There are probably many reasons why Michael bestowed himself on our planet, but one notable reason was to dispel erroneous concepts regarding the nature and attributes of the Father; concepts still held in esteem around the world. Concepts of God as a vindicator of wrongful doing, a punisher of human error, God as a King/Ruler (Lord and Master of the universe), a vindictive and wrathful God, A God willing to barter for justice (taking his Son’s life for the sins of humanity), A God who rewards in heaven the egregious conduct those who have mistakenly interpreted his desires (seventy virgins in heaven for eliminating perceived infidels), an anthropomorphic deity comprising all sorts of primitive human attributes, and in many religions a God devoid of personality that is presented as an impersonal pantheism. These backward concepts still prevail on our planet at this time and probably exist on other less evolved worlds as well.

This is succinctly stated in the Urantia book on page 60 where a Divine Counselor indicts the following: “The people of Urantia continue to suffer from the influence of primitive concepts of God. The Gods who go on a rampage in the storm; who shake the earth in their wrath and strike down men in their anger; who inflict their judgments of displeasure in times of famine and flood—these are the gods of primitive religion; they are not the Gods who live and rule the universes. Such concepts are a relic of the times when men supposed that the universe was under the guidance and domination of the whims of such imaginary gods.”

The barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating an offended Lord, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlighten age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universe.

“The myriads of planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by many different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return. The universe of universes is the work of God and the dwelling place of his diverse creatures.” God created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited.” (page 21)

The reality to be presented to humanity was a simple one – to grasp, and eventually embrace the concept of the Fatherhood of God and the son-ship of humanity – the brotherhood of man.

This fifth epochal revelation is given not only to our world but to the entire universe to displace archaic and antiquated concepts of a so called “Great God” who is bent on punishing his erring children through eternal damnation evidenced by what some perceive as an impulsive and unforgiving attitude of stoic retribution and karmic justice. The new realities presented to secular worlds are set forth throughout the Urantia Book in order that we may better understand and appreciate the non-secular order, the spiritual domain that so few mortals truly comprehend. The following present some of these enlightening concepts;

# 1 Page 141 – “ Spirit is the basic personal reality in the universes, an personality is basic to all progressing experience with spiritual reality. Every phase of personality experience on every successive level of universe progression swarms with clues to the discovery of alluring personal realities. Man’s true destiny consists in the creation of new and spirit goals and then in responding to the cosmic allurements of such supernal goals of non material value.”

# 2 Page 140 - “As the mind of any personality in the universe becomes more spiritual – Godlike it becomes less responsive to material gravity. Reality, measured by physical-gravity response, is the antithesis of reality as determined by quality of spirit content. Physical-gravity action is a quantitative determiner of nonspirit energy; spiritual gravity action is the qualitative measure of the living energy of divinity.”

# 3 Page 140 - “The goal of existence of all personalities is spirit; material manifestations are relative, and the cosmic mind intervenes between these universal opposites.”

“On Paradise the three energies, physical, mindal, and spiritual, are coordinate. In the evolutionary cosmos energy-matter is dominant except in personality, where spirit through the mediation of mind, is striving for the mastery. Spirit is the fundamental reality of the personality experience of all creatures because God is spirit. Spirit is unchanging, and therefore, in all personality relations, it transcends both mind and matter, which are experiential variables of progressive attainment.”

# 4 Page 1229 - “The purpose of cosmic evolution is to achieve unity of personality through increasing spirit dominance, volitional response to the teaching and leading of the Thought Adjuster. Personality, both human and superhuman, is characterized by an inherent cosmic quality which may be called “the evolution of dominance”, the expansion of the control of both itself and its environment.”

# 5 Page 1275 - “The goal of the evolutionary universes is the subjugation of energy-matter by mind, mind co-ordinated with spirit and by virtue of the unifying presence of personality. Thus, in relation to personality, do physical systems become subordinate; mind systems, co-ordinate ; and spirit systems, directive. “This union of power and personality is expressive on deity levels in and as the Supreme. But the actual evolution of spirit dominance is a growth which is predicated on the freewill acts of the Creators and creatures of the grand universe.”

# 6 Page 1163 - Primary Association of Primary Functionals - “The primary or spirit-origin phases of finite reality find immediate _expression on creature levels as perfect personalities and on universe levels as the perfect Havona creation. Even experiential Deity is thus expressed in the spirit person of God the Supreme in Havona. But the secondary, evolutionary, time-and matter- conditioned phases of the finite become cosmically integrated only as a result of growth and attainment. Eventually all secondary or perfection finites are to attain a level equal to that of primary perfection, but such destiny is subject to a time delay, a constitutive superuniverse qualification which is not genetically found in the central creation.”

“This superuniverse time lag, this obstacle to perfection attainment, provides for creature participation in evolutionary growth.”

# 7 Page 1164 –Power Personality Synthesis- The Supreme is an evolutionary God of time and space Who has His derivation in the Trinity and an actual personality presence in Havona. But this same experiential deity (the highest mortals can comprehend) has a secondary nature from which its power is derived. The Almighty Supreme gains its power through the growth of the Corps of the Supreme Creators, and in some measure, by virtue of the good done by all other universe creatures of personality possession. This becomes the synthesis of His personality with universe derived power, referred to as power-personality syntheses.

# 8 Page 1164 – SECONDARY SUPREME FINITE INTEGRATION – As God the Sevenfold functionally co-ordinates finite evolution, so does the Supreme Being eventually synthesize destiny attainment. The Supreme Being is the deity culmination of grand universe evolution—physical evolution around a spirit nucleus and eventual dominance of the spirit nucleus over the encircling and whirling domains of physical evolution. And all of this takes place in accordance with the mandates of personality: Paradise personality in the highest sense, Creator personality in the universe sense, mortal personality in the human sense, Supreme personality in the culminating or experiential totaling sense.

“The concept of the Supreme must provide for the differential recognition of spirit person, evolutionary power, and power-personality synthesis—the unification of evolutionary power with and its dominance by, spirit personality.”

# 9 Page 1165 – “God the Supreme is experiential; therefore is he completely experiencible.”

“Within the completed power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being there will be associated all of the absoluteness of the several triodities which could be so associated, and this majestic personality of evolution will be experientially attainable and understandable by all finite personalities. When ascenders attain the postulated seventh stage of spirit existence, they will therein experience the realization of a new meaning-value of the absoluteness and infinity of the triodities as such is revealed on subabsolute levels in the Supreme Being who is experiencible. But the attainment of these stages of maximum development will probably await the co-ordinate settling of the entire grand universe in light and life”

# 10 Page 1104 – Religion at some point requires a definition, and several ideas are presented throughout the papers. Paper 101 defines religion is several ways. “Religion is the experiencing of divinity is the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfaction while yet in the flesh. Religion lives and prospers not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight.”

Religion is also defined as “faith trust and assurance”. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of a new and spiritual meaning in facts already well known to mankind. “The highest religious experience is not dependent on acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind. Religion is the creation of a wholly rational insight which originates man’s mind experience. Religion is born neither of mystic meditations nor of isolated contemplations, albeit it is evermore or less mysterious and always indefinable and inexplicable in terms of purely intellectual reason and philosophic logic.”

“Religion, the conviction-faith of the personality, can always triumph over the superficially contradictory logic of despair born in the unbelieving material mind.”

“The fact of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of rational and average human beings.”

“Religion is the ancestor of the advanced ethics and morals of progressive social evolution.”

More Facts about Religion

Page 1114 – “The great difference between a religious and a nonreligious philosophy of living consists in the nature and level of recognized values and in the object of loyalties.”

“The acid test for any religious philosophy consists in whether or not it distinguishes between the realities of the material and the spiritual worlds while at the same moment recognizing their unification in intellectual striving and social serving.”

Page 1174 – Final Quest of Eternity. “Sooner or later all universe personalities begin to realize that the final quest of eternity is the endless exploration of infinity, the never-ending voyage of discovery into the absoluteness of the First Source and Center. Sooner or later we all become aware that all creature growth is proportional to Father identification…”

Definitions

Page 3 – Cosmic consciousness – implies the recognition of a First Cause, the one and only uncaused reality.

Page 191 – Cosmic mind – The Master Spirits are the sevenfold source of the cosmic mind, the intellectual potential of the grand universe, This cosmic mind, is a subabsolute manifestation of the mind of the Third Source and Center, and in certain ways, is functionally related to the mind of the evolving Supreme Being.

Universe Levels of Reality

Page 1162 -- “It is not enough that the ascending mortal should know something of the relations of Deity to the genesis and manifestations of cosmic reality; he should also comprehend something of the relationships existing realities, of potential and actual realities. Man’s terrestrial orientation, his cosmic insight, and his spiritual directionization are all enhanced by a better comprehension of universe realities and their techniques of interassociations, integration, and unification.” Without elaboration these levels of reality are grouped for conceptual convenience in the following categories:

1. Incomplete finites, 2. Maximum finites, 3. Transcendentals, 4. Ultimates, 5. Coabsolutes, 6. Absolutes, 7. Infinity. A description of these reality levels are discussed on pages 1162 – 1163. These concepts are further elucidated in various sections throughout the book.