A great task for us, The scene of race improvement is undone. UB 586.1 , 586.4 and 734.3 Options

[Meredith Van Woe...]

Speculations about the possible "proprosals" could be all but endless, no? Whatever the case, Urantia's greater future is secure, notwithstanding transient woes, evil eddies and many a rough patch.

Hi Rick, all,

Speaking of "Urantia's greater future is secure," reminded me of this:

Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure--uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father. P.1223 - §3

Errors of reasoning are possible in problem solving, because we humans tend to approach matters with a technique of starting from the lower to approach the higher, as follows:

When the human mind undertakes to follow the philosophic technique of starting from the lower to approach the higher, whether in biology or theology, it is always in danger of committing four errors of reasoning:

1. It may utterly fail to perceive the final and completed evolutionary goal of either personal attainment or cosmic destiny.

2. It may commit the supreme philosophical blunder by oversimplifying cosmic evolutionary (experiential) reality, thus leading to the distortion of facts, to the perversion of truth, and to the misconception of destinies.

3. The study of causation is the perusal of history. But the knowledge of how a being becomes does not necessarily provide an intelligent understanding of the present status and true character of such a being.

4. History alone fails adequately to reveal future development--destiny. Finite origins are helpful, but only divine causes reveal final effects. Eternal ends are not shown in time beginnings. The present can be truly interpreted only in the light of the correlated past and future. P.215 - §8

Civilization must not abandon its sense of moral values, nor repudiate its spiritual goal.

Unless the moral insight and the spiritual attainment of mankind are proportionately augmented, the unlimited advancement of a purely materialistic culture may eventually become a menace to civilization. A purely materialistic science harbors within itself the potential seed of the destruction of all scientific striving, for this very attitude presages the ultimate collapse of a civilization which has abandoned its sense of moral values and has repudiated its spiritual goal of attainment. P.1457 - §2

Spiritual goal of attainment is the prize in conjunction with science and morality. Science, morality and religion must be nurtured. They are cosmic gifts.

The social consciousness is not inalienable like the God-consciousness; it is a cultural development and is dependent on knowledge, symbols, and the contributions of the constitutive endowments of man--science, morality, and religion. And these cosmic gifts, socialized, constitute civilization.

Civilizations are unstable because they are not cosmic; they are not innate in the individuals of the races. They must be nurtured by the combined contributions of the constitutive factors of man--science, morality, and religion. Civilizations come and go, but science, morality, and religion always survive the crash. P.196 - §1

Always will we come back to start again with enhanced knowledge, enhanced meaning and enhanced comprehension of values, but not without revelation.

All the best,
Meredith

[Rick Warren]

Nicely expressed Meredith,

I meant secure in the sense that good will always be the ultimate victor. The universe is predictable and quite certain in that way, so revelation says--and it feels right.

We know our gene-based troubles here on Urantia's social level are numerous and deep. The only way to handle such a situation is not panic, and take on the troubles one at a time. The genetic conservation idea is already catching hold, science is beginning to admit animal, intellectual (even spiritual!) behaviors have genetic roots. So the next question is, which genes do what, and what are their relationships?! That search has already begun in earnest, no?

Work for the enlightenment of our siblings, don't get discouraged, and pray for wisdom for everyone. DNA conservation is a wise idea, science and religion have to realize this, or ignore ever mounting proofs. It can happen, even the church finally admitted Galileo had a point.

[Rick Warren]

Civilization is designed to avoid imbalance because of mandatory evolutionary requirements. Regression is a necessary part of progression. It's all about the yin and the yang. Right now our civilization has progressed further than its wisdom. We have overcome many external restraints without developing the necessary counterbalance of internal restraint. And that is what I believe the challenge of the age consists of - obtaining wisdom. This must occur before any further progression of civilization; therefore, a regression at this time may be inevitable while we catch up in wisdom.

You make points well worth considering Bonita,

Realizing the 20th century began flightless, with only horses and trains, and in 69 years a person was walking on the moon, is astounding all by itself!!! So many factors of wisdom came together and created the first great generations of free thinkers and creators. But like you say, viable values are now lagging technology. One of the most pointed quotes, and I thought somewhat humorous, was this one from a Brilliant Evening Star in Paper 88:

...Today, Urantia is in the twilight zone of this intellectual evolution. One half the world is grasping eagerly for the light of truth and the facts of scientific discovery, while the other half languishes in the arms of ancient superstition and but thinly disguised magic.... P.973 - §1

That was 80 years ago, what are the percentages now?


I see more and more people are realizing the material is empty of real value. But has this thread addressed whether people have to go thru the level of materialism, is it a necessary retrogression of spirit, for wisdom training, individually and collectively? Wisdom is so very essential to know what to do about genetic conservation, restoration...you know?








.

[Bonita]

I see more and more people are realizing the material is empty of real value. But has this thread addressed whether people have to go thru the level of materialism, is it a necessary retrogression of spirit, for wisdom training, individually and collectively? Wisdom is so very essential to know what to do about genetic conservation, restoration...you know?

On a "normal" planet I would think the ebb and flow of progression and retrogression is probably hardly noticeable; whereas on this planet, we tend toward wide and extreme swings between darkness and light. We agondonters are very stubborn people.

But here's the point concerning our current dilemma. We've progressed at light speed in the realm of intellectual knowledge. One just has to wonder if there isn't some kind of celestial meddling on some level. But let's say there isn't and that we finally broke the barrier of ignorance and moved legitimately to our modernity, what then? The proof that our spiritual growth is lagging behind is abundantly apparent. Science has solved many mysteries for us and we now have power over most things that at one time scared us into religion. Today we have very little to scare us and what does scare us has turned us away from true religion and backwards into polytheism.

Our science has set us free, yet we remain powerless to the forces of nature, and what is the result? Because we cannot control nature and because it continues to have control over us, we have deified it and embraced it with fear and superstition as though it were a god. We attempt to appease it by becoming more natural ourselves believing that imitation might flatter the god; or, we chastise ourselves and offer sacrifices, hoping that nature will forgive us and be less punishing. What we see is the same mind set of the Israelites during the Babylonian captivity who believed that Yahweh abandoned the Temple because of the sins of his chosen people. Our self-loathing and attempts to placate the nature god with our self-righteous oblations is a similar primitive mindset filled with superstition and thinly disguised magic. Yes, magic and myth. Does any rational person really believe in Quixote-like windmills? And isn't it odd that just like primitive man, we believe that when our magic fails, the cure must be more magic, like feeding cows food that decreases their gas emissions and switching (yet again) from plastic to paper. We can't admit that we don't really know which one the nature god really likes? What was it, 10-15 years ago that we switched from paper to plastic because the nature god was angry about chopping down trees? Now she's angry about petroleum products. She's just so fickle, if we could only find the proper fetish and gain her cooperation.

88:4.1 Civilized man attacks the problems of a real environment through his science; savage man attempted to solve the real problems of an illusory ghost environment by magic. Magic was the technique of manipulating the conjectured spirit environment whose machinations endlessly explained the inexplicable; it was the art of obtaining voluntary spirit co-operation and of coercing involuntary spirit aid through the use of fetishes or other and more powerful spirits.

We've also turned social equality and justice into a religion while there are less than a percentage of people wise enough to know what equality and justice really are. There are not enough wise men who have become leaders and that is because wisdom is not respected, public opinion has much more clout.

81.6.42 Leadership is vital to progress. Wisdom, insight, and foresight are indispensable to the endurance of nations. Civilization is never really jeopardized until able leadership begins to vanish. And the quantity of such wise leadership has never exceeded one per cent of the population.

It is very clear that our collective spiritual lives have remained less than medieval while our material lives have soared into the 21st century. Just as in old, our new age prophets, who toll the bell of common sense, wisdom, and spiritual insight, are nailed to the wall and spit upon for daring to speak out against "public opinion". What we've done is make a fetish out of public opinion, precisely as TUB has warned us against, and we are now stuck in a quagmire of mediocrity where few dare to swim against its powerful currents. We really do need a spiritual renaissance and a new John the Baptist who is brave enough to risk beheading by the backward and spiritual degenerates of society who hold us in abject slavery to collective spiritual absurdity. We need someone brave enough to defy the gods and settled opinion, while declaring the liberating truth; but, we know what happened to the last fellow who tried that.

88:3.4 Men have also made a fetish of democracy, the exaltation and adoration of the common man's ideas when collectively called "public opinion." One man's opinion, when taken by itself, is not regarded as worth much, but when many men are collectively functioning as a democracy, this same mediocre judgment is held to be the arbiter of justice and the standard of righteousness.

[Meredith Van Woe...]

I see more and more people are realizing the material is empty of real value. But has this thread addressed whether people have to go thru the level of materialism, is it a necessary retrogression of spirit, for wisdom training, individually and collectively? Wisdom is so very essential to know what to do about genetic conservation, restoration...you know?

Hi Rick, all,

I wonder if materialism, as in the materilistic preoccupation of people who have the good fortune of having the means to obtain materialistic lures, has anything to do with this subject? I'm thinking of the human experience of the inner life v. the outer world. In the outer world appearances are all-important. The things of the outer world help define a person - at least in the person's mind. It's all about self - I must have such-and-such; I've worked hard and I deserve it; I'm entitled to have such-and-such; so-and-so will be impressed if I have such such-and-such; I've always wanted to own such-and-such. I'm not saying that materialism is in the DNA. Not at all. But materialism does pertain to civilization, and if a civilization abandons its sense of moral values and rejects the spiritual prize of attaining spiritual goals (light and life), it may crash for a time.

The advances of true civilization are all born in this inner world of mankind. It is only the inner life that is truly creative. Civilization can hardly progress when the majority of the youth of any generation devote their interests and energies to the materialistic pursuits of the sensory or outer world. P.1220 - §2

But the mind is in the inner life, not out there in the things of the world. And the superconscious mind is where humans obtain higher concepts "in association with effective master patterns" with which to make a better and more enduring civilizations. As Bonita suggests, the celestials want us to progress. Perhaps in our time and place there are inspired scientists and others working in these areas.

Only in the higher levels of the superconscious mind as it impinges upon the spirit realm of human experience can you find those higher concepts in association with effective master patterns which will contribute to the building of a better and more enduring civilization. Personality is inherently creative, but it thus functions only in the inner life of the individual. P.1220 - §4

Civilizations are not cosmic ( P.196 - §1), but the persons (personalities) of which civilizations are comprised must nurture them by the combined contributions of the constitutive factors of man--science, morality, and religion. ( P.196 - §1) As “rock” has previously emphasized, our science is moving along in understanding DNA, yet we (civilizations) are in the midst of materialistic lures.

No matter what the apparent conflict between materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. In reality, true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in no way concerned with material things. Religion is simply indifferent to, but sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the scientist. P.2076 - §7

Even now we are slowly triumphing over materialism and secularism. We are bound to triumph, but not without religion and not without morality. “Religion is simply indifferent to, but sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the scientist.”

The teachings of Jesus, even though greatly modified, survived the mystery cults of their birthtime, the ignorance and superstition of the dark ages, and are even now slowly triumphing over the materialism, mechanism, and secularism of the twentieth century. And such times of great testing and threatened defeat are always times of great revelation. P.2082 - §8

This is the time of a great revelation. A revelational tide raises all boats (unless there are holes in the hulls). Revelation informs us of ways to repair the holes, both personally, as well as in the groupings of persons in what we call civilizations. At least this is my opinion based on my current understanding of the teachings of the UB. Persons, not some vague idea of who is running for or against various institutions functioning within civilization as we know it, are the determiners of progress, due to the motives of such persons.

All the best,
Meredith

[Meredith Van Woe...]

This is the time of a great revelation. A revelational tide raises all boats (unless there are holes in the hulls). Revelation informs us of ways to repair the holes, both personally, as well as in the groupings of persons in what we call civilizations. At least this is my opinion based on my current understanding of the teachings of the UB. Persons, not some vague idea of who is running for or against various institutions functioning within civilization as we know it, are the determiners of progress, due to the motives of such persons.

Dear Readers,

In continuation of my studies on the topic of revelation in particular, as it pertains to "A great task for us," I'd like to cite this reference:

Mankind should understand that we who participate in the revelation of truth are very rigorously limited by the instructions of our superiors. We are not at liberty to anticipate the scientific discoveries of a thousand years. Revelators must act in accordance with the instructions which form a part of the revelation mandate. We see no way of overcoming this difficulty, either now or at any future time. We full well know that, while the historic facts and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these revelations is not inspired. It is limited by our permission for the co-ordination and sorting of present-day knowledge. While divine or spiritual insight is a gift, human wisdom must evolve. P.1109 - §3

Personally, I am not discontent with the rate of human discovery within the realms of the physical and biological sciences. We've begun the adventure of discovery. Let's hope the ministry of religion keeps us balanced through whatever time it takes to get to where we are going.

Religion has no new duties to perform, but it is urgently called upon to function as a wise guide and experienced counselor in all of these new and rapidly changing human situations. Society is becoming more mechanical, more compact, more complex, and more critically interdependent. Religion must function to prevent these new and intimate interassociations from becoming mutually retrogressive or even destructive. Religion must act as the cosmic salt which prevents the ferments of progression from destroying the cultural savor of civilization. These new social relations and economic upheavals can result in lasting brotherhood only by the ministry of religion. P.1087 - §1

All the best,
Meredith

[Bonita]

I think this quote says a lot:

102.6.9 The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living of the God-knowing mortal. Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact. Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower. Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator.

And this one's pretty good too:

71.7.4  Education recently passed from the control of the clergy to that of lawyers and businessmen. Eventually it must be given over to the philosophers and the scientists. Teachers must be free beings, real leaders, to the end that philosophy, the search for wisdom, may become the chief educational pursuit.

The question is not about regulating DNA, it's about maturity. DNA was established by our Creator and is under his watch care. I have absolute confidence that the various mutations that occurred were, for the most part, meant to occur and any attempt by mankind to regulate or influence the type or rate of mutations will prove to be folly. As the quote says, we have to learn who are the grown-ups and who are the kids. The kids don't get the same privileges the grown-ups get unless they are capable of proving their ability to mature.

We coddle the weak and indulge the malfunctioning people in our society while we scoff at the able and competent. When things go wrong, the competent are who we blame. It's just not fair. Take a look at our education system. The money spent on "special needs" far outweighs the money spent on normal and above normal children. School systems proliferate the diagnosis of "special needs" because it brings them more state and federal money. In our local school district, 3 out 5 kids are classified and have tons of money spent on them to help them "get by". Who will help them "get by" when they are out of school . . . the government, obviously. Witness the 911 calls made when McDonald's ran out of McNuggets.

We reward the attitude of being "special". Doesn't everyone want and need to be special? So, we have to redefine special. In this day and age, you can't be special if you win a spelling bee, make the honor role or lead your team to victory; in today's schools, those children are considered to be show offs with an unfair advantage. Don't they know that everyone is a winner and everyone's hard work makes them special, regardless of whether or not they can read, write or do simple math? It's just sickening. No wonder we have no wise leaders, we have so few wise teachers and parents. We're sinking into a hopeless mediocrity all because of some misplaced sentiment and a bunch of immature folk who think they know what Jesus would have done. Jesus, the mature and wise one, would never have coddled the weak or indulged the malfunctioning and socially inept.

He also would never suggest screwing around with the DNA he created for those purposes. But, we can prevent people from screwing around in a more profane way, if we want to. If most of the people we are producing are destined to become wards of the state because of the way the state is educating them, then the state should be able to decide how many wards they can or want to handle. If the state is made up of unwise and mediocre leaders, then they will naturally choose those who are even less wise and more mediocre, in order to maintain their power over them. Sounds like Lord of the Flies, Animal World, Planet of the Apes and Idiocracy all wrapped into one. Ideally, population control requires more wisdom than DNA control; but f we continue to foster only the "special needs" and subnormal in society, there will be no need for wise leadership, and sometimes I think that this might be the unforeseen result of our current situation.

68.6.11 From a world standpoint, overpopulation has never been a serious problem in the past, but if war is lessened and science increasingly controls human diseases, it may become a serious problem in the near future. At such a time the great test of the wisdom of world leadership will present itself. Will Urantia rulers have the insight and courage to foster the multiplication of the average or stabilized human being instead of the extremes of the supernormal and the enormously increasing groups of the subnormal? The normal man should be fostered; he is the backbone of civilization and the source of the mutant geniuses of the race. The subnormal man should be kept under society’s control; no more should be produced than are required to administer the lower levels of industry, those tasks requiring intelligence above the animal level but making such low-grade demands as to prove veritable slavery and bondage for the higher types of mankind.

In my opinion, it is only the RNA of viruses and the DNA of bacteria that may possibly be altered in a way to help mankind suffer less from this inadvertent and renegade result of our experimental life form.

65.2.3 The majority of disease-causing bacteria and their auxiliary virus bodies really belong to this group of renegade parasitic fungi.

65.5.2 But throughout all of this biologic adventure our greatest disappointment grew out of the reversion of certain primitive plant life to the prechlorophyll levels of parasitic bacteria on such an extensive and unexpected scale. This eventuality in plant-life evolution caused many distressful diseases in the higher mammals, particularly in the more vulnerable human species. When we were confronted with this perplexing situation, we somewhat discounted the difficulties involved because we knew that the subsequent admixture of the Adamic life plasm would so reinforce the resisting powers of the resulting blended race as to make it practically immune to all diseases produced by the vegetable type of organism. But our hopes were doomed to disappointment owing to the misfortune of the Adamic default.

[Teobeck]

81.6.42 Leadership is vital to progress. Wisdom, insight, and foresight are indispensable to the endurance of nations. Civilization is never really jeopardized until able leadership begins to vanish. And the quantity of such wise leadership has never exceeded one per cent of the population.

In order to avoid sounding like an Ayn Rand fan, I'll just say that post WWII capitalism has not only provided the jobs, but the capital, and resultant taxes. And that process got out of hand through deregulation which depended on morals which weren't there (like Alan Greenspan said). Now our politics are still about who can raise the money needed to run.

If a focus on spiritual thinking, and resulting behavior could somehow now come to the forefront through real spiritual leaders, and it could affect our political and business leadership, we'd see a real sea change everywhere with the other strides that have been made. This would be real resource management. I can only hope.

Where is the new John the Baptist? Please!!!!!!!!!!

This post has been edited by Teobeck: Aug 15 2010, 10:20 PM

[Bonita]

The problem, as I see it, is that today's leaders don't know the difference between wisdom and judgment. The collective modern minds out there equate wise people with those who are adept at meting out justice, hence the emphasis on lawyers, judges and courts; hence rulers who would rather legislate or litigate rather than lead. According to the wisdom of our day, all problems can be settled in a court of law headed by today's wise men, the judges, who are those we give permission to interpret the law such that social justice prevails according to the mores of public opinion. And public opinion is not always determined by the majority, rather most often by the loudest and seemingly most victimized minority. Retribution and recrimination are what most frequently influences legal decisions, neither of which have anything to do with wisdom. Judgment is not wisdom. Even the Melchizedeks, who are perfect in wisdom, are not perfect in judgment.

35.2.8 The Melchizedeks are well-nigh perfect in wisdom, but they are not infallible in judgment.

Only grown-ups become wise and in time develop a smidgeon of hope in balancing their wisdom and judgment, knowing that their judgment can never be perfect.

118.1.4 Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of the lengthening of the time unit in mortal experience. As the human mind reckons backward into the past, it is evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing it to bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the future, it is attempting to evaluate the future significance of possible action. And having thus reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human will exercises judgment-decision in the present, and the plan of action thus born of the past and the future becomes existent.

118.1.5 In the maturity of the developing self, the past and future are brought together to illuminate the true meaning of the present. As the self matures, it reaches further and further back into the past for experience, while its wisdom forecasts seek to penetrate deeper and deeper into the unknown future. And as the conceiving self extends this reach ever further into both past and future, so does judgment become less and less dependent on the momentary present. In this way does decision-action begin to escape from the fetters of the moving present, while it begins to take on the aspects of past-future significance.

What we need are more grown-ups. The children are running the place; they're running it into the ground and making a mess, which is what kids do.

159.1.6 Thus did Jesus teach the dangers and illustrate the unfairness of sitting in personal judgment upon one’s fellows. Discipline must be maintained, justice must be administered, but in all these matters the wisdom of the brotherhood should prevail. Jesus invested legislative and judicial authority in the group, not in the individual. Even this investment of authority in the group must not be exercised as personal authority. There is always danger that the verdict of an individual may be warped by prejudice or distorted by passion. Group judgment is more likely to remove the dangers and eliminate the unfairness of personal bias. Jesus sought always to minimize the elements of unfairness, retaliation, and vengeance.

[Midsoniter woman]

Just this morning there was a news story on the radio about how some schools have begun teaching sports without any score. I tried to Google it so I could post a link to it, but I can’t find it. The reason they don’t teach children to keep score is so that everyone can be a winner. Then the black woman judge on TV said that it is important to keep score. Children have to learn that the player with the most points is the winner and the player with the lowest points is the loser. Children have to learn the art of losing otherwise they will end up going on a shooting spree when they don’t get their way as an adult. That’s what the judge said. It sounds like the way Judas was spoiled and pampered and never learned how to lose gracefully.

193:4.6” 2. As a child, life had been made too easy for him. He bitterly resented thwarting. He always expected to win; he was a very poor loser (2056).”

Sports with no scores. I fear for our future if this kind of thinking prevails.

Also, I just watched a documentary called the Medicated Child on PBS. Some of the children in the documentary are on eight different psych meds at one time. When they showed the “before” footage of the children, I thought the children seemed normal. No medication was needed for their rambunctiousness as far as I could see. Just need a parent to tell the child to sit down and do this or that.

But the parent was permitting the child to run all over the doctor’s office and act like a clown. The parent didn’t give the child any instruction about how to behave. For example, one little three year old girl was really happy and smiley and talked a lot about chopping your head off and blowing your head off which she thought was hysterically funny. Then sometimes all she wanted to do was watch TV. The doctor said that meant she was bipolar and needed psych meds. I was shocked. All the parent had to do was say to the child, “No, no, honey, don’t tell people you’re going to chop their head off. It isn’t polite.” I’m sure the child could listen to instruction, but the parent never gave any. If a child is watching too much TV, then take them to the park or something. And then there was the little kindergarten boy who made a fuss every morning when his mom tried to take him to school. Well, all kids make a fuss about going to school, but they outgrow it.

The doctor prescribed him Xanax. The show did a follow up and found that many of these kids started having more psychological problems as a side effect of their meds. The doctors diagnosed them with even more disorders and prescribed them more medications.

According to the documentary, the doctors who gave presentations on the greatness of medicating children were actually being paid by the drug companies. So you can see that everywhere insanity is being diagnosed where there is no insanity.

So how do we even begin to genetically eradicate insanity? If this keeps up, everyone on the planet is going to be diagnosed with some kind of disorder and medicated.

This post has been edited by Midsoniter woman: Aug 16 2010, 11:27 AM

[Meredith Van Woe...]

So how do we even begin to genetically eradicate insanity? If this keeps up, everyone on the planet is going to be diagnosed with some kind of disorder and medicated.

Hi Jessica, all,

The great thing about the UB is that it gives us an expansive panorama of life. In the long range view of things pertaining to your concerns, the home life of modern civilized people needs more of the influences of genuine religion. I know you are concerned about something very specific. My intent is to counterbalance your particular subject with several paragraphs about home life.

It is our sincere belief that the gospel of Jesus' teaching, founded as it is on the father-child relationship, can hardly enjoy a world-wide acceptance until such a time as the home life of the modern civilized peoples embraces more of love and more of wisdom. Notwithstanding that parents of the twentieth century possess great knowledge and increased truth for improving the home and ennobling the home life, it remains a fact that very few modern homes are such good places in which to nurture boys and girls as Jesus' home in Galilee and John Mark's home in Judea, albeit the acceptance of Jesus' gospel will result in the immediate improvement of home life. The love life of a wise home and the loyal devotion of true religion exert a profound reciprocal influence upon each other. Such a home life enhances religion, and genuine religion always glorifies the home.

It is true that many of the objectionable stunting influences and other cramping features of these olden Jewish homes have been virtually eliminated from many of the better-regulated modern homes. There is, indeed, more spontaneous freedom and far more personal liberty, but this liberty is not restrained by love, motivated by loyalty, nor directed by the intelligent discipline of wisdom. As long as we teach the child to pray, "Our Father who is in heaven," a tremendous responsibility rests upon all earthly fathers so to live and order their homes that the word father becomes worthily enshrined in the minds and hearts of all growing children. P.1922 - §4

As the part (family), so the whole (civilization).

Be well, be safe,
Meredith

This post has been edited by Meredith Van Woert: Aug 16 2010, 06:56 PM

[Midsoniter woman]

[indent] Notwithstanding that parents of the twentieth century possess great knowledge and increased truth for improving the home and ennobling the home life, it remains a fact that very few modern homes are such good places in which to nurture boys and girls as Jesus' home in Galilee and John Mark's home in Judea, albeit the acceptance of Jesus' gospel will result in the immediate improvement of home life.

Thanks Meredith. That's the quote I was looking for way back when Bonita first started her historical Palestine thread. This is the quote that I believe explains why Jesus chose the Jews of that particular century for the bestowal mission. That quote and that quote alone would be sufficient reason.

This post has been edited by Midsoniter woman: Aug 17 2010, 10:57 AM