The Cosmic Citizen

This week, in honor of Easter, we will remember Jesus during what is known as the "Time of the Tomb." We'll share poignant remembrances and reflections on the extraordinary life of our Master, Joshua ben Joseph, also known as... JESUS. Join us while we explore and remember the Master's legacy of living light, fearless friendship, and undying faith.           http://tobtr.com/12086030

This week we will complete our impromptu study of religion, that is, we'll finish Paper 101. The Real Nature of Religion. So far here is some of what we have discovered: Religion lives and prospers by faith and insight, eventually resulting in the consciousness of God and assurance of everlasting life.  True religion cannot be observed or understood from the outside.  Genuine spiritual faith engen...

We continue our third week on a study of religion. A philosophy of religion evolves out of a basic growth of ideas plus experimental living as both are modified by the tendency to imitate associates. The soundness of philosophic conclusions depends on keen, honest, and discriminating thinking in connection with sensitivity to meanings and accuracy of evaluation. Moral cowards never achieve high pl...

The faith of Jesus pointed the way to finality of human salvation, to the ultimate of mortal universe attainment, since it provided for: ... 5. Salvation from self, deliverance from the limitations of self-consciousness through the attainment of the cosmic levels of the Supreme mind and by co-ordination with the attainments of all other self-conscious beings. 6. Salvation from time, the achievemen...

The teachings of Jesus constituted the first Urantian religion which so fully embraced a harmonious co-ordination of knowledge, wisdom, faith, truth, and love as completely and simultaneously to provide temporal tranquillity, intellectual certainty, moral enlightenment, philosophic stability, ethical sensitivity, God-consciousness, and the positive assurance of personal survival. The faith of Jesu...

This week, we continue our study of Paper 70, The Evolution of Human Government with §3. Early Human Associations and possibly §4. Clans and Tribes. How did our earliest aggregations of humanity develop to move us toward greater and greater need for even simple forms of government? Families became united by blood ties in clans, aggregations of kinsmen; and these subsequently evolved into tribes, t...

This week, we continue our study of Paper 70, The Evolution of Human Government with §2. The Social Value of War.  Wars seem never to cease on our world and their consequences to each society so engaged is ever more devastating.  Still, in more primitive times war and its organizational imperatives were a decided step forward.  Let's examine some of those social values together. In past ages a fie...

This week, we commence our study of Paper 70, The Evolution of Human Government.  Our times demand knowing more about how our adaptations and maladaptations regulating our human contacts with each other, in smaller but progressively, larger and larger groupings, had their origins, have evolved, and where they seem to be going. On an evolutionary world, antagonisms are natural; peace is secured onl...

We conclude our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §8. Dangers of Self-Gratification and a reprise of the final paragraphs of §7. The great threat against family life is the menacing rising tide of self-gratification, the modern pleasure mania. The prime incentive to marriage used to be economic; sex attraction was secondary. Marriage, founded on self-maintenance, led to self-perpetu...

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §7. The Ideals of Family Life. Sex mating is instinctive, children are the natural result, and the family thus automatically comes into existence. As are the families of the race or nation, so is its society. If the families are good, the society is likewise good. The great cultural stability of the Jewish and of the Chinese peoples...

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §6. The Partnership of Man and Woman and, time allowing, may proceed to §7. The Ideals of Family Life. The reproductive urge unfailingly brings men and women together for self-perpetuation but, alone, does not insure their remaining together in mutual co-operation — the founding of a home. Every successful human institution embraces...

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §5, Woman under the Developing Mores and, time allowing, may proceed to §6 The Partnership of Man and Woman. In self-perpetuation woman is man’s equal, but in the partnership of self-maintenance she labors at a decided disadvantage, and this handicap of enforced maternity can only be compensated by the enlightened mores of advancing...

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §4, Woman’s Status in Early Society and may proceed to §5, Woman under the Developing Mores. Generally speaking, during any age woman’s status is a fair criterion of the evolutionary progress of marriage as a social institution, while the progress of marriage itself is a reasonably accurate gauge registering the advances of human civ...

We continue our study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life with §2, The Mother Family and may procede to §3, The Family under Father Dominance. The woman’s periodic hemorrhage and her further loss of blood at childbirth early suggested blood as the creator of the child (even as the seat of the soul) and gave origin to the blood-bond concept of human relationships. In early times all descent was r...

Happy New Year cosmic citizens! We kick of the New Year with a study of Paper 84, Marriage and Family Life. That family and marriage are evolutionary institutions deserving our full appreciation and study is poorly understood.  Like much in our society, we do not truly comprehend the fundamental building block of wider society and civilzation that makes for a good or poorly functioning society.  T...

This week we are featuring a special interview on an important topic, Restorative Justice. Our guest expert is Officer Mike Butler.  Restorative justice (RJ) leverages the principles of forgiveness, apology, relationship, respect, chosen accountability and repair in responding to those who have committed crimes and those who have been victimized by crimes. It redefines the nature of the meaning of...

Between our interview on Restorative Justice, with Mike Butler, on Saturday the 18th, and because we will be off on Christmas, we thought it would be great to have a special Tribute to Jesus show this week, in honor of the Holiday Season and Christmas.  We'll be reading from primarily two very important sections in The Urantia Book.  *  Paper 171, Section 7: "As Jesus Passed By" "Jesus spread good...

We're back Saturday with Part 11 of our study of Urantia Paper 55 - The Spheres of Light and Life, and we'll be reading Section 11. The Minor and Major Sector Stages. The minor sector age. As far as observations can penetrate, the fifth or minor sector stage of stabilization has exclusively to do with physical status and with the co-ordinate settling of the one hundred associated local universes i...

We're back this weekend with Part 10 of our study of Urantia Paper 55 - The Spheres of Light and Life, and we'll be reading Section 10. The Fourth or Local Universe Stage. Scientists are still speculating whether or not there is life on other planets. The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has gone on in earnest for decades. Perhaps soon, the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to...

We continue §7 with a study of the constellation and local universe stages of light and life and their implications for the new adjustments made possible by such mutual attainment of the high planetary civilizations by these larger organizations of inhabited worlds.  What developments might humanity anticipate both within and without the realms of our present abilities to conceive? When a constell...

We are fully immersed in our study of Paper 55, The Spheres of Light and Life. So far, we've covered the first 6 sections of this marvelous paper. We've studied 1.The Morontia Temple, 2.Death and Translation, 3.The Golden Ages, 4.Administrative Readjustments, 5.The Acme of Material Development and 6.The Individual Mortal.  The final attainment of an evolutionary world is the age of light and life....

We begin §6. The Individual Mortal in Paper 55, The Spheres of Light and Life, and will surely recap §5. The Acme of Material Development before proceeding. As worlds advance in the settled status of light and life, society becomes increasingly peaceful. The individual, while no less independent and devoted to his family, has become more altruistic and fraternal. On Urantia, and as you are, you ca...

We resume with ¶20 of §4. Administrative Readjustments, continuing into §5. The Acme of Material Development and §6. The Individual Mortal. On the evolutionary worlds a being must humanize to receive a Thought Adjuster. All ascendant members of the Mortal Corps of Finaliters have been Adjuster indwelt and fused except seraphim, and they are Father indwelt by another type of spirit at the time of b...

We resume our series on Paper 55 The Spheres of Light and Life with §4. Administrative Readjustments. (627.2) 55:4.4 1. The first stage of light and life. A world in this initial settled stage is being administered by three rulers: (627.3) 55:4.5 a. The Planetary Sovereign, presently to be advised by a counseling Trinity Teacher Son, in all probability the chief of the terminal corps of such Sons...

  (625.1) 55:3.2 Human government in the conduct of material affairs continues to function throughout this age of relative progress and perfection. The public activities of a world in the first stage of light and life which I recently visited were financed by the tithing technique. Every adult worker — and all able-bodied citizens worked at something — paid ten per cent of his income or increase t...