Scientists and religionists must recognize that they are on trial before the bar of human need. They must eschew all warfare between themselves while they strive valiantly to justify their continued survival by enhanced devotion to the service of human progress. If the so-called science or religion of any age is false, then must it either purify its activities or pass away before the emergence of a material science or spiritual religion of a truer and more worthy order.
—The Urantia Book
Marcus Aurelius “The Wise” once observed, “He who does not know what the world is, does not know where he is; and he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is.” As observations go, that one is still completely kicking our asses.
LIFE does not originate spontaneously. Life is constructed according to plans formulated by the (unrevealed) Architects of Being and appears on the inhabited planets either by direct importation or as a result of the operations of the Life Carriers of the local universes. These carriers of life are among the most interesting and versatile of the diverse family of universe Sons. They are intrusted with designing and carrying creature life to the planetary spheres. And after planting this life on such new worlds, they remain there for long periods to foster its development.
—The Urantia Book
From the origin of the universe, to the origin of life— big “s” Science remains embarrassingly clueless. Yep, they’re damned good postulators, and they sure sound like they know what they’re talking about when they’re wrapped in relatively true facts. But when push becomes shove they’ll usually admit that when it comes to cosmology, they still have their heavily starched underoos on backwards.
What this means is, scientists will never be able to tell you (scientifically) what basic universe phenomena like gravity— or light, or even electricity— fundamentally are.
What’s more, scientists will forever be powerless to create even one atom of matter— or to originate even one flash of energy— or ever add to inanimate matter that which we call life. That’s because the creation of energy and the bestowal of life are the prerogatives of the Universal Father, and his fellow Creator personalities.
Science must learn to keep its pointy nose firmly wedged between the butt cheeks of physical-energy activities; religion must learn to keep its giant snotty proboscis filled with eternal values. True philosophy always grows out of that wisdom which does whatever it can to correlate these quantitative— science— and qualitative— religious— observations. And you can bet that the purely physical scientist will still become afflicted with mathematical pride and statistical egotism— not to mention spiritual blindness; even as intransigent religious fetishists arrogantly ignore the real discoveries of science.
Education then, will always be the business of living— and just like breathing, it must continue throughout your entire lifetime if you want to have any chance at all to experience what we are going to call, seriously, “mortal wisdom.” Let’s break it down like this. . .
• The knowledge of things
• The realization of meanings
• The appreciation of values
• The nobility of work— duty
• The motivation of goals— morality
• The love of service— character
• Cosmic insight— spiritual discernment
Surprise! It takes a reasonable achievement of all of these to achieve God-consciousness.
Cosmology is the study of the Universe in its totality. That shakes out to a coherent philosophical understanding of everything. But like a cheap jelly donut, the long historical gulf between science and religion is usually always filled with a gooey dose of metaphysical cosmology, i.e., the speculations of a bunch of philosophers and theologians who try to draw palatable (read: reasonable) explanations and conclusions about the nature and origin of the universe, God, man, and the relationship of the whole ball of wax; and fail miserably.
And there’s a good reason for their failure. Our philosophy is built on the speculations of a haphazard metaphysics and our tenuous grasp of science; consequently, divine revelation becomes the only hope for bridging the gap between the two. And right now, that revelation is in the form of a— oh why did they do it— another book. So help me God.
The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation.
—The Urantia Book
Doc, perhaps government butt cheeks would be better?
Bwaahaahaa!
Theology and science “ruled”?? You slay me, Doctor!
(Are you sure God’s not setting you up?) While true Science can have no lasting quarrel with Theology (religion) since it is material and wholly intellectual and therefore utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and religious experiences, we humans still prefer our religious experience to be personal, and beyond the reach of rulers (like you). But good luck with that, and watch out for a zombie version of Heston; he’s hard to kill.
Incidentally, I Googled Ape City, turns out it’s really the UC Irvine Campus; who knew.
( http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/misc/apecity.html )
Excellent quote, nonnie; man’s arrogance easily outruns his logic.
Ha! Science does not need to keep it’s nose firmly wedged between the butt cheeks of physical-energy activities! There are many butt cheeks for scientists to firmly wedge their nose between. Their corporate sponsors, for one…
In Ape City, Theology and science are ruled by one leader (yours truly), as god intended. An obvious oversight lost on the short sightedness of man and his endeavors.
“Man cannot make a worm yet he makes gods by the dozens.” – Montaigne (1553-1592)
i can’t say it better than that.