Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 100
RELIGION IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1. The experience of dynamic religious living transforms the mediocre individual into a personality of idealistic power. Religion ministers to the progress of all through fostering the progress of each individual, and the progress of each is augmented through the achievement of all.
2. Spiritual growth is mutually stimulated by intimate association with other religionists. Love supplies the soil for religious growth—an objective lure in the place of subjective gratification —yet it yields the supreme subjective satisfaction. And religion ennobles the commonplace drudgery of daily living.
3. Some persons are too busy to grow and are therefore in grave danger of spiritual fixation...The chief inhibitors of growth are prejudice and ignorance.
4. Give every developing child a change to grow his own religious experience; do not force a ready‑made adult experience upon him. Remember, year‑by‑year progress through an established educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual progress, much less spiritual growth.
5. Children are permanently impressed only by the loyalties of their adult associates; precept or even example is not lastingly influential. Loyal persons are growing persons, and growth is an impressive and inspiring reality. Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole.
6. The soil essential for religious growth presupposes a progressive life of self‑realization, the co‑ordination of natural propensities, the exercise of curiosity and the enjoyment of reasonable adventure...The certain technique of fostering this constitutive endowment of the potential of spiritual growth is to maintain an attitude of wholehearted devotion to supreme values.
7. Religion cannot be bestowed, received, loaned, learned, or lost. It is a personal experience which grows proportionally to the growing quest for final values. Cosmic growth thus attends on the accumulation of meanings and the ever‑expanding elevation of values. But nobility itself is always an unconscious growth.
8. Habits which favor religious growth embrace cultivated sensitivity to divine values, recognition of religious living in others, reflective meditation on cosmic meanings, worshipful problem solving, sharing one's spiritual life with one's fellows, avoidance of selfishness, refusal to presume on divine mercy, living as in the presence of God. The facts of religious growth may be intentional, but the growth itself is unvaryingly unconscious.
9. Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a discovery of values. The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the exhibition of a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholehearted worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience constitutes the reality of religion as contrasted with more theological beliefs.
10. Spirituality becomes at once the indicator of one's nearness to God and the measure of one's usefulness to fellow beings. Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and. discover goodness in values.
11. When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and. jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.
12. After...spiritual attainment, whether secured by gradual growth or specific crisis, there occurs a new orientation of personality as well as the development of a new standard of values. Such spirit‑born individuals are so remotivated in life that they can calmly stand by while their fondest ambitions perish and their keenest hopes crash.
13. Religion is not a technique for attaining a static and blissful peace of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service. It is the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God and serving man.
14. In the contemplation of values you must distinguish between that which is value and that which has value ...Values can never be static; reality signifies change, growth. Change without growth, expansion of meaning and exaltation of value, is valueless—is potential evil. Values are always both actual and potential—not what was, but what is and is to be.
15. Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions. Growth is always unconscious, be it physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love thus grows; it cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased; it must grow. Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth is not had by improved administration.
16. New meanings only emerge amid conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the higher values connoted in superior meanings. Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation ...The slothful animal mind, rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.
17. The great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of LOVE. Health, mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
18. Jesus loved men so much because be placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associations by discovering their motivation...If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love.
19. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion‑stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of men.
20. The world is filled with lost souls, not lost in the theologic sense but lost in the directional meaning, wandering about in confusion among the isms and cults of a frustrated philosophic era.
21. Most of the spectacular phenomena associated with so‑called religious conversions are entirely psychologic in nature, but now and then there do occur experiences which are also spiritual in origin.
22. In contrast with conversion‑seeking, the better approach to the morontia zones of possible contact with the Thought Adjuster would be through living faith and sincere worship; wholehearted and unselfish prayer. Altogether too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious levels of the human mind has been mistaken for divine reve1tions and spirit leadings.
There is great danger associated with the habitual practice of religious daydreaming; mysticism may become a technique of reality avoidance, albeit it has sometimes been a means of genuine spiritual communion. Short seasons of retreat from the busy scene of life may not be seriously dangerous, but prolonged isolation of personality is most undesirable. Under no circumstances should the trancelike state of visionary consciousness be cultivated as a religious experience.
23. True religion is a wholehearted devotion to some reality which the religionist deems to be of supreme value to himself and for all mankind ...The accepted supreme value of the religionist may be base or even false, but it is nevertheless religious...The sincere religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and is aware of making contact with sources of superhuman power...The self has surrendered to the intriguing drive of an all‑encompassing motivation which imposes heightened self‑discipline, lessens emotional conflict, and makes mortal life truly worth living.
24. True religion is a living love, a life of service. The religionist's detachment from much that is purely temporal and trivial never leads to social isolation, and it should not destroy the sense of humor. Genuine religion takes nothing away from hums existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and. courage. It may even engender the spirit of the crusader, which is more than dangerous if not controlled by spiritual insight and loyal devotion to the commonplace social obligations of human loyalties.
25. One of the most amazing earmarks of religious living is that dynamic and sublime peace, that peace which passes all human understanding, that cosmic poise which betokens the absence of all doubt and turmoil. Such levels of spiritual stability are immune to disappointment.
26. Although the average mortal of Urantia cannot hope to attain the high perfection of character which Jesus of Nazareth acquired while sojourning in the flesh, it is altogether possible for every mortal believer to develop a strong and unified personality along the perfected lines of the Jesus personality. The unique feature of the Master's personality was not so much its perfection as its symmetry, its exquisite and balanced unification.
A. The unfailing kindness of Jesus touched the hearts of men, but his stalwart strength of character amazed his followers. He was truly sincere; there was nothing of the hypocrite in him. He was free from affectation; he was always so refreshingly genuine...
B. The Son of Man was always a well‑poised personality. Even his enemies maintained a wholesome respect for him; they even feared his presence. Jesus was unafraid. He was surcharged with divine enthusiasm, but he never became fanatical. He was emotionally active but never flighty. He was imaginative but always practical. He frankly faced the realities of life, but he was never dull or prosaic. He was courageous but never reckless; prudent but never cowardly. He was sympathetic but not sentimental; unique but not eccentric. He was pious but not sanctimonious. And. he was so well‑poised because he was so perfectly unified..
C. Jesus' originality was unstifled. He was not bound by tradition or handicapped by enslavement to narrow conventionality...Jesus was very broad in his outlook. He exhorted his followers to preach the gospel to all peoples...
D. No matter bow cruel nature might appear to be or how indifferent to welfare on earth, Jesus never faltered in his faith. He was immune to disappointment and impervious to persecution. He was untouched by apparent failure...Jesus was an unusually cheerful person, but he was not a blind and unreasoning optimist. His constant word of exhortation was, "Be of good. cheer"...He was always touchingly considerate of all men because he loved them and believed in them.
E. He was candid, but always kind ...He was frank, but always friendly. He was outspoken in his love for the sinner and in his hatred for sin. But throughout all this amazing frankness he was unerringly fair ...He fearlessly faced the realities of existence, yet was he filled with enthusiasm for the gospel of the kingdom. But he controlled his enthusiasm; it never controlled, him...
F. His courage was equaled only by his patience. When pressed to act prematurely, be would only reply, "My hour has not yet come." He was never in a hurry; his composure was sublime ...His courage was magnificent, but he was never foolhardy. His watchword was, "Fear not." His bravery was lofty and his courage often heroic. But his courage was linked with discretion and controlled by reason. It was courage born of faith, not the recklessness of blind presumption. He was truly brave but never audacious...
G. Jesus was great because he was good, and yet he fraternized with the little children. He was gentle and unassuming in his personal life, and yet he was the perfected man of a universe. His associates called. him Master unbidden.
Jesus was the perfectly unified human personality. And today, as in Galilee, he continues to unify mortal experience and to co‑ordinate human endeavors. He unifies life, ennobles character, and. simplifies experience. He enters the human mind to elevate, transform, and transfigure it.
Discussion Questions
1. What are the main causes of prejudice and ignorance?
2. What is the difference between personal religious faith and theological belief?
3. If one is not experiencing spiritual conflict and perplexities, is this a sign that we are not growing spiritually?
4. How should we treat mystical experiences?
5. Is increasing patience, forbearance, fortitude, and tolerance the result of living by high spiritual ideals?
6. How do we achieve inner peace and immunity to disappointment?
7. What is the key to developing a strong and unified personality?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship