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You may wish to begin by
reading here: (148:5.1).
All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:
Is courage--strength of character--desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.
Is altruism--service of one's fellows--desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.
Is hope--the grandeur of trust--desirable?Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Urantia Book, Page 51,
(3:5.5)
One of the reasons for the gift of
The Urantia Book
is there is a clear misunderstanding of God throughout all religions and theologies.
Everything that Jesus tried to instill in his
apostles
and
believers was replaced by superstition and tradition very soon after he was
made politically correct by the
Roman Emperor,
Paul's Christian
re-working of Mithraism and Judaism put God in control of all things, and made God
to be a stern judge who demanded his son's death.
Nowadays, although
heaven
and
hell
are thought to be largely fantasy realms,
it is assumed that there is a God somewhere.
It is assumed that God is in control of everything, and that God is to
blame for everything, therefore, good luck and bad luck depend upon God's favor; those who perish in massive disasters were not under God's protection at that time.
Therefore, as a primitive tribe of superstitious half-hearted believers, whenever major tragedy strikes, God gets the blame.
It is difficult to formulate theology that is appealing concerning a loving and forgiving heavenly Father. The preferred method
is to provide rules by which one can bribe one's way into heaven, or at least avoid the tortures of hell. And, as long as God is seen as angry,
jealous, judgmental, and all too human, people are being frightened into specious
belief as a survival technique.
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