For a decade or more, personal and societal moral standards have been dwindling in America. When a country comes to the place where there is not a set of values as a guide for ethical behavior, breakdown of order ensues, eventually ending up with the threat of anarchy. Across the U.S. there is an alarming rate of increase in social and economic inequity, drug abuse, suicides, mental illness, homelessness, domestic violence, and mass shootings. Even more alarming is the decrease in deep, comprehensive thinkers, which results in large portions of citizens being easily influenced by “fake news” and extremists who spread fear, distrust, hatred, and irresponsibility.
Materialistic selfishness determines the choices of too many when choosing which side to take in controversies involving important issues. As a result, less people are choosing the side of God’s divine universal laws. Even more confusing is that so many claim to have chosen God’s side, which is not the case at all, though they are still loved by God, in spite of their erring ways.
I find that in my own political leanings, I sometimes agree with the more conservative Republicans and sometimes I side with the more liberal Democrats. So, I find it almost impossible to identify myself as a “conservative” or a “liberal” because I try to think and pray through the issues and side with what is right in the eyes of God and His/Her laws, regardless of political party.
I think that Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema made the right decision in leaving the Democrat party to become an Independent, realizing that she agrees with the Republicans on some issues and with the Democrats on other issues. She is not an extreme “rightist” or extreme “leftist”, but more in the middle, using common sense to apply God’s laws of ethics. My question to you is how can you be a good Democrat if you don’t agree with same sex marriage, due to religious beliefs? But how can you be a good Republican if you are also supportive of abortion, due to religious beliefs? What party can you affiliate with that fits your ideals? “Who am I?” There are millions more of “who am I’s” in both political parties who agree with some of the ideologies of the other party. Dang, confusing isn’t it?—thus the title of this article: “The Confusion of America”.
***
Regarding the issues of homosexuality and same sex marriages, I believe that is not part of God’s law and is an abomination of everything the Holy Family stood for—Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Though I am relieved that Brittney Griner has been released from imprisonment in Russia, I struggle with hearing on the national news about her wife (as both are women), for I feel their marriage is outside of God’s law.
I also think that gender confusion is really confusion about God and His/Her laws. Usually it is very clear upon the birth of a baby what the gender is, and there would be no confusion, unless the parents or society allowed that confusion in. To me, transgenderism is more related to a lack of personality integration rather than to the physical make-up of a person.
To look like a woman or a man is a matter of associating what God gave you as identification of your gender. Though it is acceptable and fashionable for women to wear pants, ideally they should not “be the pants” in a marriage or workplace. There indeed is a masculine and feminine essence or energy within men and women that are meant to complement each other. When a false masculine persona is assumed in a woman, she loses much of her valuable feminine essence, which can cause some personality disintegration.
Improper thinking does manifest in some form of confusion and illness in society and in individual persons. Is it possible that this is the case with Celine Dion, who has a gender neutral clothing line for children, and now has a disease that ended her singing career and could cause her death? Though I think this is a possibility, I also realize that the cause of illness is a complex issue with many contributing factors to consider for each soul.
Many celebrities, including Lady Gaga, support the LGBTQ philosophy of “anything goes” because it is a popular stance right now and if they advocate otherwise it could be harmful for their careers.
The Cosmic Family volumes, which introduce ascension-science concepts (spirituality with science), explain much about how thoughts, feelings, and behavior impact our physical bodies and mental states. These volumes, as well as the Bible and other religious texts, are good guidebooks on human morality. And it is not just the Bible that states “a man should not lie with man or woman with woman”, but many other sources that make this divine law clear and what God expects us to follow.
On higher worlds of time and space, none of this gender confusion happens, because it is taught at a very young age to identify with the body the child is born with—male or female—and develop into a personality-integrated individual. However, on this rebellious world, Earth or Urantia (numbered 606 in the system of Satania), we have not yet evolved into our higher destiny of light and life. As a result, there is confusion as to what the laws of God are and thus a lack of clear spiritual, moral standards. Too many either do not understand or resist following those laws.
***
Once you believe in a Creator, then you need to accept the Creator’s standards, the Creator’s laws, which, in part, are the commandments from God that actually are written in our hearts and in our superconscious minds. It is not like we cannot know what is right or wrong, for deep within us, if we search, we can “know” and choose what is right. However, it is now much more difficult to know right from wrong due to the influences of multi media (television, radio, magazines, and the Internet), which bombards us with violence, greed, lust for power, and avarice of all kinds, confusing what is truly good from what is truly evil. Often that which is not of goodness is considered more desirable than what is right in God’s eyes. It is a battle between the lower and the higher self.
I like to call the lower self “the imposter”, for our true selves, our integrated personalities, can be lost to the lower, false identity. Unfortunately, most people never realize their potential in the higher self but only see the imposter in the mirror, and have no idea of who they really are in God.
Some people think they know God, but all they really know is the god of their political party. People have been killing each other for thousands of years due to differing viewpoints in religion, politics, and other ideologies. Even in the same religion people with different interpretations and doctrines still kill each other. For example, within Christianity “salvation” means different things to different groups, and a case in point is the ongoing conflicts between Catholics and Protestants (especially in Ireland).
Is the true God unknowable? Of course not. Too many people just learn the god of their political parties or religious institutions and think that is God. I like the concept of The URANTIA Book that identifies humanity as “ascending sons and daughters of God,” which implies that the ultimate divine destiny of individual humans is to find the Creator and become perfected within God’s will. “Knowing” God means to try to think, feel, and act within God’s personality pattern; otherwise, you do not really know God. The first commandment for Jews, Christians, and Muslims is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.” If you can get that right, then everything else will eventually fall into place.
***
Another hot topic is around gun laws, and despite the differences in opinion of how to apply gun laws or not have any government regulation at all, shouldn’t we all consider whether automatic weapons should be allowed to be on our streets among civilians to be used by some confused young person, which is happening now almost every day. Shouldn’t we refrain from wanting to kill each other and start a civil war over our differences of opinion? We seem to have lost self-control and a sense of our own dignity.
***
So how do we get out of this mess we are in? I think we have to stop looking for a political-party understanding of God and get back to understanding God God’s way, no matter what the party says. Thank God we only have two dominant main parties to deal with, and with two parties that has caused enough mess. Perhaps we should have no parties and let it all hang out. But it does not look like a two-party system is working. So changes have to be made.
In the end of everything, God should be our final answer, our final belief, our final yes or no. And we should know God good enough to come up with that final whatever. And if we do not, we become just a regular Republican or Democrat—confused, stupid, and at war with each other. How silly, because we cause our own division, our own civil war—just the opposite of what our true God would want. We can no longer see each other as Democrats or Republicans. We have to see ourselves as brothers and sisters in God, without the politics.
Christians, who anticipate the return of Christ, should not see the Lord returning for Democrats, or Republicans, or religions of any kind. He is returning for all of His children, especially those who try to follow God’s will and obey His/Her universal laws and moral standards, regardless of religious affiliation. All of humankind must come to understand the concept of “One God, One Planetary Family.” And if we do not start acting within that brotherhood/sisterhood, we will destroy each other and all of life on this world.
Abortion
The subject of abortion triggers great controversy. Many Christian pastors and leaders, like popular Jonathan Cahn, teach that abortion is an act of murdering babies, which is now the common belief among most in conservative, evangelical Christianity. However, are we really killing millions of babies or just embryos and fetuses that are not yet developed human beings? An automobile is not really an automobile without a motor; it is just a shell. The embryo or fetus is not yet a completed mechanism, thus not yet a human being with a soul.
Since Christianity and other religions believe in the existence of a soul and an afterlife for humans, it is useful to ask: at what time does the soul enter an embryo or fetus? The idea that a soul enters the embryo at conception is just not true, and neither is the belief that a soul is in the fetus (about eight weeks after conception). The URANTIA Book, which is the Fifth Epochal Revelation to humankind from God, teaches that for the majority of eight billion people on our world, the soul begins to be gradually developed after birth and is not considered a soul until a person is around five or six years of age. So, the soul is developed or created by the human individual and is not an instant happening.
The Cosmic Family volumes, or Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation, reveal that for a small minority of individuals on this planet who have had past lives where their souls began to be developed (starseed/indigo children), their pre-existing souls may enter the fetus in prenatal development, up to the ninth month. This all is dependent upon the relationship between the father and mother, the health of the mother, and the earthly destiny of the soul. But this is not the case with all starseed; for some, their pre-existing soul may not become a part of them until after birth.
In relation to those special cases where the pre-existing soul becomes part of the fetus, a standardized time of that soul entry is around twelve to fourteen weeks. However, it is very individual, depending upon many criteria, mostly between the mother and God, because if the woman is having an older soul—a starseed or indigo child—there are a plethora of souls who can come into the fetus, based upon criteria that we humans know nothing about, that have to do with the destiny of that particular soul.
Just because billions of people have religious beliefs that they are reincarnated does not mean that they have actually had past lives, though of course some have. It is important to understand that in most cases the fetus is not a completed human being until after birth, unless a pre-existing souI comes into a fetus before birth, and then that fetus is considered a human being. But that is rare. It is God, with the help of celestial beings and the Creator Son of each universe who determine when a soul would be part of a fetus.
Given this knowledge, I believe that abortion is not murder or killing a human being and that it is a woman’s right to choose whether she wants to have a baby or not. Instead of condemning mothers as murderers, we need to be open to continued Epochal Revelation, which is the Fifth Epochal Revelation, written in The URANTIA Book and The Cosmic Family volumes, given by God to clarify not only this issue but many other confused doctrines.
There have been four other Epochal Revelations given to this planet, the First being the Planetary Prince Caligastia, who fell in the Lucifer Rebellion himself. The Second being a Material Son and Daughter, Adam and Eve, who did indeed fall, but not by biting an apple that they shouldn’t have. The Third was Machiventa Melchizedek, who was on the planet for 94 years and taught Abraham and started the Schools of Salem, which eventually became Jerusalem. Fourth was Jesus, who taught the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood/sisterhood of humankind. Jesus did not come to die for the sins of humankind. He made that choice, but it did not have to be. And last of all, the Fifth Epochal Revelation, which the Hopis have called (long before its coming) the Fifth World and the language of the Fifth World.
Most people are not students of truth, nor seekers of truth, and are stuck in their traditions and doctrines of their own evolutionary backward religions. Hopefully, this article will help to get people out of those lower-consciousness-thinking perspectives. The first ones we pray that get out are the pastors and teachers themselves, who are so convinced of their own narrow-minded, small-thinking doctrines that they can accuse millions of women of being murderers.
This article by Van of Urantia is also available as a video here:
The Confusion of America - by Van of Urantia