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fanofVan wrote:
A vice of many an evangelist I think...calling attention to one's self.

Ribbit.
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:?: 8)

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Last edited by fanofVan on Thu Dec 06, 2018 3:08 pm +0000, edited 2 times in total.

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exactly. Those whose goal is to share the Master's message are focused on that, and not on drawing attention to their own personality. The fruits of the Spirit are the result of self[i]less[i]ness, wishing to reflect Him, like the moon (which has no light of its own), reflects the light of the sun.
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pethuel wrote:
"Agreed. If I may add the observation that those that are exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit are not aware that they do so, nor are those that live abundantly loyal to supreme goals conscious of their example, they are not self-conscious in that sense."

Right. My jots and tittles were a little unclear there. The gist of what I was attempting to say is "those who most exhibit the fruits of the Spirit are those who are least conscious of themselves, nor do those who are abundantly loyal to supreme goals call attention to themselves." Does that make better sense?



Yes indeed! :wink: :biggrin: 8)

From the Ordination Sermon by the Master:

140:4.4 (1572.4) “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and be led to glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

140:4.5 (1572.5) While light dispels darkness, it can also be so “blinding” as to confuse and frustrate. We are admonished to let our light so shine that our fellows will be guided into new and godly paths of enhanced living. Our light should so shine as not to attract attention to self. Even one’s vocation can be utilized as an effective “reflector” for the dissemination of this light of life.

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fanofVan wrote:
Enno says: "Jesus did not say "I am the tadpole way."

He said "I am the way, the truth, and the life."


Yes indeed!!

But who else can say that?

Mortals may not escape the Way of the mortals to the portals of Paradise...the Tadpole Way. A step by step progression from birth of soul to fusion with our Thought Adjuster. Nothing wrong with the Tadpole Way as designed by the Creators and executed by the Spirits within. A very noble journey indeed!

Even Jesus was once a Tadpole...the Son of Man born as a mortal too...on his 7th and final bestowal! Here to become the Master Son of Nebadon upon this Shrine of Nebadon. Wow!!

:wink:


I recently read that mystery is a universal blessing and reality. Only God has no mysteries. All other beings do so. I also read that mind, if short of facts and knowledge, is compelled to invent those to organize reality and perspective...and this is the source of human metaphysics....explanations for the otherwise unexplained. Science and religion depend heavily upon theories that have no basis in reality to explain reality as observed or hypothesized.

Metaphysics is the inevitable human exercise of inventing false realities based on lack of facts, knowledge, and understanding. And this is why Epochal Revelation is so important periodically to reduce the confusions and eliminate the falsehoods and errors in fictional reality-constructs people will inherently create in order to attempt to organize our perspective of perceived reality....the subjective point of view. The facts and knowledge delivered by Epochal Revelation balance the misunderstandings and shortcomings of personal revelation and science and philosophy.

It is also worthy of note, and related I think, that uncertainty is a requirement for adventure and is a basic unit or element of mystery too. Without uncertainty of outcome and of the effects of cause and the cause of effects then there can be no adventure or mystery. And mind is excited and motivated and captivated by both adventure and mystery....that which is unknown drives mind forward to satiate the compelling and insatiable yearn to understand. Metaphysics is the mind seeking to organize perspective of reality into meaningful and workable models of understanding and explanation.

The more we advance in our universe careers, the more knowledge of reality we obtain through education and experience and the more objective does our perspective become and the more mota replaces the inventions of metaphysics by more certain perception and understanding. But only God has true and absolute objectivity of universe reality perspective. Objectivity requires facts, philosophy, and spirit. True perspective cannot come from only one but only in harmonious combination.

103:7.7 (1138.5) What both developing science and religion need is more searching and fearless self-criticism, a greater awareness of incompleteness in evolutionary status. The teachers of both science and religion are often altogether too self-confident and dogmatic. Science and religion can only be self-critical of their facts. The moment departure is made from the stage of facts, reason abdicates or else rapidly degenerates into a consort of false logic.

103:7.8 (1138.6) The truth—an understanding of cosmic relationships, universe facts, and spiritual values—can best be had through the ministry of the Spirit of Truth and can best be criticized by revelation. But revelation originates neither a science nor a religion; its function is to co-ordinate both science and religion with the truth of reality. Always, in the absence of revelation or in the failure to accept or grasp it, has mortal man resorted to his futile gesture of metaphysics, that being the only human substitute for the revelation of truth or for the mota of morontia personality.


This is the problem with replacing Epochal Revelation with the evangelist's opinions about reality. Who is undeserving of the actual facts and relationships and values given us by Epochal Revelation? What's the point? Why not, rather, make the Revelation available to as many people as possible and empower the fellowship and community sharing of this knowledge to help everyone who seeks truth and understanding (and all normal minds do!) to feast at this banquet of objective reality?

And that I believe is what takes place here at TruthBook and many other gatherings of the students of the Urantia Papers!


In my youth I was so disappointed in the promised perfection and eternal bliss in the heavenly estate acquired by simple death and resurrection. How much more glorious is the truth given us in the Revelation?!! Endless mysteries, experiential wisdom, and adventure instead! Marvelous.

Mortals are led and driven to religious experience by urges and yearns that are inherent in our very nature as created by the Life Carriers and Adjutants. The TA's are masters at inserting and inciting the incessant yearn and hunger and thirst for assurance and nourishment of the Spirit that grows the soul and brings contentment and happiness in ways only this connection can. The urge to understand and know more and solve problems and puzzlements and fatten on paradox while cleaning our teeth with conundrum while feasting on uncertainty...this is the Tadpole Way!!!!

Only the mortals of the realms of time and space have the privilege of this Way of being and becoming. It's a good thing really!

Sorry to get off topic....but it is good to wonder... and still not know. Or so the Papers teach us.


:wink: 8)

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Since neither religion or religious experience may be given, loaned, or created in another mortal by any other mortal, what is it the evangelist does or might do which affects another person in a positive way? For it to be in a positive way, then fear cannot be any element of the evangelism. This question is regarding one who purposely and intentionally determines it important to go forth and spread the good news.

How I wonder were the missionaries of Machiventa and Jesus taught to evangelize? I am sure there is significant contrast between those and the evangelistic revivalists of my youth and today....the doom and gloom and fire and brimstone messengers who seek to scare the hell out of people enough to get on the straight and narrow before it is too late!


The lessons in the Papers on the Prince, the Garden, and the Neighboring Planet give the example of bringing in the best of the surrounding peoples to provide education and orientation to send back out to their own people as a form of salt and leaven.


We are taught that we cannot force progress or enlightenment or understanding or religiosity upon others - individually or collectively. But evidently, truth, beauty, and goodness can be communicated in ways which profoundly affect others. Consider music for example:

44:1.15 (500.6) While you have assembled some beautiful melodies on Urantia, you have not progressed musically nearly so far as many of your neighboring planets in Satania. If Adam and Eve had only survived, then would you have had music in reality; but the gift of harmony, so large in their natures, has been so diluted by strains of unmusical tendencies that only once in a thousand mortal lives is there any great appreciation of harmonics. But be not discouraged; some day a real musician may appear on Urantia, and whole peoples will be enthralled by the magnificent strains of his melodies. One such human being could forever change the course of a whole nation, even the entire civilized world. It is literally true, “melody has power a whole world to transform.” Forever, music will remain the universal language of men, angels, and spirits. Harmony is the speech of Havona.

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In response to the music quote: my last 10 years as piano technician I have done strictly concert prep work for one performing arts venue.
I get to work with some of the best pianists on the planet.
When I listen to rehearsals and some performances I sometimes wonder what may grab the interest of any Spirit type beings that may happen to be listening in.
Like this comparison for example: where a man like Igor Levite could give a powerful emotional in-depth interpretative and unique performance of a Liszt concerto compared with a Winner of the Chopin competition performing Chopin perfectly, like a robot almost, flawless but lacking emotion and real interpretation.
Or possibly the Chinese National orchestra that performed something I never heard of but it was strictly a very colorful richly harmonic piece that really didn’t have a structured melody.
What do you think Seraphim like - rap maybe? Primitive rhythm? Story telling with No melody or harmony?
What sort of our music do you think attracts spirit beings interest? Our intention to make beautiful music or the music itself? What do you think they interpret as our beautiful music? The Beach Boys, Elvis? James Brown? Ray Charles? Beethoven?
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I am hoping for the Blues myself!! The expressions of overcoming the strife and struggle of loss and suffering with poise, grace, dignity, and attitude!!! I wonder if only mortals know the blues? I assume all mortals on all worlds know the blues. At least on young worlds early in the Mortal Epochs and those who struggle through the Epochs without certainty of leadership and example. The blues express the yearning of and searching by mortals for meaning I think.

The rest of Paper 44, Section 1, 1-14 (don't miss a reading of all of Paper 44 for much more!!!!):

1. The Celestial Musicians

44:1.1 (499.3) With the limited range of mortal hearing, you can hardly conceive of morontia melodies. There is even a material range of beautiful sound unrecognized by the human sense of hearing, not to mention the inconceivable scope of morontia and spirit harmony. Spirit melodies are not material sound waves but spirit pulsations received by the spirits of celestial personalities. There is a vastness of range and a soul of expression, as well as a grandeur of execution, associated with the melody of the spheres, that are wholly beyond human comprehension. I have seen millions of enraptured beings held in sublime ecstasy while the melody of the realm rolled in upon the spirit energy of the celestial circuits. These marvelous melodies can be broadcast to the uttermost parts of a universe.

44:1.2 (499.4) The celestial musicians are occupied with the production of celestial harmony by the manipulation of the following spirit forces:

44:1.3 (499.5) 1. Spiritual sound—spirit current interruptions.

44:1.4 (499.6) 2. Spiritual light—the control and intensification of the light of the morontia and spiritual realms.

44:1.5 (499.7) 3. Energy impingements—melody produced by the skillful management of the morontia and spirit energies.

44:1.6 (499.8) 4. Color symphonies—melody of morontia color tones; this ranks among the highest accomplishments of the celestial musicians.

44:1.7 (499.9) 5. Harmony of associated spirits—the very arrangement and association of different orders of morontia and spirit beings produce majestic melodies.

44:1.8 (499.10) 6. Melody of thought—the thinking of spiritual thoughts can be so perfected as to burst forth in the melodies of Havona.

44:1.9 (499.11) 7. The music of space—by proper attunement the melodies of other spheres can be picked up on the universe broadcast circuits.

44:1.10 (500.1) There are over one hundred thousand different modes of sound, color, and energy manipulation, techniques analogous to the human employment of musical instruments. Your ensembles of dancing undoubtedly represent a crude and grotesque attempt of material creatures to approach the celestial harmony of being placement and personality arrangement. The other five forms of morontia melody are unrecognized by the sensory mechanism of material bodies.

44:1.11 (500.2) Harmony, the music of the seven levels of melodious association, is the one universal code of spirit communication. Music, such as Urantia mortals understand, attains its highest expression in the schools of Jerusem, the system headquarters, where semimaterial beings are taught the harmonies of sound. Mortals do not react to the other forms of morontia melody and celestial harmony.

44:1.12 (500.3) Appreciation of music on Urantia is both physical and spiritual; and your human musicians have done much to elevate musical taste from the barbarous monotony of your early ancestors to the higher levels of sound appreciation. The majority of Urantia mortals react to music so largely with the material muscles and so slightly with the mind and spirit; but there has been a steady improvement in musical appreciation for more than thirty-five thousand years.

44:1.13 (500.4) Tuneful syncopation represents a transition from the musical monotony of primitive man to the expressionful harmony and meaningful melodies of your later-day musicians. These earlier types of rhythm stimulate the reaction of the music-loving sense without entailing the exertion of the higher intellectual powers of harmony appreciation and thus more generally appeal to immature or spiritually indolent individuals.

44:1.14 (500.5) The best music of Urantia is just a fleeting echo of the magnificent strains heard by the celestial associates of your musicians, who left but snatches of these harmonies of morontia forces on record as the musical melodies of sound harmonics. Spirit-morontia music not infrequently employs all seven modes of expression and reproduction, so that the human mind is tremendously handicapped in any attempt to reduce these melodies of the higher spheres to mere notes of musical sound. Such an effort would be something like endeavoring to reproduce the strains of a great orchestra by means of a single musical instrument.

Keyword search for music OR melody:

https://truthbook.com/search/UBParagrap ... &start=all

keyword search for harmony:

https://truthbook.com/search/UBParagrap ... &start=all

8) :biggrin:

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fanofVan wrote:
I am hoping for the Blues myself!! The expressions of overcoming the strife and struggle of loss and suffering with poise, grace, dignity, and attitude!!! I wonder if only mortals know the blues? I assume all mortals on all worlds know the blues. At least on young worlds early in the Mortal Epochs and those who struggle through the Epochs without certainty of leadership and example. The blues express the yearning of and searching by mortals for meaning I think.

The rest of Paper 44, Section 1, 1-14 (don't miss a reading of all of Paper 44 for much more!!!!):

1. The Celestial Musicians

44:1.1 (499.3) With the limited range of mortal hearing, you can hardly conceive of morontia melodies. There is even a material range of beautiful sound unrecognized by the human sense of hearing, not to mention the inconceivable scope of morontia and spirit harmony. Spirit melodies are not material sound waves but spirit pulsations received by the spirits of celestial personalities. There is a vastness of range and a soul of expression, as well as a grandeur of execution, associated with the melody of the spheres, that are wholly beyond human comprehension. I have seen millions of enraptured beings held in sublime ecstasy while the melody of the realm rolled in upon the spirit energy of the celestial circuits. These marvelous melodies can be broadcast to the uttermost parts of a universe.

44:1.2 (499.4) The celestial musicians are occupied with the production of celestial harmony by the manipulation of the following spirit forces:

44:1.3 (499.5) 1. Spiritual sound—spirit current interruptions.

44:1.4 (499.6) 2. Spiritual light—the control and intensification of the light of the morontia and spiritual realms.

44:1.5 (499.7) 3. Energy impingements—melody produced by the skillful management of the morontia and spirit energies.

44:1.6 (499.8) 4. Color symphonies—melody of morontia color tones; this ranks among the highest accomplishments of the celestial musicians.

44:1.7 (499.9) 5. Harmony of associated spirits—the very arrangement and association of different orders of morontia and spirit beings produce majestic melodies.

44:1.8 (499.10) 6. Melody of thought—the thinking of spiritual thoughts can be so perfected as to burst forth in the melodies of Havona.

44:1.9 (499.11) 7. The music of space—by proper attunement the melodies of other spheres can be picked up on the universe broadcast circuits.

44:1.10 (500.1) There are over one hundred thousand different modes of sound, color, and energy manipulation, techniques analogous to the human employment of musical instruments. Your ensembles of dancing undoubtedly represent a crude and grotesque attempt of material creatures to approach the celestial harmony of being placement and personality arrangement. The other five forms of morontia melody are unrecognized by the sensory mechanism of material bodies.

44:1.11 (500.2) Harmony, the music of the seven levels of melodious association, is the one universal code of spirit communication. Music, such as Urantia mortals understand, attains its highest expression in the schools of Jerusem, the system headquarters, where semimaterial beings are taught the harmonies of sound. Mortals do not react to the other forms of morontia melody and celestial harmony.

44:1.12 (500.3) Appreciation of music on Urantia is both physical and spiritual; and your human musicians have done much to elevate musical taste from the barbarous monotony of your early ancestors to the higher levels of sound appreciation. The majority of Urantia mortals react to music so largely with the material muscles and so slightly with the mind and spirit; but there has been a steady improvement in musical appreciation for more than thirty-five thousand years.

44:1.13 (500.4) Tuneful syncopation represents a transition from the musical monotony of primitive man to the expressionful harmony and meaningful melodies of your later-day musicians. These earlier types of rhythm stimulate the reaction of the music-loving sense without entailing the exertion of the higher intellectual powers of harmony appreciation and thus more generally appeal to immature or spiritually indolent individuals.

44:1.14 (500.5) The best music of Urantia is just a fleeting echo of the magnificent strains heard by the celestial associates of your musicians, who left but snatches of these harmonies of morontia forces on record as the musical melodies of sound harmonics. Spirit-morontia music not infrequently employs all seven modes of expression and reproduction, so that the human mind is tremendously handicapped in any attempt to reduce these melodies of the higher spheres to mere notes of musical sound. Such an effort would be something like endeavoring to reproduce the strains of a great orchestra by means of a single musical instrument.

Keyword search for music OR melody:

https://truthbook.com/search/UBParagrap ... &start=all

keyword search for harmony:

https://truthbook.com/search/UBParagrap ... &start=all

8) :biggrin:

Great reading that paper 44:1 it gives wonderful perspective.
Thx for posting.
Blues is definitely very human as well as much older artists that expressed similar response to adversity like Beethoven’s 9th symphony - he never heard it while he lived on Urantua, maybe he listened in from a Mansion world!
Can’t wait to tune into spirit harmonies, how cool will that be.
Here’s a thought after reading your paper 44 post:
I wonder if spirit beings stationed on Urantia perceive sound similar to the way we do by capturing and interpreting waves in the air? Maybe our efforts at music needs a spiritual component that Our minds arrange prior to disturbing the air, more like a prayer or worship? Something that has value and meaning and beauty.
Possibly Material Sons hear our music with different body components than Seraphim?
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Hi, thoroughly enjoyed the posts and quotes regarding music.

Not meaning to change the subject, but I ran across these passages which were eye-opening for me personally.

P1042:4, 95:1.3 Although the Salem teachers did much to refine and uplift the religions of Mesopotamia, they did not succeed in bringing the various peoples to the permanent recognition of one God. Such teaching gained the ascendancy for more than one hundred and fifty years and then gradually gave way to the older belief in a multiplicity of deities.

P1042:5, 95:1.4 The Salem teachers greatly reduced the number of the gods of Mesopotamia, at one time bringing the chief deities down to seven: Bel, Shamash, Nabu, Anu, Ea, Marduk, and Sin. At the height of the new teaching they exalted three of these gods to supremacy over all others, the Babylonian triad: Bel, Ea, and Anu, the gods of earth, sea, and sky. Still other triads grew up in different localities, all reminiscent of the trinity teachings of the Andites and the Sumerians and based on the belief of the Salemites in Melchizedek's insignia of the three circles.

P1042:6, 95:1.5 Never did the Salem teachers fully overcome the popularity of Ishtar, the mother of gods and the spirit of sex fertility. They did much to refine the worship of this goddess, but the Babylonians and their neighbors had never completely outgrown their disguised forms of sex worship. It had become a universal practice throughout Mesopotamia for all women to submit, at least once in early life, to the embrace of strangers; this was thought to be a devotion required by Ishtar, and it was believed that fertility was largely dependent on this sex sacrifice.


P1043:1, 95:1.6 The early progress of the Melchizedek teaching was highly gratifying until Nabodad, the leader of the school at Kish, decided to make a concerted attack upon the prevalent practices of temple harlotry. But the Salem missionaries failed in their effort to bring about this social reform, and in the wreck of this failure all their more important spiritual and philosophic teachings went down in defeat.

P1043:2, 95:1.7 This defeat of the Salem gospel was immediately followed by a great increase in the cult of Ishtar, a ritual which had already invaded Palestine as Ashtoreth, Egypt as Isis, Greece as Aphrodite, and the northern tribes as Astarte. And it was in connection with this revival of the worship of Ishtar that the Babylonian priests turned anew to stargazing; astrology experienced its last great Mesopotamian revival, fortunetelling became the vogue, and for centuries the priesthood increasingly deteriorated.

P1043:3, 95:1.8 Melchizedek had warned his followers to teach about the one God, the Father and Maker of all, and to preach only the gospel of divine favor through faith alone. But it has often been the error of the teachers of new truth to attempt too much, to attempt to supplant slow evolution by sudden revolution. The Melchizedek missionaries in Mesopotamia raised a moral standard too high for the people; they attempted too much, and their noble cause went down in defeat. They had been commissioned to preach a definite gospel, to proclaim the truth of the reality of the Universal Father, but they became entangled in the apparently worthy cause of reforming the mores, and thus was their great mission sidetracked and virtually lost in frustration and oblivion.

P1043:4, 95:1.9 In one generation the Salem headquarters at Kish came to an end, and the propaganda of the belief in one God virtually ceased throughout Mesopotamia. But remnants of the Salem schools persisted. Small bands scattered here and there continued their belief in the one Creator and fought against the idolatry and immorality of the Mesopotamian priests.



I couldn't include the sound of my jaw hitting the floor after reading this just now.
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And speaking of music this open letter from Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter to the new generatiin of artists is very good:

https://nesthq.com/wayne-shorter-herbie ... pen-letter
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The last few posts got me to wondering about expanding the definition of evangelism to include anything and everything that is an expression of truth, beauty, and goodness. If I am moved in the Spirit and uplifted in mind by the words, music, art, architecture, and other material expressions created from inspiration, then am I not experiencing evangelism?

Are acts of kindness and loving service to others a form of evangelism? Is evangelism defined by its intentions or its results I wonder? Or must its intentions trigger actual results? We have already determined that the actual benefit or value of evangelism depends entirely upon its motive and method or content but don't we need to also include results for any real value to be realized? Does the evangelist benefit by evangelism? Does this also depend upon the motive and form and result I wonder? For not all evangelism is created equal or effective or positive or of value and benefit we are taught and some is simply evil or error based...simply a self centered and self important imposition upon others. Something to consider.

:wink:

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Are random acts of kindness a form of evangelism? Are the expressions of truth, beauty, and goodness forms of evangelism? Was the Good Samaritan an evangelist? Is loving service an expression of an evangel? Is evangelism only a form of vocalized telling or preaching or exhortation?

Those evangelists of my youth primarily used fear and guilt to motivate me to avoid hell's fire and damnation, offering a rather gruesome choice between eternal suffering and eternal guilt. I was unworthy and would always be unworthy, only given free passage despite my guilt and shame due to the suffering and sacrifice of another to make me feel even more guilty and unworthy.

Was Jesus an evangelist? I think so. The greatest in our history too. And never did Jesus teach anyone that eternal suffering was real or that eternal guilt was God's will or way. The evangelism of Jesus was only positive and hopeful and encouraging and filled with trust for God's love and mercy in this friendly universe. Jesus saw the light of hope flicker or the light of trust blaze in the souls of others and was gladdened by this shared belief and faith and experience of personal religion within each person...his sole purpose was to encourage and strengthen the flame within all. His evangelism was a celebration of the universality of this experience. He inspired others, not just in his teaching and preaching but as he walked by, every day, one on one, and in normal every day situations and circumstances of life...from the difficult times to the easy times and all times in between. A life of joy and trust and sublime peace is the life of an evangel...one who inspires!

I wonder if the greatest evangelists in the world are those who inspire others to strive toward our highest ideals and our highest hopes by their examples and their expressions of their own experiences of personal religion and religious insight?

Here's a link to "inspire, inspires, inspired, inspiration, and inspirational":

https://truthbook.com/search/UBParagrap ... &start=all

120:2.5 “5. As concerns the planet of your bestowal and the immediate generation of men living thereon at the time of your mortal sojourn, I counsel you to function largely in the role of a teacher. Give attention, first, to the liberation and inspiration of man's spiritual nature. Next, illuminate the darkened human intellect, heal the souls of men, and emancipate their minds from age-old fears. And then, in accordance with your mortal wisdom, minister to the physical well-being and material comfort of your brothers in the flesh. Live the ideal religious life for the inspiration and edification of all your universe.

120:2.7 “7. In all that you may perform on the world of your bestowal, bear constantly in mind that you are living a life for the instruction and edification of all your universe. You are bestowing this life of mortal incarnation upon Urantia, but you are to live such a life for the spiritual inspiration of every human and superhuman intelligence that has lived, now exists, or may yet live on every inhabited world which has formed, now forms, or may yet form a part of the vast galaxy of your administrative domain. Your earth life in the likeness of mortal flesh shall not be so lived as to constitute an example for the mortals of Urantia in the days of your earthly sojourn nor for any subsequent generation of human beings on Urantia or on any other world. Rather shall your life in the flesh on Urantia be the inspiration for all lives upon all Nebadon worlds throughout all generations in the ages to come.


To the extent that our expressions of our religious life inspire others do we then act as evangels for universe reality!

129:4.7 And this was his true and supreme purpose. He did not come down to live on Urantia as the perfect and detailed example for any child or adult, any man or woman, in that age or any other. True it is, indeed, that in his full, rich, beautiful, and noble life we may all find much that is exquisitely exemplary, divinely inspiring, but this is because he lived a true and genuinely human life. Jesus did not live his life on earth in order to set an example for all other human beings to copy. He lived this life in the flesh by the same mercy ministry that you all may live your lives on earth; and as he lived his mortal life in his day and as he was, so did he thereby set the example for all of us thus to live our lives in our day and as we are. You may not aspire to live his life, but you can resolve to live your lives even as, and by the same means that, he lived his. Jesus may not be the technical and detailed example for all the mortals of all ages on all the realms of this local universe, but he is everlastingly the inspiration and guide of all Paradise pilgrims from the worlds of initial ascension up through a universe of universes and on through Havona to Paradise. Jesus is the new and living way from man to God, from the partial to the perfect, from the earthly to the heavenly, from time to eternity.



8)

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The tritone interval: The Devil's Chord :)

Maybe that designation should be taken with a grain of salt, even though it was taken very seriously by officials of The Catholic Church centuries ago. On the other hand, I suspect our non-mortal superiors really do not understand or appreciate music that relies heavily on the tritone's use. The tritone interval lies inside the Dominant 7th chord and gives it its unsettled and arguably ugly and enigmatic presence in music. That said, the dominant 7th is used rather much in Western music, especially in Blues, Jazz, more straightforward Classical and Country music. I believe one encounters it quite rarely in Oriental music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_seventh_chord

Actually, it might be the specific voicings of the Dominant 7th chord that set it apart as somehow being "special". Experienced Jazz musicians often remove the tones that create its pungent aroma and substitute extended tones such as all variations of the 9th, 11th and 13th. Classical composers do likewise and often invert the tonal sequence. In the end, maybe a raw and basic Dominant 7th is an acquired taste but one that has been cultivated for at least decades in certain cultures.
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Fan o' Van: You NAILED IT, dude. I agree that a lot of real evangelism is actions, not words. Random acts of kindness are the best kind of evangelism around. For me, words often just get in the way.
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