etc.

The point is the search is on for ET life, and the Urantia Book could help us.

Here is one statement the UB makes that could provide clues:

41:3.1 There are upward of two thousand brilliant suns pouring forth light and energy in your region of space (our local system) , and your own sun is an average blazing orb. Of the thirty suns nearest yours, only three are brighter.

Here are list of those suns.. We should start here, since it is likely the Urantia Book authors would only have mentioned our starry neighbors since it was in the context of life-bearing worlds.

These are our closest neighbors:

(Note that this list is continually changing as astronomers discover nearby stars with ever more sensitive detectors in a variety of spectral ranges, especially the infrared, where numerous small stars emit their energy. Recall that the brightest magnitudes are the largest negative numbers.)

Common Name

Scientific Name

Distance (light years)

Apparent Magnitude

Absolute Magnitude

Spectral Type

Sun

–

-26.72

4.8

G2V

Proxima Centauri

V645 Cen

4.2

11.05 (var.)

15.5

M5.5Vc

Rigil Kentaurus

Alpha Cen A

4.3

-0.01

4.4

G2V

Alpha Cen B

4.3

1.33

5.7

K1V

Barnard’s Star

6.0

9.54

13.2

M3.8V

Wolf 359

CN Leo

7.7

13.53 (var.)

16.7

M5.8Vc

BD +36 2147

8.2

7.50

10.5

M2.1Vc

Luyten 726-8A

UV Cet A

8.4

12.52 (var.)

15.5

M5.6Vc

Luyten 726-8B

UV Cet B

8.4

13.02 (var.)

16.0

M5.6Vc

Sirius A

Alpha CMa A

8.6

-1.46

1.4

A1Vm

Sirius B

Alpha CMa B

8.6

8.3

11.2

DA

Ross 154

9.4

10.45

13.1

M3.6Vc

Ross 248

10.4

12.29

14.8

M4.9Vc

Epsilon Eri

10.8

3.73

6.1

K2Vc

Ross 128

10.9

11.10

13.5

M4.1V

61 Cyg A (V1803 Cyg)

11.1

5.2 (var.)

7.6

K3.5Vc

61 Cyg B

11.1

6.03

8.4

K4.7Vc

Epsilon Ind

11.2

4.68

7.0

K3Vc

BD +43 44 A

11.2

8.08

10.4

M1.3Vc

BD +43 44 B

11.2

11.06

13.4

M3.8Vc

Luyten 789-6

11.2

12.18

14.5

Procyon A

Alpha CMi A

11.4

0.38

2.6

F5IV-V

Procyon B

Alpha CMi B

11.4

10.7

13.0

DF

BD +59 1915 A

11.6

8.90

11.2

M3.0V

BD +59 1915 B

11.6

9.69

11.9

M3.5V

CoD -36 15693

11.7

7.35

9.6

M1.3Vc

If directions to these stars were included, you could make a map and see that they are distributed around us more or less randomly.

What can we learn from this information? Quite a lot.

  • We live very close (500 lightseconds) to a star. This is probably a necessary condition for the origination and maintenance of life.
  • Stars are very far apart (average about 8 light years for the closest dozen), compared to their size (about 2 light seconds for the Sun); by a factor of 250 million or so.
  • Many stars occur in multiple systems, shown here by the suffixes A, B and C from brightest to dimmest. In fact, about 55% of stars in this list are in multiple systems. The nearest star is a triple. And we may be missing many dim stars.
  • Most of the nearby stars are dimmer (higher numbers for absolute magnitude) than our Sun, by factors of 100 to 10,000.

New Jupiter Find Confirms Urantia Book Statement

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Interesting read about 79 new moons just discovered circling our largest solar system neighbor Jupiter. In a recent article published by The New York Times and other outlets:

“they did spot 12 new points of light in the vicinity of Jupiter. Verifying the observations took a year, and then the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center — the clearinghouse for gathering and disseminating solar system data — released the findings.

Bigger moons like Europa and Ganymede typically orbit in the same direction as the rotation of their planet, in what astronomers call a prograde motion. That is not surprising, because these moons likely formed out of a disk of dust and gas that was spinning in the same direction as the planet as the solar system took form.

But the immense gravity of Jupiter could also capture other passing objects, and those space rocks sometimes end up orbiting the other way, in what’s known as retrograde motion.

Two of the new moons have prograde orbits, matching an inner group of moons that are thought to be fragments of a larger moon that shattered. Nine fall among three swarms of more distant retrograde moons, likely remnants of three larger, captured moons.

The 12th moon is an oddity. It moves among the retrograde moons yet orbits in a prograde direction. “It’s going down the highway the wrong direction.”

It is important to note that astronomers do not clearly understand exactly why some planets (or moons) move in  retrograde motion, but one possible answer is explained in the Urantia Book, where it states that, as our solar system was being formed, another nearby-system known as Angona was traveling close enough to create a gravitational tug, thus, resulting in a slight loss if its own stellar material, some of which was capture by the gravity of Jupiter and Saturn, and makes this curious statement:

“The powerful gravity pull of Jupiter and Saturn early captured most of the material stolen from Angona as the retrograde motion of certain of their satellites bears witness.”

All of the solar system material derived from the sun was originally endowed with a homogeneous direction of orbital swing, and had it not been for the intrusion of these three foreign space bodies, all solar system material would still maintain the same direction of orbital movement. As it was, the impact of the three Angona tributaries injected new and foreign directional forces into the emerging solar system with the resultant appearance of retrograde motion. Retrograde motion in any astronomic system is always accidental and always appears as a result of the collisional impact of foreign space bodies. Such collisions may not always produce retrograde motion, but no retrograde ever appears except in a system containing masses which have diverse origins.:

In summary, the Urantia Book authors are once more vindicated by a new scientific discovery, and in this case, even provides an answer to astronomers with regard to understanding why there is sometimes retrograde motion among our solar neighbors.

And there is this report from 2004 that hypothesizes just such an collusion described in the paragraph above from Paper 57 of the Urantia Book.

The icy planet Uranus is an odd place. It spins on an axis almost perpendicular to its orbit, with one pole pointed straight at the sun for much of the year. It’s also colder than expected and has an unusually-shaped magnetic field. One theory for how Uranus became such an oddball in our space neighborhood involves a massive impact strong enough to tip a young planet onto its side.

In research published this week in the Astrophysical Journal, a group of researchers ran the numbers on such a collision and simulated what the results might be if a planet one, two, or three times the size of the Earth were to strike Uranus in the early days of our solar system. Jacob Kegerreis, one of the authors of the report, joins the program to talk about the research and what it might tell us about planetary formation elsewhere in the universe.

View a simulation of the collision below.

an bright orange yellow blob resembling uranus with a purple tail end
The collision with Uranus of a massive object twice the size of Earth that caused the planet’s unusual spin, from a high-resolution simulation using over ten million particles, coloured by their internal energy. Credit: Jacob Kegerreis/Durham University

Possible Planet with Life

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We came across a recent article about a possible discovery of a life-bearing planet – and this planet is but a mere 11 light years distance from Earth.

From ScienceAlert.com

“Ross 128 is a red dwarf. Most of the stars in the galaxy are red dwarfs, around 70 percent. They are cooler and smaller than our Sun, and it’s estimated that most of them have planets.

Because red dwarfs are so cool, their habitable Goldilocks zone – not too hot, not too cold, but just right for life – is a lot closer than the distance between Earth and the Sun.

However, most red dwarfs are very active. Proxima Centauri, another red dwarf orbited by a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone, is much closer than Ross 128, but it also belches out so many flares that it’s unlikely life could survive on any planets around it.

Ross 128 is the rare inactive red dwarf, with minimal flare activity. This means it’s a very good place to look for life – but because of the angle around which Ross 128 b orbits the star, it’s difficult to study the planet directly. Looking at the star itself, though, is the next best thing.

Ross 128, as it turns out, has similar iron levels to our Sun. The team wasn’t able to determine silicon levels, but they were able to see magnesium content. Equipped with the iron and magnesium levels in the star, the researchers could then estimate the minimum size of the planet’s core – and therefore its radius.

They found that Ross 128 b is likely larger than Earth, but still within rocky planet range – that is, not a gas giant.”

Sounds encouraging.

Let us compare the above to one of many descriptions in the UB which detail the myriad of the life-bearing planets that do exist.

From Paper 41 on the physical systems that comprise our starry neighborhood:

“Most of the giant suns are relatively young; most of the dwarf stars are old, but not all. The collisional dwarfs may be very young and may glow with an intense white light, never having known an initial red stage of youthful shining. Both very young and very old suns usually shine with a reddish glow. The yellow tinge indicates moderate youth or approaching old age, but the brilliant white light signifies robust and extended adult life.

“While all adolescent suns do not pass through a pulsating stage, at least not visibly, when looking out into space you may observe many of these younger stars whose gigantic respiratory heaves require from two to seven days to complete a cycle. Your own sun still carries a diminishing legacy of the mighty upswellings of its younger days, but the period has lengthened from the former three and one-half day pulsations to the present eleven and one-half year sunspot cycles.”

…The majority of solar systems, however, had an origin entirely different from yours, and this is true even of those which were produced by gravity-tidal technique. But no matter what technique of world building obtains, gravity always produces the solar system type of creation; that is, a central sun or dark island with planets, satellites, sub-satellites, and meteors.

“The physical aspects of the individual worlds are largely determined by mode of origin, astronomical situation, and physical environment. Age, size, rate of revolution, and velocity through space are also determining factors. Both the gas-contraction and the solid-accretion worlds are characterized by mountains and, during their earlier life, when not too small, by water and air. The molten-split and collisional worlds are sometimes without extensive mountain ranges.”

Bottom line: we might be looking at a planet slighty larger than ours with a slightly Higher rate of revolution around its slightly smaller Sun (which means stronger gravity – and smaller people) as described here in Paper 49:

“The gravity types. By modification of creative design, intelligent beings are so constructed that they can freely function on spheres both smaller and larger than Urantia (Earth), thus being, in measure, accommodated to the gravity of those planets which are not of ideal size and density.

“The various planetary types of mortals vary in height, the average in Nebadon (our local area of the Milky Way) being a trifle under seven feet. Some of the larger worlds are peopled with beings who are only about two and one-half feet in height. Mortal stature ranges from here on up through the average heights on the average-sized planets to around ten feet on the smaller inhabited spheres. In our system there is only one race under four feet in height. Twenty per cent of the inhabited worlds in our system are peopled with mortals of the modified gravity types occupying the larger and the smaller planets.”

Intriguing, to say the least.

For stargazers, below is where Ross 128b is located in the nighttime sky (Red arrow):

Screen Shot 2018-07-11 at 1.39.59 PM.png

Mental Illness: Coming Soon to a Family Near You

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With the onset of a wildly profitable pharmaceutical industry, and with ever growing Mental Illness concerns, you can place your bets on the fact that the long term objective of modern medicine is to treat everyone for some kind of mental disorder with drugs that often times have side effects worse than what is being treated.

Under the umbrella of the DSM (a standard reference guide for diagnosis used by psychiatry and psychology industry professionals), there are hundreds of disorders which now effect a large proportion of society, according to the mental health industry.

Soon, and not without the media’s help in propagandizing mental illness as being common, there will appear to be no anxiety or disorder that isn’t treatable. And thus, you can be assured that, over the next ten to twenty years, more and more people will be treated with drugs with side effects that destroy brain function.

As long as the profit motive drives the drug industry, holistic approaches such as nutrition, lifestyle changes and even spirituality, will be downplayed or ignored as a viable treatment of mental disorders. As long as modern science views the brain as nothing more than physical stimuli that can be manipulated by mind and mood altering drugs, more and more people will succumb to taking regular prescriptions that numb us into further brain deterioration of our mental faculties.

Worse still, every time someone “goes postal” and we find they are either under- or over-medicated with mind and mood altering drugs, we will be quick to falsely identify such tragic events as further proof of rampant mental illness and the need to be receive even more treatment, downplaying the notion that such drugs may have triggered these violent outbursts we see play out in the media.

We forget that much mental anxiety is a result of an emotional crisis, not necessarily a physiological phenomena.

We need to ask if a spiritual approach to problem solving can be equally effective in dealing with depression or anxiety. There are a plethora of studies that show faith, prayer and worship help alleviate stress, reduce anxiety and even improve physical health.

In our over-medicated culture, we reach too quickly for the bottle of drugs, and to our detriment. There is simply too much we do not know about the long term effects of psychotropic drugs.

I personally have seen several family members succumb to mood-altering drugs over the long term, individuals who eventually, and sadly, lost their mental faculties altogether.

We really are throwing darts when it comes treating mental illness – and it‘s vital for the medical industry to be transparent about this fact.

Broad-stroke medicinal treatment (often times addicting and equally destructive in causing other antecedents related to anxiety or depression), poses a grave danger to our society. If we are not careful, we may inadvertently create a future population of irreparably brain-damaged people – and large numbers of them.  

Coming from a family where mental illness is existent, I have naturally been curious about this subject. I have also closely followed the industry growth of the Mental Health industry.

We trusted the pharmaceutical industry during the opioid crises, and we watched them create a national crisis through the over–prescription of opioids – how the drug industry carelessly ignored (or perhaps took advantage of) the human propensity for addiction.

What makes us think this same industry will be trustworthy as they attempt to solve the mental illness crisis?

Already we hear the alarms. As recent as May 2018, The UK’s NIMH reported 1 in 4 Adults are diagnosed or suffer from one form of mental illness or another, treatable, of course, by expensive and powerful drugs with unknown long-term side effects.

Take notice in the increase of mental health treatments being advertised on television and online. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year are being used to promote mental health treatment through sometimes deceptive and misleading advertising intended to prey on emotion and fear. Everything from bi-polar, anxiety, depression, dementia, Alzheimers, restless-leg syndrome, sleeping disorders (brought on my stress) are now common in our popular vernacular. Therapists are becoming drug dealers. We are all one diagnosis away from being a victim of mental illness.

One possible suggestion would be to call on religious leaders or spiritual advisers to assist as counselors for people suffering from depression. What if, instead of setting up suicide hotline for people to call and talk to medical practitioners who are more likely to suggest medical treatment, we, instead, utilize a priest, a rabbi or a minister, to provide spiritual counseling as pproach. Spiritual therapy, perhaps? A viable approach to alleviating and possibly treating depression.

Are there spiritual cures to many emotional illness? Studies show faith is a powerful antidote to depression.

The Bible, the Urantia Book, and many other faiths point to the wonderful antidotal qualities of spiritual application in solving earth’s moral and emotional problems. Confession, it seems, is therapeutic.

Mind and personality are not just synapsis and neurons; we have will and will is our personality-decisions in action. We evaluate, we judge, we discern. These are attributes of an active mind, and as such, can be invigorated by spiritual motivations.

Perhaps it would behoove all of us to view the human mind as both a physical AND super-physical (spiritual) endowment, a healthy step towards a better understanding of mental and emotional illness.

The Universe Hawking Didn’t See

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“What shall it profit a man who would gain the world and lose his soul?” – Mark 8:36

by James R. Watkins

Stephen Hawking was no doubt a brilliant thinker when it came to Science. In the age of Reason, Hawking was propped up as the go-to guy to explain how reality came into existence. He stayed true to his convictions, he pushed his ideas as far as they could go. Stephen Hawking gained the universe, or at least a better understanding of it. Yet despite his acute understanding of the cosmos, Hawking seemed to discard a Creator, a master designer, God.

How does a man who marvels at creation believe that such a creation would come into being of its own accord? And why does modern Science present Hawking as the final authority on all things real, discounting any notion of Intelligent Design, when the very mind of Hawking was able to penetrate a deep understanding of creation that (supposedly) had no mind, no planning, no purpose?

Would it have hurt his credibility to have some faith in a Creator? And do scientists (and people in general) believe that having spiritual faith is contrary to believing in Science?

Perhaps it would be fair not to judge the great physicist, after all, it is possible that during his life he had some doubt that maybe, just maybe there was a great designer; perhaps on some visceral level, while Hawking couldn’t prove it, felt inclined to suspect our universe was not just a cause-and-effect reality after all. Maybe in his final moments of life Hawking might have heard the faint whisper of God calling him to the great beyond, the beyond Hawking couldn’t explain and couldn’t prove with hard data.

I’d like to believe he did.

My faith tells me that in order to receive grace, you have to have faith in it, as Jesus stated, “it is your faith that saves you.” Jesus also said that it is not for us to judge others as to their relationship with the Father, but to minister to ‘even the unbeliever.’

While I always admired the tenacity and the insight of Stephen Hawking, it was also irritating that such a smart man would  exclude the idea that our universe was created for a reason, that existence has a spiritual purpose which underlies the cosmos, and that it wasn’t just an accident, or a ‘Big Bang.’

If Hawking missed that point it would be a shame, for such was a man who did gain an understanding of the universe, but failed to see the most important aspect in that universe, the nurturing of the eternal soul that see’s the divinity in creation and not just creation itself.

Want to Know Where God Lives? Just ask George Park

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by James R. Watkins

I’ve been spending a number of evenings pouring through some interesting articles provided by Urantia Book researcher George Park. I invite you to check out his research if you are into astronomy. I was so impressed by his work, I invited George to be my guest on Perspectives (now streaming on our Live broadcast stream and as a podcast on our Archives page).

For the first time, someone has taken the information in the Urantia Book and put this information into context within today’s contemporary astronomy.

Among the highlights:

  • Where the geographical center of Paradise is located (Yes, where God lives!)
  • How new discoveries in astronomy now seem to contradict the Big Bang theory
  • Possible locations of Jerusem, Edentia, Salvington, Uversa, Havona and even Paradise (the “Heavens”) in the night time sky
  • The meaning of The Sloan Wall and its implications in astrophysics (especially in disproving The Big Bang Theory)

In summary, Park makes the statement that the Revelators of the Urantia Book must have anticipated scientists would refute many of its cosmological claims since little evidence in 1955 was available, but new discoveries in astrophysics are now coming to light which vindicate the cosmological narrative of the Urantia revelation after all. We are now learning, through discovery of things like The Sloan Wall and CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background), which measures active energy throughout the known galaxy, that seems to indicate the uinverse is an oblong disc of cosmic matter which contradicts the Big Bang “balloon” model of equal energy dispursement, a model that states all matter and energy expands in all directions equally, the Standard Model in Astronomy.

Science and Religion stand at opposite ends of human experience. What George has done is clarify the Urantia concepts in a manner which brings these two paradigms closer together.

After all, if Science can someday learn that there is a “master designer” who put all of existence into motion, how many hearts would be lifted by such knowledge that there is, in fact, someone (or something) in control of this otherwise seemingly random existence?

Science, according to Park, may not be able to prove the existence of God, but it most certainly can learn that our physical universe has far too much “design” (pattern) to be explained by random causation, a theory that, a hundred years from now, may seem as silly as believing Earth is the center of the solar system, a theory once embraced by – you guessed it – scientists who thought they knew better and were too stubborn to let go of their belief system.

Again, if you like astronomy, you will enjoy reading much of Parks’ works, which is located at www.UBcosmology.com

15406752647_af7cdcabca_b

There really is a parallel universe, its just not what you think it is.

If you are a materialist you might think earth came to be by some kind of cosmic disbursement 14 billion years ago, the first uncaused cause, you think man has been alone all along, you might think all of the entirety of the known universe is completely empty of intelligent life and we are the only ones here who can figure it out.

The way most people view our world is not unlike how a small tribe that lives on an island in the South Pacific sees themselves and assumes there is no other land – or people.

But the parallel universe, unlike what Stephen Hawking might describe, as being some mirror or reflective universe that is independent of our own, one filled with exact replicas and the like, is NOT what I am speaking of.

In the parallel universe I am talking about it can best be described as the greater reality, the real place where things are unfolding in an intelligently organized way, of which our world is just a very small part. This greater reality is filled with spirit personalities, angelic personalities and a whole host of non-personality energy forms that have been in existence long before our earth, or even our sun, has been in existence.

Our earth lies on the outskirts of this very large creation.

Long before earth “got here,” there were and are other “earths” or worlds, and they too, are inhabited with beings like ourselves, but they too are also being guided by spiritual forces we simply can’t see in our present state. Our material vision, and especially our inability to grasp the connected-ness of things, does not allow us to see just beyond the scenes of the physical world. Just beyond our mortal vision, are agents and forces who work on our behalf.

Spiritually-minded people already know what this greater reality is, but they are called fools, stupid religionists who are not “rooted in the science of physical existence,” as if the physical is all there is.

You see, religion is a result of they trying to teach us that there is a heaven, a greater and enduring reality where there is a continued existence, and we are ascendant beings who start out on earth and ascend inward and upward.

Just as a small Island tribe one day learns of the existence of others and then begins real growth and development, so are we, when the time is ripe, going to learn of this other existence, this parallel universe that moves alongside our own limited, finite reality.

We are getting close to being ready. Just as we begin to at first discover other worlds of habitation, and then later begin to find one that is far in advance of our own, the first thing we learn from this other world is that they too believe they are part of a cosmic and expansive universe where life springs forth on a grand scale. It’s just that right now we are a tiny tribe on an island, and when we do advance in our cosmic awareness we are going to learn so much about ourselves and about our future, both as a species and as individuals.

And then all of those things that the prophets tried to teach us, all of those great mysteries that have baffled us for a long time about our origins, all of the great truths that Jesus taught and still teaches, will be revealed more fully.

And it starts with one simple notion. A Creator of spiritual and physical brilliance created the arena for life to exist so that all beings, high and low, can experience living, and to grow from that experience, to be perfect, even as God is perfect. All else proceeds from this one great truth.

We are not alone, we never were.

Mind: The Ultimate Mystery

Published on by Jim WatkinsLeave a comment

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by JR Watkins

Common sense tells us the mind is the product of the body. Ask any person and they will tell you the body came first, then the mind. Makes sense, right?

Asking it another way: Did the physical universe come first and then mind evolved over time resulting in the eventual appearance of humans with large enough brains to put those minds to work? Does that make sense?

Did physical matter produce minded beings?

Most scientists would answer in the affirmative, that what we consider “mind” is nothing more than a natural outgrowth of physical evolution. We can, through all kinds of science, show that man evolved and as his mind grew larger and his central nervous became more complex (for a variety of reasons such as better nutrition intake and having an opposable thumb), his thinking improved and also became more complex. I can agree with this observation, it makes sense.

We might even logically deduce this process taking place on any world where the right combinations of complex organic compounds could produce complex life forms that also have intelligent mind function.  We can then take the next step in deducing that intelligent life is likely to exist not just on our world, but on many other worlds in a vast and almost infinite universe. One day we may even meet or have contact with other intelligent life and it will be an incredible experience, especially if we have shared commonalities of personality.

To conceive that minded beings operate throughout the universe is, at least to me, an exciting proposition. If true, this will prove that MIND is part of the organic makeup of all of the hydrogen and carbon that makes up universal space. Its a pleasant notion to believe the universe at large is capable of producing minded beings who get better at being minded beings.

But now I want to propose another theory, one in which postulates that MIND comes before matter, a pre-requisite of matter, and that the whole reason Matter (the physical universe) is organized as it is for us to interpret and make sense of it, is because a Mind planned it. Some call it the Universal Mind, some call it God.

If God is real and is the master planner then the second hypothesis must be true, which is to say Mind, even a Supreme Mind, was a prerequisite to life in the subjective sense; that our minds on earth were actually planned to occur and the evolutionary plan of animal ascension (higher mind activity) was purposely put in motion; it was intended that earth would eventually produce higher-functioning animals who could reason, seek truth, attain wisdom, and yes, worship the very mind that set all of this in motion.

If one takes the position that Mind is merely the natural outworking of physical matter eventuating into highly complex brain activity that can actually communicate with other highly complex brains, then you still have to explain how Mind (a non-material form of energy) can arise from non-personal carbon and hydrogen material.

To put it simply, mind operates independent of matter even though mind needs matter – a physical arena – in which to function. But Matter doesn’t need mind, necessarily, so why would it produce an entity that works independent of it?

The only plausible answer is that Mind produced Matter, not the other way around, as we are prone to believe.

Where do you think Mind comes from, was it pre- or post-matter and energy.

What do you think?