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The Reality of God


Will Due

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The Reality of God

1:2.1

God is primal reality in the spirit world; God is the source of truth in the mind spheres; God overshadows all throughout the material realms. To all created intelligences God is a personality, and to the universe of universes he is the First Source and Center of eternal reality. God is neither manlike nor machinelike. The First Father is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality.

1:2.2

The eternal God is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe personalized. God is not simply the supreme desire of man, the mortal quest objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the power-potential of righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym for nature, neither is he natural law personified. God is a transcendent reality, not merely man’s traditional concept of supreme values. God is not a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he “the noblest work of man.” God may be any or all of these concepts in the minds of men, but he is more. He is a saving person and a loving Father to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to experience personality survival in death.

24

The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to live in the mortal mind of man and there to assist in evolving the immortal soul of eternal survival. The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind is disclosed by three experiential phenomena:

1:2.4

1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God—God-consciousness.

1:2.5

2. The spiritual urge to find God—God-seeking.

1:2.6

3. The personality craving to be like God—the wholehearted desire to do the Father’s will.

1:2.7

The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

1:2.8

Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father.

1:2.9

In theory you may think of God as the Creator, and he is the personal creator of Paradise and the central universe of perfection, but the universes of time and space are all created and organized by the Paradise corps of the Creator Sons. The Universal Father is not the personal creator of the local universe of Nebadon; the universe in which you live is the creation of his Son Michael. Though the Father does not personally create the evolutionary universes, he does control them in many of their universal relationships and in certain of their manifestations of physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. God the Father is the personal creator of the Paradise universe and, in association with the Eternal Son, the creator of all other personal universe Creators.

1:2.10

As a physical controller in the material universe of universes, the First Source and Center functions in the patterns of the eternal Isle of Paradise, and through this absolute gravity center the eternal God exercises cosmic overcontrol of the physical level equally in the central universe and throughout the universe of universes. As mind, God functions in the Deity of the Infinite Spirit; as spirit, God is manifest in the person of the Eternal Son and in the persons of the divine children of the Eternal Son. This interrelation of the First Source and Center with the co-ordinate Persons and Absolutes of Paradise does not in the least preclude the direct personal action of the Universal Father throughout all creation and on all levels thereof. Through the presence of his fragmentized spirit the Creator Father maintains immediate contact with his creature children and his created universes.

 

An excerpt from Paper 1 of the Urantia Book

 

 

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38 minutes ago, Will Due said:

The Reality of God

1:2.8

Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence;

All of nature is called by many names, including the general term of "god". So it matters not what belief system you choose to subscribe to or whether you view nature as a personified and/or anthropomorphized being or not. We have experienced nature (or 'god' if you so choose) just by our very existence and observation of the world around us.

Observe the geese flying in formation before they finally migrate is just one minuscule aspect of nature, the rotation of Earth, the orbital path of the planets, the path our solar system takes as it travels with the galaxy....these are all part of this thing that some choose to call "god". The cosmos, or nature (again 'god' if you desire), is endless thus we can never really know it in its entirety.

Also, nature is a collection of cycles and processes thus has no need for organic terms like "he,she". It is not conscious thus cannot care about anything.

Edited by Ryu
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hmm.  fascinating.

 

not my experience but then, it's all so subjective, that's completely unsurprising.

 

 

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Will, have you started this thread to preach that novel again, or do you have a valid point and question to ask, which I have missed?

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3 minutes ago, freetoroam said:

Will, have you started this thread to preach that novel again, or do you have a valid point and question to ask, which I have missed?

Did you read the OP, or did you side step doing that and miss the point of this thread, discussing the reality of God?

 

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How come you abandoned the thread  you started about the Urantia Book and  started it up again her in a new thread ?

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3 hours ago, Will Due said:

Did you read the OP, or did you side step doing that and miss the point of this thread, discussing the reality of God?

 

But you didn't put forth your ideas about the reality of God. Just again the UB take on it. 

You're really attached to that thing. Can you have a thought that you don't find in it?

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1 minute ago, ChaosRose said:

But you didn't put forth your ideas about the reality of God. Just again the UB take on it. 

You're really attached to that thing. Can you have a thought that you don't find in it?

Yeah, I know. I missed that minor detail. Putting it in the OP that I wanted to discuss the reality of God, not the Urantia Book. 

Just ignore it, and my thoughtlessness.

 

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2 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Yeah, I know. I missed that minor detail. Putting it in the OP that I wanted to discuss the reality of God, not the Urantia Book. 

Just ignore it, and my thoughtlessness.

 

Well, ok...but don't you wanna share your take on the reality of God now? 

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1 hour ago, back to earth said:

How come you abandoned the thread  you started about the Urantia Book and  started it up again her in a new thread ?

Because I was hoping you would share your non Urantia book ideas about the reality of God. You said you're well read in many of the world's religions.

I don't know if you've read the UB, you said you attended a study group but that doesn't mean you understand what it says or that you've even read it. 

Anyways, what's your understanding of the reality of God BTE? 

 

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15 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Because I was hoping you would share your non Urantia book ideas about the reality of God. You said you're well read in many of the world's religions.

That doesn't explain what I asked you though, does it ?

Ho hum .... OK then , I will go along with the 'normal' human communication style then ;

'God' is the local collective superego, externalised, personified and deified, to give it 'clout' psychologically, to regulate the local mores and taboo system. That is the only 'reality' I can  give it. I do give it reality, as,   as an anthropologist, I see it is  evident in the world and a dynamic many people utilize .  It is a concept that can not be proved any other way as a 'reality', that is ,  it is a concept, on that level, as a concept and an influence, it can be proved to exist, but God cant be proved to exist as a reality, beyond that, only its e3xistence as an 'ideal' construct  or thing and not a 'real'  construct .

For clarity;   I explained ( a few times )   I studied  Comparative Religion and Divinity at Sydney Uni, and since have continued to both study and gain experience in  a few religions and religious experiences.  Yes,  spent a lot of time studying the UB, and in a group as well, discussing what we read with other readers (something you would benefit from),  also I have read and practiced in Tibetan Buddhism, Indigenous Shamanism, I was on the Spiritual Council of the Baha'is ( equivalent to clergy ), an ordained priest in the Gnostic Church, studied and practiced Hermetics and Kabbalah most of my adult life,  had an interest in Ancient Egyptian religion and over the last few years been in depth researching the origins and developments of western religion in Zoroastrianism and its origins in Pre-PIE religions   ( the religion that Vedanta and Zoroastrianism  evolved out of )

 

15 minutes ago, Will Due said:

I don't know if you've read the UB, you said you attended a study group but that doesn't mean you understand what it says or that you've even read it. 

No I didn't say that, I said I had read the book, I attended many UB study groups (look them up if you dont know what they are and how they work )  I even recommended one to you.  I even said I wrote and delivered papers at UB  conference.    So, of course I read it !

Seems like you are getting desperate here.   However, if it helps your security to imagine I have never read the book, nor understand it , go for it. In any case, nearly all I say to you seems to not sink in .

15 minutes ago, Will Due said:

Anyways, what's your understanding of the reality of God BTE? 

 

See above .

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23 minutes ago, ChaosRose said:

Well, ok...but don't you wanna share your take on the reality of God now? 

To me life is generally one massive illusion. What's right is often wrong. What's bad is sometimes very good. Death is too, an illusion. 

It wasn't until I experienced enough of life's travails, its pains and miseries that I succumbed to what I thought was unfair, cruel in my plight that I came to understand that it was just and wholesome when I relented the illusion of all that seemed bad to embrace the reality of how it is good.

It was then that I became aware of God's reality and I will say that it was in direct response to my commitment to my family, loyalty to my wife and especially my kids.

I didn't have a lot of things, stuff, the things of this world but because I trudged on, I held to my duty to be loyal that I saw that poverty was the greatest of all illusions and that my knowing that God is real was the "pearl of great price a man sells all that he has to possess."

After my first wife decided loyalty to me wasn't important and left me for another man, I remarried, adopted her young children as my own, went through thick and thin (it wasn't easy juggling two sets of kids) but I new that it was God's will to press on. All my kids are adults now and it was because of all this that I came to see how real God is.

That's the reality of God. Fatherhood and sonship which I am experiencing and turns the illusions of life and death into the realities of being alive.

 

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7 minutes ago, back to earth said:

 

I really want to respond to you but can't right now. I will though as soon as I can. 

 

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God is both a psychological and social construct. It exist only in your head and anything you associate to that god is confirmation bias. An objective god hasn't been shown to exist.

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10 hours ago, Will Due said:

The Reality of God

1:2.1

God is primal reality in the spirit world; God is the source of truth in the mind spheres; God overshadows all throughout the material realms. To all created intelligences God is a personality, and to the universe of universes he is the First Source and Center of eternal reality. God is neither manlike nor machinelike. The First Father is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality.

1:2.2

The eternal God is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe personalized. God is not simply the supreme desire of man, the mortal quest objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the power-potential of righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym for nature, neither is he natural law personified. God is a transcendent reality, not merely man’s traditional concept of supreme values. God is not a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he “the noblest work of man.” God may be any or all of these concepts in the minds of men, but he is more. He is a saving person and a loving Father to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to experience personality survival in death.

24

The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to live in the mortal mind of man and there to assist in evolving the immortal soul of eternal survival. The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind is disclosed by three experiential phenomena:

1:2.4

1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God—God-consciousness.

1:2.5

2. The spiritual urge to find God—God-seeking.

1:2.6

3. The personality craving to be like God—the wholehearted desire to do the Father’s will.

1:2.7

The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

1:2.8

Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father.

1:2.9

In theory you may think of God as the Creator, and he is the personal creator of Paradise and the central universe of perfection, but the universes of time and space are all created and organized by the Paradise corps of the Creator Sons. The Universal Father is not the personal creator of the local universe of Nebadon; the universe in which you live is the creation of his Son Michael. Though the Father does not personally create the evolutionary universes, he does control them in many of their universal relationships and in certain of their manifestations of physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. God the Father is the personal creator of the Paradise universe and, in association with the Eternal Son, the creator of all other personal universe Creators.

1:2.10

As a physical controller in the material universe of universes, the First Source and Center functions in the patterns of the eternal Isle of Paradise, and through this absolute gravity center the eternal God exercises cosmic overcontrol of the physical level equally in the central universe and throughout the universe of universes. As mind, God functions in the Deity of the Infinite Spirit; as spirit, God is manifest in the person of the Eternal Son and in the persons of the divine children of the Eternal Son. This interrelation of the First Source and Center with the co-ordinate Persons and Absolutes of Paradise does not in the least preclude the direct personal action of the Universal Father throughout all creation and on all levels thereof. Through the presence of his fragmentized spirit the Creator Father maintains immediate contact with his creature children and his created universes.

 

An excerpt from Paper 1 of the Urantia Book

 

 

Hey Will :st 

I think it's should be noted that this is the area of the board to discuss and enjoy the personal and yes (sorry Will ) subjective outlook of one's spiritual path and ideals. 

The thing is, I feel I could ask a particular question in how you worded it. Not that I'm criticizing, but in how the way you look at it, is not entirely how I would look at it. 

Bear with me, ok?   :blush:   Now, as you know, I grew up secular with no attending religious services, so I don't see the reality of God. Well, *ahem* the reality of God that you see God as. Not going to knock it for you, you should be rightfully able to. :yes: But, there is seems to be a lack of evidence for me in the usual God and it's environment, what you see as a reality, I have no evidence in front of me to see it the same way. 

The reality of sometimes a paranormal existence and higher powers as a probability? Well, maybe not outside of me, but it would be my 'subjective' reality. ;)  :D   

And it seems to work on a different reality for me, than your God and his reality. 

Would you be satisfied in knowing your reality of God, is not necessarily someone else's reality of God or what ever they worship or nothing at all? 

For me, I think it has to do with the fact, that reality has something tied to it as being objective as well. 

2 hours ago, Will Due said:

To me life is generally one massive illusion. What's right is often wrong. What's bad is sometimes very good. Death is too, an illusion. 

It wasn't until I experienced enough of life's travails, its pains and miseries that I succumbed to what I thought was unfair, cruel in my plight that I came to understand that it was just and wholesome when I relented the illusion of all that seemed bad to embrace the reality of how it is good.

It was then that I became aware of God's reality and I will say that it was in direct response to my commitment to my family, loyalty to my wife and especially my kids.

I didn't have a lot of things, stuff, the things of this world but because I trudged on, I held to my duty to be loyal that I saw that poverty was the greatest of all illusions and that my knowing that God is real was the "pearl of great price a man sells all that he has to possess."

After my first wife decided loyalty to me wasn't important and left me for another man, I remarried, adopted her young children as my own, went through thick and thin (it wasn't easy juggling two sets of kids) but I new that it was God's will to press on. All my kids are adults now and it was because of all this that I came to see how real God is.

That's the reality of God. Fatherhood and sonship which I am experiencing and turns the illusions of life and death into the realities of being alive.

 

You know, I can sense how you would see it. Not just in a subjective helpful way, but another way of being a tether, which I find very understandable. Kind of what my belief helps me do, in seeing the world, and in a calmer aspect, despite even the down days. ;)  

 

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19 hours ago, back to earth said:

That doesn't explain what I asked you though, does it ?

Ho hum .... OK then , I will go along with the 'normal' human communication style then ;

'God' is the local collective superego, externalised, personified and deified, to give it 'clout' psychologically, to regulate the local mores and taboo system. That is the only 'reality' I can  give it. I do give it reality, as,   as an anthropologist, I see it is  evident in the world and a dynamic many people utilize .  It is a concept that can not be proved any other way as a 'reality', that is ,  it is a concept, on that level, as a concept and an influence, it can be proved to exist, but God cant be proved to exist as a reality, beyond that, only its e3xistence as an 'ideal' construct  or thing and not a 'real'  construct .

For clarity;   I explained ( a few times )   I studied  Comparative Religion and Divinity at Sydney Uni, and since have continued to both study and gain experience in  a few religions and religious experiences.  Yes,  spent a lot of time studying the UB, and in a group as well, discussing what we read with other readers (something you would benefit from),  also I have read and practiced in Tibetan Buddhism, Indigenous Shamanism, I was on the Spiritual Council of the Baha'is ( equivalent to clergy ), an ordained priest in the Gnostic Church, studied and practiced Hermetics and Kabbalah most of my adult life,  had an interest in Ancient Egyptian religion and over the last few years been in depth researching the origins and developments of western religion in Zoroastrianism and its origins in Pre-PIE religions   ( the religion that Vedanta and Zoroastrianism  evolved out of )

 

No I didn't say that, I said I had read the book, I attended many UB study groups (look them up if you dont know what they are and how they work )  I even recommended one to you.  I even said I wrote and delivered papers at UB  conference.    So, of course I read it !

Seems like you are getting desperate here.   However, if it helps your security to imagine I have never read the book, nor understand it , go for it. In any case, nearly all I say to you seems to not sink in .

See above .

Since you've said BTE that you've read the Urantia Book, attended study groups and so forth, and because I started this thread to discuss the reality of God and presented the narrative from that part of the UB that covers it, I am interested in hearing your views about it more; the Urantia Book, and the reality of God.

But first I would like to give you a little info about me, because without it, I won't be able to present my thoughts and ideas clearly to you.

My personal experiences have been, are still today, and will undoubtedly continue to be, the defining way the reality of God is made clear to me personally. What I've read or will read in the future, here in people's posts, or in any books I haven't yet read will also contribute to my greater understanding of who/what God is. But this is all secondary to the primary way to know God, personal experience with him, with his fragmented presence that indwells all of us, individually.

I graduated high school in 1976. Got married a few months later at eighteen years old, shotgun style, unexpectedly and totally unprepared. My eldest son was born the next year.

I flipped burgers for a living to support my family instead of going to the university to study engineering like I had planned. I had great kids but an almost completely unhappy marriage. When my wife betrayed me for another man 21 years later, it was worse than if she had died, because she was gone forever but still alive to haunt me.

In 1998, I was 40 years old and married my now wife and adopted her two kids as my own. All the kids are grown now and they're all doing well, but not without a great struggle between two families now combined. Oh yeah, and not without God's help.

Now on to my experience with the Urantia Book.

In 1982, I discovered it. I've read and reread it countless times. Have found it to be all that I need in a book. I've read a lot from the bible but most of it gives me a headache. Same experience with the other religious texts I've poked around in. For the most part, I've found ancient texts to be way out of touch with reality, a whole lot of slight of hand nonsense unlike with the text of the Urantia Book, so I've never felt a need to go exploring them much. I have attended several UB study groups over the years and know a lot of people. Recently, online study has peaked my interest and I've been active there somewhat.

But I will emphasize; learning to know about God's reality is helpful when reading text, but sometimes, and I've seen it many times, it can be a barrier to really knowing what and who God is.

You can't know the reality of God by reading about him. It's only through experience with him that you can, and this is impossible without being active in the community, actively serving your fellow man.

But I'm very curious BTE, why, if you've read and studied the UB, why do you reject it? It seems to me, by your comments back to me so far that you've utterly dismissed it out of hand. Even while going on in furthering your studies in comparative religion and divinity, which I wish I had time to do, it would be validating to the UB like a lot of my friends who've studied comparative religion have told me. Why not you?

I say that because the little I have read in comparing other religious text to the UB myself has all been supportive of the things narrated in the UB. Same thing with science and history. But you do need to be perceptive and know how to read between the lines.

I know you'll probably just fire back that I'm just an uneducated country bumpkin and all that, uninformed, stupid and gullible and if you do, so be it, but I know what I have, and it isn't anything I've acquired by reading the text of any holy book. I have it because I've earned it in spite of studying books. In fact, I came to possess it first by experience, especially my experiences with my kids, then later I read about it in a book. Especially the Urantia Book.

So what say you? Is God real?

 

Edited by Will Due
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3 hours ago, Will Due said:

Since you've said BTE that you've read the Urantia Book, attended study groups and so forth, and because I started this thread to discuss the reality of God and presented the narrative from that part of the UB that covers it, I am interested in hearing your views about it more; the Urantia Book, and the reality of God.

Then why did you abandon  your UB thread ?  I asked you that question, you didn't answer, put another up, which I did answer, now you answer that with a query that belongs in the thread that you abandoned and then  started this one.

In several places and different threads I offered opinions, asked questions and pointed some things about the UB, which where not addressed, there . The reality of God issue, I dealt with above .   That's it , that is the bte definitive statement of reality, re 'God'  gleaned from 40 years research, investigation and experimentation .  It might read simply ... but even that simple statement took some time to  work out and condense to a simple 'cut the bs' form .

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

But first I would like to give you a little info about me, because without it, I won't be able to present my thoughts and ideas clearly to you.

 

Errrrrrggghh   :rolleyes:

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

My personal experiences have been, are still today, and will undoubtedly continue to be, the defining way the reality of God is made clear to me personally. What I've read or will read in the future, here in people's posts, or in any books I haven't yet read will also contribute to my greater understanding of who/what God is. But this is all secondary to the primary way to know God, personal experience with him, with his fragmented presence that indwells all of us, individually.

I graduated high school in 1976. Got married a few months later at eighteen years old, shotgun style, unexpectedly and totally unprepared. My eldest son was born the next year.

I flipped burgers for a living to support my family instead of going to the university to study engineering like I had planned. I had great kids but an almost completely unhappy marriage. When my wife betrayed me for another man 21 years later, it was worse than if she had died, because she was gone forever but still alive to haunt me.

 

Why do I need to know all  this   ' worse than if she had died '  !   DUDE !   :o     ...     So self centred and jealous !  ./.. after 21 years  !   OMG .    "betrayed"   :rolleyes:

You tell me stuff like this and you are gonna get my response !  I told you I different !

I remember my friends being aghast when I was minding the 3 bubs as my GF was off having an affair .  The  agreed with  my reason and logic but said no way they could do that ! ( reasons being ; kids were number 1 important, over any stupid adult issues, jealousies, etc .   I actually said, what if she had an accident was injured or killed this is much easier to deal with, also I told them;  well, I am twice her age , she probably wants some  sex with a young guy, ( the guy I said that too nearly fainted ! ) .   Like I said, I have transcended a LOT of human BS .

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

In 1998, I was 40 years old and married my now wife and adopted her two kids as my own. All the kids are grown now and they're all doing well, but not without a great struggle between two families now combined. Oh yeah, and not without God's help.

Now on to my experience with the Urantia Book.

In 1982, I discovered it. I've read and reread it countless times. Have found it to be all that I need in a book. I've read a lot from the bible but most of it gives me a headache. Same experience with the other religious texts I've poked around in. For the most part, I've found ancient texts to be way out of touch with reality, a whole lot of slight of hand nonsense unlike with the text of the Urantia Book, so I've never felt a need to go exploring them much. I have attended several UB study groups over the years and know a lot of people. Recently, online study has peaked my interest and I've been active there somewhat.

 

Well,   that's the first time you ever mentioned that you attended study groups . I mentioned it, and suggested it to you and you never aid anything about it !

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

But I will emphasize; learning to know about God's reality is helpful when reading text, but sometimes, and I've seen it many times, it can be a barrier to really knowing what and who God is.

You can't know the reality of God by reading about him. It's only through experience with him that you can, and this is impossible without being active in the community, actively serving your fellow man.

 

\I have been active in community, I worked nursing, including the elderly for 10 years , I worked in refugee relocation and some of them were ex-torture victims.  And a lot more as well. None of that lead me to 'know the reality of God '  .

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

But I'm very curious BTE, why, if you've read and studied the UB, why do you reject it?

Why do you accept it ?

It has been clearly stated over and over again in various threads why. Also its a comparative thing. You admit yourself you didn't find other religious texts significant, if you missed what is them and only saw them as you described, you missed a lot and so, dont really have valid comparisons .

I even bought up the issue of the UBs  lack of effect on the world and culture and explained all that .

I also admonished you as I thought nothing was sinking about what I said  ... and here you are asking me all over again, after you abandoned the thread you made that we asked you to so you could address such questions .

Also I have explained a few times about the nature of belief, and how that works. To correctly study comparative religion you have to start with the nature of belief and understand that and how it works in the self. Have you done that ?  Without that realisation, there will always be a great gap . And that is why the course curriculum puts that first .

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

It seems to me, by your comments back to me so far that you've utterly dismissed it out of hand. Even while going on in furthering your studies in comparative religion and divinity, which I wish I had time to do, it would be validating to the UB like a lot of my friends who've studied comparative religion have told me. Why not you?

 

as above . Its all been said before, same reasons .   And you never really addressed those reasons .

I might ask you, equally curious, why you accept such an obvious modern construction and hotchpotch, that is already outdated and wrong and biased on so many issues, and gives stories that you seem to take as some sort of proof, why you accept it  ?   I note they are all emotive reasons .

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

I say that because the little I have read in comparing other religious text to the UB myself has all been supportive of the things narrated in the UB. Same thing with science and history. But you do need to be perceptive and know how to read between the lines.

 

The examples you previously gave do not seem to support that.   However, one can read whatever they want 'between the lines' .

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

I know you'll probably just fire back that I'm just an uneducated country bumpkin and all that, uninformed, stupid and gullible

 

:blink:

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

 

and if you do, so be it, but I know what I have, and it isn't anything I've acquired by reading the text of any holy book. I have it because I've earned it in spite of studying books. In fact, I came to possess it first by experience, especially my experiences with my kids, then later I read about it in a book. Especially the Urantia Book.

 

You mighty have missed where I emphasised that my  book learning is backed by experience as well ... a multitude of diverse experience, as listed elsewhere for you and above .

No, it isn't that I lack real life diversified experience in this field, and that I am some textual individual that frowns down on you for not being well educated .   I never graduated from Uni    (and now I think I know why you felt you had to tell me your past story, which included that subject ) and most of my learning has been done since and outside that field ... mostly, by going out there and getting involved in it .

 

3 hours ago, Will Due said:

So what say you? Is God real?

 

I already explained all that .

Also, since 1400 changes  started to come about in' western'  human consciousness and the 'ideal' and 'the real' became  separated by a type of philosophical duality.

As I said  above   ,  God is real in the ideal sense .. as a concept that , via people, creates change and effect in the world.

As to how we understand 'reality' , as opposed to 'the ideal'  - a type of hard concrete material reality , no God is not real .

So people that want or feel God to be 'real', try to push that barrier;  on one hand , we have the 'Mr Walkers' who insist on material men or aliens as Gods, on the other hand, make God in another type of super realm that can affect this physical  one  somehow . 

Its a similar question to, is Santa 'real ' .....    in a way, yes .   In another way , no .

Like many things, it all depends on our current paradigm view of what  constitutes reality . But most don't think it through that far .    Maybe its just easier to hope and believe and say your prayers every night ?  A vast number of humans  follow that approach .

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23 hours ago, Will Due said:

To me life is generally one massive illusion. What's right is often wrong. What's bad is sometimes very good. Death is too, an illusion. 

It wasn't until I experienced enough of life's travails, its pains and miseries that I succumbed to what I thought was unfair, cruel in my plight that I came to understand that it was just and wholesome when I relented the illusion of all that seemed bad to embrace the reality of how it is good.

It was then that I became aware of God's reality and I will say that it was in direct response to my commitment to my family, loyalty to my wife and especially my kids.

I didn't have a lot of things, stuff, the things of this world but because I trudged on, I held to my duty to be loyal that I saw that poverty was the greatest of all illusions and that my knowing that God is real was the "pearl of great price a man sells all that he has to possess."

After my first wife decided loyalty to me wasn't important and left me for another man, I remarried, adopted her young children as my own, went through thick and thin (it wasn't easy juggling two sets of kids) but I new that it was God's will to press on. All my kids are adults now and it was because of all this that I came to see how real God is.

That's the reality of God. Fatherhood and sonship which I am experiencing and turns the illusions of life and death into the realities of being alive.

 

I was reading something similar somewhere. I can't remember what site, but it was basically saying that Jewish people had a tradition of saying things like oh thank goodness this <inconvenient thing> happened, because then this other worse thing didn't happen. Like, thank goodness I had a flat tire, because it kept me from being in that accident down the road. 

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I like the divine spark idea. Like a universal consciousness that maybe we're a part of and we don't realize...maybe we return to it. 

I have a hard time personifying the idea. That just seems very limited. 

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I think of it as neverending light, and in that light is total acceptance and love. It's why I like so many of those VNV Nation songs about light. 

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I know...love and light. I'm sounding pretty fluffy right about now.

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Anyway, when I think about it, I don't really get caught up in whether it's real or not. It doesn't ultimately matter. If I die, and there's nothing, then I'll never know there was nothing. But it will still have served me to have the experience I do when I think about that light and all of us being a part of it. 

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BTE, sometimes people just don't line up well. Or sometimes you meet someone you just can't figure out. You're one of those to me. It's not your fault, I have a lot of things yet to experience and learn.

I haven't responded in the past to you because I feel you're one inclined to belittle and humiliate, and perhaps I read some things into your responses that weren't there. It wouldn't have been the first time for me to have done that. But in a nutshell, you don't come across as being very friendly. But it might just be me.

Enough of the personal stuff. Moving on.

 

40 minutes ago, back to earth said:

Then why did you abandon  your UB thread ?  I asked you that question, you didn't answer, put another up, which I did answer, now you answer that with a query that belongs in the thread that you abandoned and then  started this one.

In several places and different threads I offered opinions, asked questions and pointed some things about the UB, which where not addressed, there .

See above. 

 

43 minutes ago, back to earth said:

Why do you accept it ?

Because the Urantia Book is beyond extraordinary and explains everything I had doubts about regarding what I was told about belief in God and what I read in the bible about it to my satisfaction in a way no man has ever done and can't ever do. This applies especially to what is said about Jesus in the UB, who he is, and why they murdered him.

The book is obviously (to me) exactly what it says it is, an epochal revelation for the age to come but is here early as a preparation. These "modern" times are still too primitive for the book's presence to effect significant change in society because most people aren't ready for it yet. And that's obvious too after sharing it with lots of folks for over 35 years. 

 

59 minutes ago, back to earth said:

since 1400 changes  started to come about in' western'  human consciousness and the 'ideal' and 'the real' became  separated by a type of philosophical duality.

As I said  above   ,  God is real in the ideal sense .. as a concept that , via people, creates change and effect in the world.

As to how we understand 'reality' , as opposed to 'the ideal'  - a type of hard concrete material reality , no God is not real .

Well that's what life is for isn't it? Making that decision for ourselves. Many think about and approach the reality of God and make the decision that God is not real like you stated above. That's perfect and exemplifies the truth of our free will.

What I don't understand BTE is how you of all people would come to that conclusion, after so much studying, so much comparing one religion to another, one text to another and especially if you've read and studied the UB.

But what you've determined, what you've decided, that God is just some delusional concept people have and that it's a false construct; that is something I respect, your decision, but I'm on the other side of it. So we disagree.

My experiences have shown me that God is very real, especially how he participates with me, how his presence indwells and guides me. How he has made it clear that he loves me and that I am his son and that he is my Father, and most important of all, my friend.

This is all very much reinforced by the knowledge I have, primarily from what is revealed in the UB about Jesus. How he lived his religious life and coped with all the same struggles we all have to overcome. What he went through as a kid, and how that molded him to be the man he became. 

All that taken together is why God is more than real to me. 

 

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3 hours ago, Will Due said:

BTE, sometimes people just don't line up well. Or sometimes you meet someone you just can't figure out. You're one of those to me. It's not your fault, I have a lot of things yet to experience and learn.

I haven't responded in the past to you because I feel you're one inclined to belittle and humiliate, and perhaps I read some things into your responses that weren't there. It wouldn't have been the first time for me to have done that. But in a nutshell, you don't come across as being very friendly. But it might just be me.

Enough of the personal stuff. Moving on

Hi Will,

Back To Earth is being honest with you, if you personalize what he says you will miss the greater context of what he is telling you, and he has a great sense of humor. 

jmccr8

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