From the beginning of the Lucifer Rebellion around 200,000 years ago, humans—as well as nonhuman mortals and various celestial orders in the system of Satania—have had to make the decision between following God’s ways or rebelling against them, and this has been the way on our fallen world since then.1 The Old and New Testaments of the Bible refer to families at war among each other that involve conflicts between those who are more Godly and those who choose more evil ways.
In the Old Testament it is written that Absalom, the son of King David, even tried to kill his father, as he disagreed with the way David ran his kingdom, which was more according to the precepts of God. In his rebellion, Absalom actually plotted to take over the throne from David and came against him with an army, in which Absalom was killed in battle. It says that David wept with deep grief, for he loved his son Absalom.
Jesus stated more than once that the spiritual battles often start in the household of God. In relation to some family members following His ways and others not, according to the New Testament, Jesus said that father and mother will turn against son and daughter, and son and daughter against mother and father, brother against brother, sister against sister, and grandchildren against grandparents. Also, conflict will occur between those who make wrong decisions to enable and support other biological (“blood”) family members in their error, sin, and iniquity and those who make a higher stand and support those non-family members who live more for the truth and goodness of God’s way.
For those family members with a false sense of obligation, “blood is thicker than water,” but for those who choose to live by God’s precepts, the living water of truth and goodness has more substance than the blood of biological family loyalty.
On Urantia it is common that misplaced compassion for those who choose to continue to live in error, sin, and iniquity rules over loyalty to God and God’s absolutes—God’s commandments, laws, and statutes. Relativity justifies all sorts of evils—from theft to immoral and unethical behavior, to abuse of alcohol and drugs, to gluttony, to greed, and much more. And, especially when it comes to family, the majority of humanity will usually choose “blood” over the purifying and life-giving water of God’s precepts, for we tend to overlook the faults that are in our kin. However, by overlooking their errors and sins, we often aid our kin down the path of their own destruction.
Turning a blind eye to wrong-doing in our loved ones often leads to much sorrow, not only in the one doing the wrong, but to others in our families. For when the laws of God are disobeyed—whether by the one who is actually committing the sin or by those who overlook the sin in others—an environment of disharmony and confusion is created, and eventually corruption becomes the norm, as it is on our planet today in most of the systems within human society.
When a whole social system is corrupt, almost all within that system will support the evil in it. (Those who refuse to take part in or compromise with the corruption will eventually choose or be forced to leave.) For example, in a corrupt police force, which is financially supported by the taxpayers’ money, the wrong-doers cannot be properly evaluated by supervisors, who are also paid by the taxpayers’ money, when a victim of an illegal arrest is brought before a judge, who is also paid by the taxpayers’ money. All too often the result is an unjust decision by the judge in favor of the police force, for all individuals within it support the evil system and not the laws of God or the grace of God. In these cases, usually the letter of the law stands, not the grace of God, especially if the letter of the law protects all within the system gone bad.
Though there are laws and codes of honesty and honor in both the police force and the military, the majority of individuals adhere more to the accepted social rules and norms that make up the “culture” within their unit, which all too often is unethical and immoral—in contradiction to the ideals of protection and service. For those police officers and soldiers who refuse to participate in the wrong-doing of a corrupt culture and take a stand for right, speaking out against the dishonesty and immorality, they end up persecuted and their careers ruined. Even though one of the codes for the military is: “let your conscience be your guide,” when that is actually practiced and results in not following an order given by a superior, the soldier who chooses his conscience, or God, is usually court-martialed.
Many families do not talk to each other for years and are mad at each other for a lifetime when one family member speaks up against the wrong that they see in another family member. In many families there’s an unwritten code that they all are supposed to overlook the sin in other family members. In many royal courts throughout history, the more godly family members who spoke out against the sins of their fathers and mothers (who just might happen to be the king and queen), or other brothers and sisters (who just happened to be princes and princesses) were either banished to another country or poisoned. This has happened in all cultures.
As has been the case throughout history, in America’s culture today we are expected to be loyal to all of the ideologies of our particular religious and political affiliations, without ever questioning the wrong policies or doctrines within those systems. And, as it has been throughout history, whoever questions the validity of some of those belief systems and immoral conduct are banished. This is why the progress of civilization has been so slow, because of the many lower loyalties to stagnant and corrupt social systems and to individuals who choose to be part of those systems. There needs to be a loyalty of each and every freewill sentient being to the laws of the Creator, which are actually written in our superconscious minds.
200,000 years ago Van (a supermortal from another universe who was on the staff of the Caligastia One Hundred) stood loyal in the midst of the Lucifer Rebellion, even though his Planetary Prince (Caligastia) defaulted, with Lucifer, in the laws and precepts of the Universal Father and the Creator Son of our local universe, Michael of Nebadon (who came to this planet as Jesus, approximately 198,000 years after that rebellion began). Amadon, a loyal evolutionary human, also remained loyal to the laws of God, even though the majority of his kind fell to the precepts of the Lucifer Rebellion. Van and Amadon’s choice to follow the truth, that was written in their minds and hearts, led to much suffering for them, and they had to often run for their lives from those who wanted them killed, because they were examples of loyalty to God.
A whole universe, and beyond, heard about the loyalty of Van and Amadon. Particularly they often spoke of Amadon, asking “What of Amadon of Urantia? Does he still stand unmoved?” And they said this because they knew that many mortals who make right decisions, in time, cave in when they begin to lose friends and family, and—in modern times—positions, careers, prestige, and money. Most people compromise. And in the modern world, many schools of thought teach that compromise is the path of wisdom. However, compromising truth and goodness is not the path of wisdom; it is the path of weakness.
In a larger social structure, a society that does not abide by the laws of God becomes more and more immoral and even anarchistic. The Old Testament tells the story of Moses being presented God’s laws for the people of Israel who were beginning a new civilization that would bring order where there was no order and justice where there was no justice. Other spiritual texts contain similar laws of God that are meant to be the foundation of any social system, whether a family or an entire civilization.
The present problems on the planet can no longer be solved within fallen systems that are set up to sustain avarice, self-pursuit, and siding with each other in wrong-doing. From families to county-, state-, and federal-level law enforcement agencies and courts, there can be no justice unless there is a true Spiritualution where millions of people begin to side only with the ways of God.
Loyalty within families and other social systems is a good thing, as long as that loyalty does not override the commandments of God or our own conscience (which is the laws of God written in our minds and hearts). In a truly healthy culture, there is no place for false loyalty that is based more upon blind obligation, misplaced compassion, and a variety of other things that have nothing to do with what is the “true true”—a concept so eloquently used in the movie Cloud Atlas.
Unfortunately, most people don’t want the true true; they want various shades of it, the grays of life. By living in the grays of life, we do not have to take responsibility for our actions. We can live in “Edge City”—from a song that I wrote in the early 1990s and recorded on the album Energy Master (see Spotify). It must be a very popular concept, because several artists have recorded their versions of the song, and even one band named themselves Edge City. I wrote the song for people living on the edge, between goodness and evil, between right and wrong. Sadly, most decide to choose what serves their selfish nature.
Here’s the lyrics:
Edge City
Every spoken spirit form that rides the wind of time
Joins the thoughts of chosen ones programmed by the I AM (AUM)And all that join the thoughts of love help to create the whole,
Only gentleness, truth, and harmony can be the only goal
MOVE ONFlash of light, flash of hope, build your dream on destiny's song.
It can be done when you truly know the mind of right and wrong.So don't pretend, oh fallen friend, you know the way to go
Or that you are so perfect like the very perfect I AM (AUM)Come out of your edge city. Get off the cosmic cloud
Humble yourselves to the greater lights that have always led the I AM's crowd
MOVE ONYou’re so blind to that scar deep within your soul,
You justify your actions in your self-righteous goalAnd your myth goes on and on, blind to the core
Pointing your finger to the ones you love that don't even keep the scoreAccept the fact that you are loved. The Angel’s only tool
Is your thought of security, resting in the Surgeon's school.Walk gently through the cosmic breeze, do not bend a reed.
Rest in Him, oh Spirit’s child, who always knows your need
MOVE ON
In royal courts of warrior kings, like David of Israel and Alexander the Great, soldiers who were not right with their Creator knew to not get too close to the eyes of David or Alexander, for fear that they would lose their heads, particularly on the battlefield where they knew that these righteous kings knew that the soldier’s indecision between right and wrong often cost the lives of more troops who were loyal to the precepts of the Creator and their righteous king.
At The University of Ascension Science and The Physics of Rebellion, on the campus of Avalon Gardens & EcoVillage in Rio Rico, Arizona, students are trained to understand, at the highest levels, evil, sin, and iniquity in people. Evil is error, but still has very negative results. Sin is the conscious choice of wrong over right, continually. And iniquity doesn’t care who gets hurt and actually likes and thrives in disrupting God’s light and right.
Some of you might have wondered why Judas—who walked with Jesus Christ when He walked this planet, and with all the apostles (the apostles, because they all tried harder to become perfect, like Jesus asked them all to do)—could so easily betray the Master. The URANTIA Book explains this in the Jesus papers, particularly in Paper 193, Section 4: “Causes of Judas's Downfall.”
Simply stated in my words: If you desire the things of this world and not the kingdom of God, if you want your own will over God’s will, although you may think you are following your heart, you have not realized yet (in your soul’s ascension) that the heart has two compartments, two paths—the path of The Way, of the Tao (the kingdom of God), or the path of self-will. The book of Proverbs states “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is destruction and death.” (Proverbs 16:25)
1 See The URANTIA Book, particularly Paper 53: The Lucifer Rebellion and Paper 54: Problems of the Lucifer Rebellion.