Tag: God within

Website Progress and Service

Developing this website is a fascinating challenge, so many new things to learn. With each new thing there is a plugin that must be chosen, installed, learned, applied to the website, errors located and fixed. This is all about developing a platform to get the message out; this message must be shared with our sisters and brothers.

An important aspect of this website is the extensive crosslinking throughout the postings and pages. While reading a page, if there is a link to something you want to explore, right-click on the link and open it in another tab for later study. For example, if there is a reference to our Planetary Prince clicking on the link will present further information about him.

To find a reference to The Urantia Book, there is a link at the bottom of the Home page. This link goes to the new Urantia Foundation online search engine that finds the reference in question. There is even an audio option for the quotation that can be found at the beginning of the Paper. For example entering 1496.1 and clicking on the reference starts the paper about John the Baptist. Very soon I will have a separate page on the website linking to the online search engine and the text of The Urantia Book, so stay tuned, this is an ongoing process.

A recent addition to the website is a short commentary about each photo accessed from a link under the photo; there is also a page, “Photos,” that has each photo, a description and a link to its page.

Another new addition to the website is a link on the main page enabling users to sign up for the email list; once added they will be notified of new postings and other news. How could such a simple thing be so complicated? For this I needed two plugins and it was a struggle to get them working together. They are now up and running, but enough of that; what about service?

We know there is a spark of God within each thinking mortal, everyone has this gift from God and because of this everyone has equal spiritual value. Our Heavenly Father is actually present in our lives; we do not need to seek for Him elsewhere. This means He can literally guide us if we sincerely listen and follow this divine guidance. The more we listen and follow this internal advice, the easier it becomes the next time. God has a plan for our lives; it is up to us to follow that plan. The consequence of this is times when we must give attention to opportunities of service, even though it means we have to delay something else we want to do.

For example before Jesus was thirteen years old, a celestial messenger appeared before him telling him it was time to be about your Father’s business. (Urantia Book 1376.1) Just over a year later, when Jesus was barely fourteen, Joseph was killed in an accident at work; for Jesus this meant his young human nature must also shoulder the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother and seven brothers and sisters — and another yet to be born. (Urantia Book 1388.1)

Jesus had been instructed to be about his Father’s business, yet he had pressing obligations to his family that could not be denied. The story of how he lovingly cared for his family is a thrilling tale of devotion to duty; for example he spent two days in prison with his young brother Jude who had said unkind words about Roman soldiers.[1]

Jesus spent many years helping his family and learning how people lived their lives. He also toured the Mediterranean Sea for more than a year. Eighteen years after the celestial visitation Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River at Pella and began his public work.

Jesus was focused on following God’s guidance even though this meant delaying something else important, being about his Father’s business.

If you sincerely seek to do God’s will, there are going to be serious choices to make; if you are not so tested, your faith is not yet strong enough to be tested. If you are living a life of ease you have not faith because having true faith means being willing to go where we will be uncomfortable. God’s ways are not our ways, He knows the true way and only when we cooperate with His loving guidance can we make real spiritual progress.

Talking about service, Betty and I both have family obligations requiring us to delay other needful things, like developing this website for my book “Light of Truth: Anticipating the triumph of Righteousness” and other important obligations.

My brother needs surgery on both knees because he is in constant pain and his wife has trouble getting around. It is a long sad story of bureaucratic nonsense but he has been trying since February to have the operations; just recently he has finally been given a date in early September for the first knee. Betty and I need to be there to assist them during his recovery. Twice this year we have driven from western North Carolina to near Tampa, Florida thinking the operation was imminent only to find out otherwise.

Betty’s son on the southeast coast of Florida is downsizing and needs considerable maintenance, yard work and other necessary work. He has sold one house and another needs to be made presentable for prospective buyers.

We do these periods of service knowing our Heavenly Father has a plan for our lives; it is up to us to accept and cooperate with His plan. At each step along the way we must choose whether we accept and follow the will of God or reject His guidance.

If we have a strong moral foundation based on doing the will of our Heavenly Father there should be no hesitation when presented with service opportunities. This moral foundation guides us and gives us assurance that we have a firm underpinning upon which to build our lives and guide our decisions.

Periods of service are only partly about helping somebody else; they are also about growing a soul of eternal advancement possibilities. Each of us should sincerely and joyfully choose to do the will of our Heavenly Father because then our soul grows stronger, we help ourselves as much as we help others.

Tags: God Within, service, spiritual free will, Urantia Book, Truth Seekers

  1. The Urantia Book; the number refers to the single column version in the format page.paragraph, 1415.5-7 ↑

Ideology Becoming Dogma

In this posting we revisit an important topic covered in our previous blog; what happens when an ideological goal becomes the primary focus for a group of people? Having such a goal is not a problem but difficulties arise when the goal is not based on facts or reality. It is OK to have an idealistic ideal to strive for, some transformation needed by society, but ignoring certain facts of life makes any goal unattainable.

In our society there are many crosscurrents involving various points of view. Having several differing viewpoints is not a bad thing but expressing them with heated emotions is now more common than in the past. Many feel their worldview is the only valid one there is, they cannot even begin to understand what motivates those who hold differing opinions; these viewpoints reach the level of dogma.

“Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview—nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.”[1] When the ideas driving individuals reach the level of dogma, there arises a disconnect from reality. Dogma means accepting ideas and principles without question.[2]

This is what happens when a particular idea or goal is considered to be so vital, so important that achieving this goal is the focus of their being, their reality; an ideology is simply a set of beliefs shared by a particular group.[3]

The process proceeds in this way; first a group of individuals gather and discuss some particular goal, something important that is missing from their society. They reach a consensus on their goal and develop a plan to achieve it. At some point they might declare their goal is so vital any means must be used to reach their goal; this recognition may evolve over time as they recognize their goal is not being reached. The goal has then become their morality and their ideology has become dogma.

This mixing of goal and morality is a catastrophic blunder because it means there is no moral framework, no moral foundation to determine which actions are acceptable and which are not. {Moral Foundation} This is especially important for goals which are difficult to attain, those involving a long time frame. Without a moral framework it is too easy to take moral shortcuts when progress is not apparent. Impatience was a major factor in the downfall of Adam and Eve.

Our largely secular society may want to forget about our Heavenly Father, creator of all things and beings, but God is a fact of life who cannot be ignored. God is actually present within each thinking mortal on Earth. Recognizing the presence of our Heavenly father within each of us will provide a strong moral foundation and give us a chance to attain our idealistic goals because now our work is based on reality, on God.

No worthy goal can be attained without realizing God is with us and guiding us, we need only listen to Him and follow the spiritual guidance each of us receive.

  1. Stephen Jay Gould, quoted by John Mauldin in “Thoughts from the Frontline” 6/8/19 ↑

  2. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ Retrieved 6/10/19 ↑

  3. Ibid ↑

Ideologically Driven Processes

This posting discusses “Ideologically Driven Processes.”

Ideologically driven processes occur when individuals seize upon a particular goal so strongly they will go to any length to attain it. They feel their goal is so vitally important anything is acceptable in their quest; this goal then becomes their morality. Their actions are no longer measured against right and wrong but against how it helps them reach their goal. There is no possibility of success when goal and morality become confused in this way.

An example of this is Communism. Their original goal was to attain a “workers’ paradise” where common labor would be properly compensated for their work, which is certainly a worthy goal. The problem with Communism is they had no moral foundation, they felt it was necessary to use any means whatsoever to attain that goal, thus resulting in the socially repressive conditions of their regimes. They felt obligated because of the difficulty in convincing governments to recognize the rights of workers; since they were impatient and wanted results soon they felt obligated to use strong methods. Once they started on the path of seeking their goal at all costs they gave up any chance of reaching that goal. Those who embark on such an ideologically driven process can never attain their goal because of their lack of moral foundation.

Having a moral foundation based on the truth that God is present within each thinking mortal on this planet is vital. When we realize this and use it as our moral compass, sorting out priorities becomes much easier.

Terrorists in general fall into this category because their goal, whether they seek social or religious reform, is seen to be so vitally important they feel conventional morality no longer applies, the supposedly transcendent goal has overtaken their morality.

Terrorists seek out those who feel disadvantaged in some way; this may not necessarily be because of poverty. Recruits would be carefully fed information to indicate a way out of their misery; once these individuals have fallen into the terrorist mindset it is difficult for them to return to society.

An article in Foreign Affairs Magazine addresses this point; “Teenage Terrorists Aren’t Lost Forever” by Nabeelah Jaffer discusses this issue of returning young terrorists to society. The radicalization process is termed “de-pluralization” where potential recruits are led to “see the world through the lens of a single story.” This story then becomes the focus of their existence as they buy into the terrorist mindset. “The urgency of the problem demands an urgent response: Violence seems justified in pursuit of a noble cause.” They have therefore bought into an ideologically driven process.

One way to return these individuals to society is, in effect, to reverse the process; in other words they aregradually introduced into a more pluralistic view of the world. Such procedures offer more promise than to force feed them “proper” dogma. The gradual pluralistic approach certainly seems the better way.

This process could be used in any instance where radicals have become fixated on a certain idealistic goal to the exclusion of morality. Such individuals could be introduced into a more pluralistic mindset, have their point of view expanded to the point where we all are sisters and brothers because each one of us has a spark of God within. A firm moral foundation must be in place before the needs of the disadvantaged can be addressed.