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Two-Minute Takeaways

Evolving Religion

Two-Minute Takeaways from The Urantia Book

Evolutionary religion is born of a simple and all-powerful fear, the fear which surges through the human mind when confronted with the unknown, the inexplicable, and the incomprehensible.(90:0.3↗️)

The Pattern of Religious Evolution

Concepts of God change and progress over time.

A pattern of religious evolution can be traced from its most primitive beginnings through contemporary beliefs.

First come new insights regarding the nature of God. Next, a consolidation period unfolds, during which people accept the new ideas and change their beliefs to be consistent with them. Eventually, an orthodoxy of beliefs takes hold, which almost extinguishes the power and freedom of the original inspiration. 

Then, seemingly from nowhere, another new insight emerges that builds on what came before and powers a new cycle of progress. 

Progress is Slow

Religion normally grows and advances in an evolutionary process that is sometimes difficult to appreciate as progress. Consider Judeo-Christian history and the evolution of practices of human sacrifice to animal sacrifice. Some religions in Palestine in the time of Abraham (about 1800 BCE) held that God demanded sacrifice of first-born sons. 

Abraham had the sacrificial fire ready for Isaac. He was preparing to kill his beloved son, whom he believed to be a special gift from God. When a ram came out of the brush, Abraham understood it to be God’s provision of a substitute. This idea from Abraham shifted the practice from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice.

This change was a significant step in the evolution of religion. Examples like this can be found in every religious tradition and culture throughout the world.

God Also Directly Intervenes

This slow, steady evolution in humanity’s religious awareness is not the entire story. God has directly intervened five times throughout the course of human history! These revelations reveal how God can and does directly interact with humanity.

The timing of these moments in human history is what is so remarkable. In each instance, particular social, cultural, biologic, and religious conditions set the stage for reception of new spiritual wisdom and truth.  

The Urantia Book provides many details about these epochal revelations. Equally informative is the way the text provides the evolutionary context to help us see the big picture: religious evolution and divine revelation in harmony.

One of these punctuated divine interventions was the appearance of a great religious teacher, Melchizedek, at the time of Abraham. He taught Abraham and others that there is only one God, who offers salvation through faith, not sacrifice. His missionaries spread his teachings throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, impacting all established religions.

The life and teachings of Jesus was the fourth and greatest of these divine interventions. 

A Punishing God Becomes a Loving Father

Views of humanity’s relationship to God shifted several times before Jesus. In very early religions, God was someone to appease and ask favors of. Humanity’s understanding of its relationship with God took an immense leap of progress when Jesus came. He taught that God is our loving, nurturing parent who wants a personal relationship with each of us. Jesus challenged us to be more like God by loving and serving each other.

Jesus’ teachings were transformational among those who heard them. His teachings initiated another cycle of evolutionary religious progress, but it was not completed because a lot of what he taught was not preserved. 
Those lost teachings have been restored and additional truths about God have been revealed by The Urantia Book.

A New Evolution of Truth

The Urantia Book contains a vast amount of information that provides another great advance in humanity’s understanding of each person’s relationship with God, and each other. 

The Urantia Book is not a new religion. It instead offers new truth for the benefit of all religions. It is not intended to challenge the existence of any religion but rather to provide new energy to foster progress in all religions. It teaches personal relationship with God directly, as Jesus himself taught.  It encourages our moral and ethical behavior toward others as Jesus demonstrated.

And this will not be the end of such heavenly revelations of truth to us.

The Next Great Step

The Urantia Book encourages people to take the next great step in religious evolution. That step is a constant, personal relationship with their loving and nurturing spiritual parent, who attends to each individual’s spiritual welfare.

Explore The Urantia Book for what it reveals that may interest and benefit you. It will reassure you and refresh your optimism.

Religion arises as a biologic reaction of mind to spiritual beliefs and the environment; it is the last thing to perish or change in a race. Religion is society’s adjustment, in any age, to that which is mysterious. (92:1.3↗️)