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8. Faith and Belief

101:8.1 (1114.5) Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

101:8.2 (1114.6) Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.

101:8.3 (1114.7) Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.

101:8.4 (1115.1) Faith does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace.

9. Religion and Morality

101:9.1 (1115.2) No professed revelation of religion could be regarded as authentic if it failed to recognize the duty demands of ethical obligation which had been created and fostered by preceding evolutionary religion. Revelation unfailingly enlarges the ethical horizon of evolved religion while it simultaneously and unfailingly expands the moral obligations of all prior revelations.

101:9.2 (1115.3) When you presume to sit in critical judgment on the primitive religion of man (or on the religion of primitive man), you should remember to judge such savages and to evaluate their religious experience in accordance with their enlightenment and status of conscience. Do not make the mistake of judging another’s religion by your own standards of knowledge and truth.

101:9.3 (1115.4) True religion is that sublime and profound conviction within the soul which compellingly admonishes man that it would be wrong for him not to believe in those morontial realities which constitute his highest ethical and moral concepts, his highest interpretation of life’s greatest values and the universe’s deepest realities. And such a religion is simply the experience of yielding intellectual loyalty to the highest dictates of spiritual consciousness.

101:9.4 (1115.5) The search for beauty is a part of religion only in so far as it is ethical and to the extent that it enriches the concept of the moral. Art is only religious when it becomes diffused with purpose which has been derived from high spiritual motivation.

101:9.5 (1115.6) The enlightened spiritual consciousness of civilized man is not concerned so much with some specific intellectual belief or with any one particular mode of living as with discovering the truth of living, the good and right technique of reacting to the ever-recurring situations of mortal existence. Moral consciousness is just a name applied to the human recognition and awareness of those ethical and emerging morontial values which duty demands that man shall abide by in the day-by-day control and guidance of conduct.

101:9.6 (1115.7) Though recognizing that religion is imperfect, there are at least two practical manifestations of its nature and function:

101:9.7 (1115.8) 1. The spiritual urge and philosophic pressure of religion tend to cause man to project his estimation of moral values directly outward into the affairs of his fellows—the ethical reaction of religion.

101:9.8 (1115.9) 2. Religion creates for the human mind a spiritualized consciousness of divine reality based on, and by faith derived from, antecedent concepts of moral values and co-ordinated with superimposed concepts of spiritual values. Religion thereby becomes a censor of mortal affairs, a form of glorified moral trust and confidence in reality, the enhanced realities of time and the more enduring realities of eternity.

101:9.9 (1116.1) Faith becomes the connection between moral consciousness and the spiritual concept of enduring reality. Religion becomes the avenue of man’s escape from the material limitations of the temporal and natural world to the supernal realities of the eternal and spiritual world by and through the technique of salvation, the progressive morontia transformation.

8)

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Bradley (fanofVan),

While I sincerely appreciate the thoughts and clarifications of all the contributors to this forum,
I particularly enjoy your thoughtful and thorough submissions. You obviously have been at this for a while and it shows.

You are a prolific poster and perhaps others are less so due to circumstances that limit their participation.

I read a post recently that alluded to the apparent fact (I am far too new to know this one way or the other) that there is substantially less activity on this forum then in previous times. This seems a shame
in the obvious sense but as was also stated, things come and go… and then may rise again. I hope that is the case.

I know there is only so much to talk about at times and only so many that are interested in the UB.
I for one intend to continue down this path 1) because it’s fascinating and 2) because I have seen evidence of productive changes in myself personally.

Why wouldn’t you want more of THAT?

So thanks for stepping up to help a newbie and I hope you keep it up!

Chris
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I look forward to your questions and discovery of the universe reality perspective in the Papers!

You are certainly not new to the Pilgrims Path to Paradise or faith experience. You have much to contribute by your own experience and insight and wisdom!

We are taught that we benefit by association with other religionists and gain by their personalization of experience and expressions of the journey we all share together!

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As I read over the quotations from the UB provided in the answers to my questions I find myself being struck by one point or another and further thoughts and questions are invariably produced. I find it virtually impossible to casually read the Papers without losing a bit of focus due to going off on an intriguing tangent.

I feel like a big dry sponge that fell into a pond, greedily sucking up all I can hold. It feels like I’ve been on a long journey of running into lightly stocked shelves and outright dead ends.

I don’t want to sound self absorbed or self important, I’d like to think that I’ve come across a community that can relate to the disappointments, frustrations, and lack of self esteem that life in this time and place can serve up.

As I was trying to catch up on all the information that was posted for my consideration, most recently the UB teachings regarding the opportunity and ultimate responsibility that is common to us all to make a choice at some point in this life or a following one, whether we want to ‘go with the program’ or not .

I can’t help but wonder why someone would ever make the choice to reject the life that God offers us.
I think of it this way: If you believe that this life is all there is, that you eventually die and that’s it, or you have the expectation (flawed though it may be) that what awaits you is Heavenly perfection, eternal damnation, or Purgatory or who knows what, then what would your reaction be when you wake up on a mansion world?

I would think that it wouldn’t take very long, assuming you woke up carrying the same expectations you had in this life, for you to look around and declare ‘ Ok, what do I need to know?

In other words it seems reasonable to me when confronted with a reality that differed with our expectations that we would naturally adjust. What other choice would we have? Wouldn’t waking up somewhere else put to rest the idea that our first life was the only life? Wouldn’t the possibility of eternal life now become more than just a happy hope? Wouldn’t the possibility of eternal damnation also likely take a hit?

With that in mind, how and why would would any single son of God ever get to the place where they just refuse to play by the rules, regardless of how logical, loving and generous they are, and choose annihilation instead?

I’m tempted to chalk that potential choice up to ‘he just ain’t right’. Meaning that how could anyone, with so much to lose and so little to gain and well informed enough to make that choice consciously and deliberately, ever make that choice unless they were inherently flawed? And if they were flawed in some foundational way, couldn’t it be argued that they simply couldn’t help themselves? And if that’s possible then how does that fit in with our Fathers perfect sense of justice and mercy?

Am I once again over thinking this? Is it simply the way it has to be for free will to have any real meaning?

So many pieces to this magnificent puzzle that doesn’t have the finished picture displayed on the box.

Chris
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Very interesting speculations. I share many of the same wonderments and am likewise baffled how anyone might awaken in Mansonia and not eagerly forge forward toward transformation and transcendence.

I doubt many fail ...a personal opinion. But any such failure must be by choice and intentional, for there is plenty of mercy and patience we are redundantly and emphatically assured!

8)

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Interesting for sure.

But I feel somewhat concerned that there might be a dark side to such musings.
I’ll try to explain.
Why does ‘creation’ even exist? The UB, if I understand it correctly, teaches that we are not alone in
our anticipation of and need for experiential advancement. God the Supreme is the sum total of all innate and potential realities. That even the Creator had and continues to have, a desire (need?) to experience ALL of it. And by virtue of ongoing and everlasting experience, creates and experiences Himself.

If that is accurate, than free will is an indispensable factor in that equation in that without it the range of potential experience for God (as well as us) is severely limited. Does not the UB teach that the central universe is perfect? And doesn’t it also explain how that perfection limits its inhabitants in certain ways?
I recall reading that while perfect, inhabitants of the central universe are limited when compared to inhabitants of the evolutionary planets in their ability to truly understand and relate to the facets of existence, especially the challenges inherent in our imperfect lives (fear, maladies, ignorance, evil and lack of information come to mind).

So then, if the above is accurate wouldn’t the ‘experience’ of a highly blessed creature rejecting a sweet deal due to any number of potential factors also be an experience that God the Supreme would require to be complete in all respects? Wouldn’t each and every one of such instances be unique in its own way and add to the experiential growth of not only God but us as well?

I personally have no problem understanding why someone who is overwhelmed and sees no way out would take their own life, it can be a struggle to understand why anyone would commit suicide when they have so much to live for. Then the other part of me thinks about the factors mentioned above and wonders if it is in fact necessary in the grand scheme of things.

But the idea that failure on such a grand scale, with everlasting consequence, is a necessary (built in) feature of God’s grand mosaic of created life…. well that’s the dark side I mentioned at the outset.
And I can’t help but wonder if that argument (that some are set up to fail) has the potential to grow into something that becomes the seeds of rebellion and ultimate annihilation.

But I don’t want any parts of that. I’m simply insanely curious and want the pieces to fit together.

Thanks again for bringing your perspective and UB familiarity to the table when I do my pondering thing.

Chris
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I've often wondered about all of those things myself. After mulling this over for years, the point that I'm at now is that committing suicide in the way it's done on this world may not necessarily always be a final act. It seems to me that there would be consideration for being allowed to continue in the next world because of the degree of the confusion that surrounds the difficulty of living in this dark world.
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Certainly is suicide in the material life NOT a final or irrevocable choice regarding salvation or survival or fusion potential.

According to my understanding of the UB.

I don't understand: "...failure on such a grand scale..."

What grand scale? Freewill requires the potential for error and for failure. Indeed we are told defeat is a mirror of our true selves as I recall.

8)

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fanofVan wrote:
Certainly is suicide in the material life NOT a final or irrevocable choice

If I'm not mistaken, I don't think that the UB says that. I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere where it says that there are people still alive who are technically dead already because of their choices having no survival value (I suppose). I think this applies to those who don't commit suicide. While those who have made similar final decisions, committing suicide will be their final end. I'm pretty sure this is what the UB says one way or another.
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NodAmanaV,

In an earlier post I posed the question regarding what ‘survival value’ really means. I’m still unsure of the answer and your comments rekindled my questions.

I’m still unclear whether ‘survival’ means immediate (3days) transmittal to the mansion world and having no survival value can simply mean I wait for the end of an age and a dispensation. The latter actually makes some sense to me in that, if true, it would cover the question regarding whether the majority of mankind has had enough opportunity in this life to make such a consequential decision.
And on a speculative note, mass resurrections could possibly benefit from the availability of help from more advanced individuals who actually personally knew the ones who showed up at a later date.

But if a mortal can achieve fusion in their first life than I suppose they could also check out early and eternally.

Chris
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nodAmanaV wrote:
fanofVan wrote:
Certainly is suicide in the material life NOT a final or irrevocable choice

If I'm not mistaken, I don't think that the UB says that. I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere where it says that there are people still alive who are technically dead already because of their choices having no survival value (I suppose). I think this applies to those who don't commit suicide. While those who have made similar final decisions, committing suicide will be their final end. I'm pretty sure this is what the UB says one way or another.


I look forward to your research and supporting text. Suicide is not a final decision and many suicides happen without depression or despair, neither of which dooms anyone. Anyone at all...ever.

To Chris' point below, let me repost:

2:4.2 (38.2) God is inherently kind, naturally compassionate, and everlastingly merciful. And never is it necessary that any influence be brought to bear upon the Father to call forth his loving-kindness. The creature’s need is wholly sufficient to insure the full flow of the Father’s tender mercies and his saving grace. Since God knows all about his children, it is easy for him to forgive. The better man understands his neighbor, the easier it will be to forgive him, even to love him.

8)

2:5.1 (38.6) “God is love”; therefore his only personal attitude towards the affairs of the universe is always a reaction of divine affection. The Father loves us sufficiently to bestow his life upon us. “He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

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Last edited by fanofVan on Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:16 pm +0000, edited 2 times in total.

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For what it’s worth, as someone who’s sadly familiar with suicidal thoughts (at one point I actually bought the book on how to best carry it out - yes, there IS such a book) I’m with Bradley on this one.

It’s a fair question to ponder and I don’t feel I’m qualified to make a final judgment on it one way or another. But personally, I’m not inclined to think that kicking someone when they’re down is the way God rolls.

Chris
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Clean4livn wrote:
But personally, I’m not inclined to think that kicking someone when they’re down is the way God rolls.

Nicely put, Chris!

Looking forward to more of your thoughts,
Nigel
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Clean4livn wrote:
NodAmanaV,

In an earlier post I posed the question regarding what ‘survival value’ really means. I’m still unsure of the answer and your comments rekindled my questions.

I’m still unclear whether ‘survival’ means immediate (3days) transmittal to the mansion world and having no survival value can simply mean I wait for the end of an age and a dispensation. The latter actually makes some sense to me in that, if true, it would cover the question regarding whether the majority of mankind has had enough opportunity in this life to make such a consequential decision.
And on a speculative note, mass resurrections could possibly benefit from the availability of help from more advanced individuals who actually personally knew the ones who showed up at a later date.

But if a mortal can achieve fusion in their first life than I suppose they could also check out early and eternally.

Chris


Survival includes dispensational resurrection as well as third day and translation. All souls have survival "value" and potential. As dies every decision and experience and expressions of truth, beauty, and goodness - love, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, compassion, duty, loyalty, morality, etc., etc. All of that has survival value and contributes to the experiential totality of reality and eternity.

It is personalized AND socialized AND Deitized forevermore.

8)

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I think I understand what Deitized may mean it this context. Could you help me with understanding what, in this context, Personalized and Socialized mean?

Thanks

Chris
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