유란시아 책
III 부. 유란시아의 역사
Paper 92
The Later Evolution of Religion
The Later Evolution of Religion
92:0.1 (1003.1)
MAN possessed a religion of natural origin as a part of his evolutionary experience long before any systematic revelations were made on Urantia. But this religion of natural origin was, in itself, the product of man’s superanimal endowments. Evolutionary religion arose slowly throughout the millenniums of mankind’s experiential career through the ministry of the following influences operating within, and impinging upon, savage, barbarian, and civilized man:
92:0.4 (1003.4)
3. The Holy Spirit—this is the initial supermind bestowal, and it unfailingly appears in all bona fide human personalities. This ministry to a worship-craving and wisdom-desiring mind creates the capacity to self-realize the postulate of human survival, both in theologic concept and as an actual and factual personality experience.
이 세 가지 신성한 보살핌이 협조하여 작용하는 것은, 진화 종교의 성장을 개시하고 속행하기에 아주 충분하다. 사고 섭리사와 스라빔과 진리의 영이 이 영향을 나중에 확대하는데, 이 모든 것이 종교의 발전 속도를 가속시킨다. 이 매개체들은 유란시아에서 오래 전부터 작용해왔고, 이 행성이 인간거주 구체로 남아있는 한 존속할 것이다. 이런 신성한 매개체들의 잠재력 대부분은, 표현될 수 있는 기회를 가진 적이 지금까지 전혀 없었으며;모론시아 가치와 영 진리의 숭고한 정상을 향해서 필사자의 종교가 한 수준씩 올라감에 따라서, 많은 것이 앞으로 올 시대에 밝혀질 것이다.
92:0.5 (1003.5)
The co-ordinate functioning of these three divine ministrations is quite sufficient to initiate and prosecute the growth of evolutionary religion. These influences are later augmented by Thought Adjusters, seraphim, and the Spirit of Truth, all of which accelerate the rate of religious development. These agencies have long functioned on Urantia, and they will continue here as long as this planet remains an inhabited sphere. Much of the potential of these divine agencies has never yet had opportunity for expression; much will be revealed in the ages to come as mortal religion ascends, level by level, toward the supernal heights of morontia value and spirit truth.
92:1.1 (1003.6)
The evolution of religion has been traced from early fear and ghosts down through many successive stages of development, including those efforts first to coerce and then to cajole the spirits. Tribal fetishes grew into totems and tribal gods; magic formulas became modern prayers. Circumcision, at first a sacrifice, became a hygienic procedure.
92:1.2 (1003.7)
Religion progressed from nature worship up through ghost worship to fetishism throughout the savage childhood of the races. With the dawn of civilization the human race espoused the more mystic and symbolic beliefs, while now, with approaching maturity, mankind is ripening for the appreciation of real religion, even a beginning of the revelation of truth itself.
92:1.3 (1004.1)
Religion arises as a biologic reaction of mind to spiritual beliefs and the environment; it is the last thing to perish or change in a race. Religion is society’s adjustment, in any age, to that which is mysterious. As a social institution it embraces rites, symbols, cults, scriptures, altars, shrines, and temples. Holy water, relics, fetishes, charms, vestments, bells, drums, and priesthoods are common to all religions. And it is impossible entirely to divorce purely evolved religion from either magic or sorcery.
92:1.4 (1004.2)
Mystery and power have always stimulated religious feelings and fears, while emotion has ever functioned as a powerful conditioning factor in their development. Fear has always been the basic religious stimulus. Fear fashions the gods of evolutionary religion and motivates the religious ritual of the primitive believers. As civilization advances, fear becomes modified by reverence, admiration, respect, and sympathy and is then further conditioned by remorse and repentance.
92:2.1 (1004.4)
Religion is the most rigid and unyielding of all human institutions, but it does tardily adjust to changing society. Eventually, evolutionary religion does reflect the changing mores, which, in turn, may have been affected by revealed religion. Slowly, surely, but grudgingly, does religion (worship) follow in the wake of wisdom—knowledge directed by experiential reason and illuminated by divine revelation.
종교는 사회관행에 집착하며;이미 있던 것은 고전적이고 신성하게 여겨진다. 다름 아닌 이런 이유로, 돌로 만든 도구가 청동기 시대와 철기 시대까지 오랫동안 사용됐다. 이런 말이 기록돼있다:“그리고 너희가 나를 위하여 돌로 된 제단을 만들 때, 다듬은 돌로 만들지 말지니, 도구를 사용해서 만들면, 너희는 이미 그것을 더럽혔기 때문이다.” 심지어 오늘날도, 힌두교도는 원시적인 발화도구{發火道具}를 이용해서 제단 불을 붙인다. 진화하는 종교 과정에서, 새로운 것은 항상 신성모독으로 여겨졌다. 성례에서, 새롭고 가공된 음식은 허용되지 않았고, 가장 원시적인 음식물만 허용됐는데:“불로 구운 고기와 누룩을 넣지 않은 빵이 쓴 나물과 함께 제공됐다.” 모든 유형의 사회관행, 심지어 법정의 절차도 옛 형태를 고수한다.
92:2.2 (1004.5)
Religion clings to the mores; that which was is ancient and supposedly sacred. For this reason and no other, stone implements persisted long into the age of bronze and iron. This statement is of record: “And if you will make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone, for, if you use your tools in making it, you have polluted it.” Even today, the Hindus kindle their altar fires by using a primitive fire drill. In the course of evolutionary religion, novelty has always been regarded as sacrilege. The sacrament must consist, not of new and manufactured food, but of the most primitive of viands: “The flesh roasted with fire and unleavened bread served with bitter herbs.” All types of social usage and even legal procedures cling to the old forms.
음란하게 보일 수도 있는 많은 것이, 다른 여러 종교 경전에 나타나는 것을 보고 현대인이 놀랄 때, 조상이 거룩하고 신성하게 여겼던 것들을 제거하기를, 지나가는 세대들이 얼마나 두려워했는지, 가만히 생각해 봐야한다. 한 세대가 음란하게 여길 수 있는 많은 것을, 그 전 세대는 사회관행의 일부분으로 받아들였고, 심지어 공인된 종교 제례식이라고 여기기도 했다. 상당히 많은 종교적 논쟁은, 오래 전부터 내려왔지만 비난받아 마땅한 풍습을 새로 제시된 논리와 절충하고, 진부한 옛 관습을 신조{信條}로 영속시키기를 정당화하면서, 그럴듯한 이론을 발견하려는 끝없는 시도 때문에 야기돼왔다.
92:2.3 (1004.6)
When modern man wonders at the presentation of so much in the scriptures of different religions that may be regarded as obscene, he should pause to consider that passing generations have feared to eliminate what their ancestors deemed to be holy and sacred. A great deal that one generation might look upon as obscene, preceding generations have considered a part of their accepted mores, even as approved religious rituals. A considerable amount of religious controversy has been occasioned by the never-ending attempts to reconcile olden but reprehensible practices with newly advanced reason, to find plausible theories in justification of creedal perpetuation of ancient and outworn customs.
92:2.4 (1004.7)
But it is only foolish to attempt the too sudden acceleration of religious growth. A race or nation can only assimilate from any advanced religion that which is reasonably consistent and compatible with its current evolutionary status, plus its genius for adaptation. Social, climatic, political, and economic conditions are all influential in determining the course and progress of religious evolution. Social morality is not determined by religion, that is, by evolutionary religion; rather are the forms of religion dictated by the racial morality.
사람의 종족들은 생소한 새 종교를 오직 피상적으로만 받아들이며;실제로는 그것을 자신의 사회관행과 옛날의 믿는 방식에 끼워 맞춘다. 뉴질랜드에 있는 어떤 특이한 부족의 예가 이런 사실을 잘 설명하며, 이 부족의 사제들은 그리스도교를 명목상으로만 받아들인 후에, 가브리엘로부터 직접 계시를 받았다고 주장했는데, 그 계시의 취지는, 바로 이 부족이 하나님께 택함 받은 민족이 됐고, 절제 없는 성관계에, 그리고 수많은 다른 구시대의 비난 받을만한 관습에 마음대로 빠지는 것을 허락했다는 것이었다. 그리고 새로 그리스도교인이 된 모든 자들은 이런 덜 엄격한 새 그리스도교 개정판으로 즉시 전향했다.
92:2.5 (1005.1)
Races of men only superficially accept a strange and new religion; they actually adjust it to their mores and old ways of believing. This is well illustrated by the example of a certain New Zealand tribe whose priests, after nominally accepting Christianity, professed to have received direct revelations from Gabriel to the effect that this selfsame tribe had become the chosen people of God and directing that they be permitted freely to indulge in loose sex relations and numerous other of their olden and reprehensible customs. And immediately all of the new-made Christians went over to this new and less exacting version of Christianity.
92:2.6 (1005.2)
Religion has at one time or another sanctioned all sorts of contrary and inconsistent behavior, has at some time approved of practically all that is now regarded as immoral or sinful. Conscience, untaught by experience and unaided by reason, never has been, and never can be, a safe and unerring guide to human conduct. Conscience is not a divine voice speaking to the human soul. It is merely the sum total of the moral and ethical content of the mores of any current stage of existence; it simply represents the humanly conceived ideal of reaction in any given set of circumstances.
인간의 종교를 연구하는 것은, 낡은-사고방식을-지닌, 지나간 시대의 사회 계층에 대한 고찰{考察}이다. 의인화{擬人化}된 신들에 대한 사회관행은, 그런 신격들을 처음 깨달은 사람의 도덕률을 정직하게 반영한다. 옛 종교와 신화는, 오래 전에 이름 없이 사라진 민족들의 신앙과 전통을 충실히 묘사한다. 이런 옛 예찬집단 풍습은 새로운 경제 관습 및 사회 진화와 나란히 존속했고, 물론, 심하게 모순돼 보인다. 그 예찬집단의 남은 흔적들이, 옛 민족 종교의 참 모습을 보여준다. 그런 예찬집단은 진리를 발견하기 위해서가 아니라 자체의 신조를 널리 펼치려고 형성된다는 것을 반드시 기억하라.
92:3.1 (1005.3)
The study of human religion is the examination of the fossil-bearing social strata of past ages. The mores of the anthropomorphic gods are a truthful reflection of the morals of the men who first conceived such deities. Ancient religions and mythology faithfully portray the beliefs and traditions of peoples long since lost in obscurity. These olden cult practices persist alongside newer economic customs and social evolutions and, of course, appear grossly inconsistent. The remnants of the cult present a true picture of the racial religions of the past. Always remember, the cults are formed, not to discover truth, but rather to promulgate their creeds.
92:3.2 (1005.4)
Religion has always been largely a matter of rites, rituals, observances, ceremonies, and dogmas. It has usually become tainted with that persistently mischief-making error, the chosen-people delusion. The cardinal religious ideas of incantation, inspiration, revelation, propitiation, repentance, atonement, intercession, sacrifice, prayer, confession, worship, survival after death, sacrament, ritual, ransom, salvation, redemption, covenant, uncleanness, purification, prophecy, original sin—they all go back to the early times of primordial ghost fear.
92:3.3 (1005.5)
Primitive religion is nothing more nor less than the struggle for material existence extended to embrace existence beyond the grave. The observances of such a creed represented the extension of the self-maintenance struggle into the domain of an imagined ghost-spirit world. But when tempted to criticize evolutionary religion, be careful. Remember, that is what happened; it is a historical fact. And further recall that the power of any idea lies, not in its certainty or truth, but rather in the vividness of its human appeal.
92:3.4 (1006.1)
Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision; unlike science, it does not provide for its own progressive correction. Evolved religion commands respect because its followers believe it is The Truth; “the faith once delivered to the saints” must, in theory, be both final and infallible. The cult resists development because real progress is certain to modify or destroy the cult itself; therefore must revision always be forced upon it.
92:3.5 (1006.2)
Only two influences can modify and uplift the dogmas of natural religion: the pressure of the slowly advancing mores and the periodic illumination of epochal revelation. And it is not strange that progress was slow; in ancient days, to be progressive or inventive meant to be killed as a sorcerer. The cult advances slowly in generation epochs and agelong cycles. But it does move forward. Evolutionary belief in ghosts laid the foundation for a philosophy of revealed religion which will eventually destroy the superstition of its origin.
92:3.6 (1006.3)
Religion has handicapped social development in many ways, but without religion there would have been no enduring morality nor ethics, no worth-while civilization. Religion enmothered much nonreligious culture: Sculpture originated in idol making, architecture in temple building, poetry in incantations, music in worship chants, drama in the acting for spirit guidance, and dancing in the seasonal worship festivals.
그러나 문명의 발달과 보존에 종교가 필수적이라는 사실에 주의를 기울이는 동시에, 자연 종교는, 그 종교가 달리 육성하고 유지시켰을 바로 그 문명을, 무능하게 만들고 방해하는 일을 많이 했다는 사실 역시 기록돼야한다. 종교는 산업 활동과 경제 발전을 방해해왔으며;노동을 낭비해왔고 자본을 탕진해왔으며;가족체제에 항상 도움을 준 것은 아니었으며;평화와 선한 의지를 적절히 육성해오지 않았으며;때로는 교육을 게을리하고 과학의 발전을 지체시켰으며;죽음을 부유하게 꾸미기 위하여 삶을 과도하게 빈곤하게 만들었다. 진화 종교 곧 인간의 종교는, 이런 모든 것과 그 외에 더 많은 잘못과 실책과 실수를 범하는 죄를 지어왔으나;그럼에도 종교는, 문화적 윤리와 문명화된 도덕성과 사회적 일관성을 유지했으며, 계시된 종교가 후대에 이런 많은 진화적 결점을 보충할 수 있게 만들었다.
92:3.7 (1006.4)
But while calling attention to the fact that religion was essential to the development and preservation of civilization, it should be recorded that natural religion has also done much to cripple and handicap the very civilization which it otherwise fostered and maintained. Religion has hampered industrial activities and economic development; it has been wasteful of labor and has squandered capital; it has not always been helpful to the family; it has not adequately fostered peace and good will; it has sometimes neglected education and retarded science; it has unduly impoverished life for the pretended enrichment of death. Evolutionary religion, human religion, has indeed been guilty of all these and many more mistakes, errors, and blunders; nevertheless, it did maintain cultural ethics, civilized morality, and social coherence, and made it possible for later revealed religion to compensate for these many evolutionary shortcomings.
92:3.8 (1006.5)
Evolutionary religion has been man’s most expensive but incomparably effective institution. Human religion can be justified only in the light of evolutionary civilization. If man were not the ascendant product of animal evolution, then would such a course of religious development stand without justification.
종교가 자본 축적을 촉진시켰으며;특정한 종류의 일을 육성했으며;시간 여유가 있는 사제들이 예술과 지식을 증진시켰으며;결국 인류는 초기에 윤리적 기법의 이런 온갖 실책의 결과로 많은 것을 얻었다. 정직한 무당과 부정직한 무당 때문에 비용이 아주 많이 지출됐어도, 그들은 그 값에 해당되는 충분한 가치가 있었다. 학구적인 전문직과 과학 자체는 더부살이하는 사제계층에서 발생됐다. 종교가 문명을 촉진시켰고 사회의 연속성을 제공했으며;세세토록 도덕을 유지하는 경찰력이 돼왔다. 종교는 인간의 수양과 자아-통제를 제공했고, 이것이 지혜를 가능하게 만들었다. 종교는 진화에서 효과적인 채찍인데, 이 채찍은 게으르고 고통 받는 인류를, 지적으로 무기력한 자연 상태로부터 더 높은 이성과 지혜의 수준으로, 앞으로, 위로 가도록 사정없이 몰아간다.
92:3.9 (1006.6)
Religion facilitated the accumulation of capital; it fostered work of certain kinds; the leisure of the priests promoted art and knowledge; the race, in the end, gained much as a result of all these early errors in ethical technique. The shamans, honest and dishonest, were terribly expensive, but they were worth all they cost. The learned professions and science itself emerged from the parasitical priesthoods. Religion fostered civilization and provided societal continuity; it has been the moral police force of all time. Religion provided that human discipline and self-control which made wisdom possible. Religion is the efficient scourge of evolution which ruthlessly drives indolent and suffering humanity from its natural state of intellectual inertia forward and upward to the higher levels of reason and wisdom.
92:4.1 (1007.1)
Revelation is evolutionary but always progressive. Down through the ages of a world’s history, the revelations of religion are ever-expanding and successively more enlightening. It is the mission of revelation to sort and censor the successive religions of evolution. But if revelation is to exalt and upstep the religions of evolution, then must such divine visitations portray teachings which are not too far removed from the thought and reactions of the age in which they are presented. Thus must and does revelation always keep in touch with evolution. Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man’s capacity of receptivity.
92:4.3 (1007.3)
Evolutionary religion is sentimental, not logical. It is man’s reaction to belief in a hypothetical ghost-spirit world—the human belief-reflex, excited by the realization and fear of the unknown. Revelatory religion is propounded by the real spiritual world; it is the response of the superintellectual cosmos to the mortal hunger to believe in, and depend upon, the universal Deities. Evolutionary religion pictures the circuitous gropings of humanity in quest of truth; revelatory religion is that very truth.
1. 달라마시아의 교훈. 캘리개스챠 왕자의 참모진에 속하는 100명의 육체전환 요원이, 제1 근원 및 중심에 대한 참된 개념을 유란시아에 처음으로 공표했다. 신격에 대한 이런 확장되는 계시는, 행성의 탈퇴와 교육체제의 붕괴로 인해 갑자기 중단될 때까지, 30만 년 이상 계속됐다. 반이 일한 것을 제외하고, 달라마시아 계시의 영향은 온 세상에서 실제로 상실됐다. 심지어 놋족속도, 아담이 도착할 무렵에는 이 진리를 잊어버렸다. 그 100명의 교훈을 받았던 모든 사람 중에서, 홍색인이 그 교훈을 가장 오래 간직했으나, 위대한 영{靈} 관념은, 아메리카 인디언 종교에서 어렴풋한 개념에 불과했고, 그리스도교와 접촉함으로써 그 개념은 크게 정화되고 강화됐다.
92:4.5 (1007.5)
1. The Dalamatian teachings. The true concept of the First Source and Center was first promulgated on Urantia by the one hundred corporeal members of Prince Caligastia’s staff. This expanding revelation of Deity went on for more than three hundred thousand years until it was suddenly terminated by the planetary secession and the disruption of the teaching regime. Except for the work of Van, the influence of the Dalamatian revelation was practically lost to the whole world. Even the Nodites had forgotten this truth by the time of Adam’s arrival. Of all who received the teachings of the one hundred, the red men held them longest, but the idea of the Great Spirit was but a hazy concept in Amerindian religion when contact with Christianity greatly clarified and strengthened it.
92:4.6 (1007.6)
2. The Edenic teachings. Adam and Eve again portrayed the concept of the Father of all to the evolutionary peoples. The disruption of the first Eden halted the course of the Adamic revelation before it had ever fully started. But the aborted teachings of Adam were carried on by the Sethite priests, and some of these truths have never been entirely lost to the world. The entire trend of Levantine religious evolution was modified by the teachings of the Sethites. But by 2500 b.c. mankind had largely lost sight of the revelation sponsored in the days of Eden.
92:4.7 (1007.7)
3. Melchizedek of Salem. This emergency Son of Nebadon inaugurated the third revelation of truth on Urantia. The cardinal precepts of his teachings were trust and faith. He taught trust in the omnipotent beneficence of God and proclaimed that faith was the act by which men earned God’s favor. His teachings gradually commingled with the beliefs and practices of various evolutionary religions and finally developed into those theologic systems present on Urantia at the opening of the first millennium after Christ.
92:4.8 (1008.1)
4. Jesus of Nazareth. Christ Michael presented for the fourth time to Urantia the concept of God as the Universal Father, and this teaching has generally persisted ever since. The essence of his teaching was love and service, the loving worship which a creature son voluntarily gives in recognition of, and response to, the loving ministry of God his Father; the freewill service which such creature sons bestow upon their brethren in the joyous realization that in this service they are likewise serving God the Father.
5. 유란시아 문서. 이 글도 본 문서 가운데 하나인데, 본 문서는 유란시아 필사자에게 가장 최근에 제시된 진리에 해당한다. 본 문서는, 단일 우주 인격체의 작품이 아니라 여러 존재의 종합 발표문이기 때문에, 이전의 어떤 계시와도 다르다. 그러나 우주 아버지께 도달하지 못하는 어떤 계시든지 결코 완벽할 수 없다. 하늘이 베푸는 다른 모든 보살핌은, 부분적이고 순간적이며, 실제로 시공간에서 지역 조건에 실용적으로 맞춰진 것에 불과하다. 이렇게 시인함으로써 모든 계시의 즉각적인 영향과 권위를 손상시킬지도 모르지만, 유란시아의 필사 종족들에게 가장 최근에 이렇게 계시된 진리의 미래 영향력과 권위를 약화시키는 위험을 무릅쓰고라도, 아주 명백하게 진술하는 것이 바람직한 때가 유란시아에 임했다.
92:4.9 (1008.2)
5. The Urantia Papers. The papers, of which this is one, constitute the most recent presentation of truth to the mortals of Urantia. These papers differ from all previous revelations, for they are not the work of a single universe personality but a composite presentation by many beings. But no revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father can ever be complete. All other celestial ministrations are no more than partial, transient, and practically adapted to local conditions in time and space. While such admissions as this may possibly detract from the immediate force and authority of all revelations, the time has arrived on Urantia when it is advisable to make such frank statements, even at the risk of weakening the future influence and authority of this, the most recent of the revelations of truth to the mortal races of Urantia.
92:5.1 (1008.3)
In evolutionary religion, the gods are conceived to exist in the likeness of man’s image; in revelatory religion, men are taught that they are God’s sons—even fashioned in the finite image of divinity; in the synthesized beliefs compounded from the teachings of revelation and the products of evolution, the God concept is a blend of:
대부분의 중대한 종교 시기는, 어떤 뛰어난 인물의 생애와 교훈으로 개시됐으며;역사상 대다수의 가치-있는 도덕 운동을 지도층이 유래시켰다. 그리고 사람들은, 지도자의 교훈을 희생해서라도 그를 공경하려는 경향을 항상 보여 왔으며;그가 선포한 진리를 잊었음에도, 그 인물을 경외하려는 경향을 보여 왔다. 이렇게 한 데에는 이유가 있는데;진화하는 사람의 마음 속에는, 위로부터 또한 저 세상으로부터 도움받기를 갈망하는 본능적 소망이 있다. 이런 열망은, 행성 왕자와 나중의 물질 아들들이 이 세상에 출현하기를 기대하도록 고안됐다. 유란시아에서 사람은 이런 초인적 지도자와 통치자를 빼앗겼으며, 따라서 초자연적 기원과 기적 같은 생애를 관련시키는 전설로 인간 지도자들을 덮어 가림으로써, 이런 손실을 메우려고 계속 애쓴다.
92:5.5 (1008.7)
Most great religious epochs have been inaugurated by the life and teachings of some outstanding personality; leadership has originated a majority of the worth-while moral movements of history. And men have always tended to venerate the leader, even at the expense of his teachings; to revere his personality, even though losing sight of the truths which he proclaimed. And this is not without reason; there is an instinctive longing in the heart of evolutionary man for help from above and beyond. This craving is designed to anticipate the appearance on earth of the Planetary Prince and the later Material Sons. On Urantia man has been deprived of these superhuman leaders and rulers, and therefore does he constantly seek to make good this loss by enshrouding his human leaders with legends pertaining to supernatural origins and miraculous careers.
많은 종족이, 그들의 지도자가 처녀의 몸에서 태어났다고 상상했으며;이런 지도자들의 생애는 기적의 사건들로 가득 채워지고, 각 집단들은 그 지도자가 재림{再臨}하기를 항상 고대한다. 중앙 아시아 부족민들은 아직도 징기스칸이 돌아오기를 기대하고 있으며;티벳과 중국과 인도에서는 부다가;이슬람에서는 모하메드가;아메리카 원주민은 헤수나닌 오나모나론톤이 돌아오기를 기대하고 있으며;히브리인은 대체로 아담이 물질 통치자로서 재림하기를 기다린다. 바벨론에서 마르덕 신은, 아담의 전설 곧 사람과 하나님을 연결하는 하나님-의-아들 관념이 지속된 것이다. 아담이 이 세상에 출현한 후로는, 소위 하나님의 아들들이라는 말이 세계 인종들 가운데서 흔히 나타났다.
92:5.6 (1008.8)
Many races have conceived of their leaders as being born of virgins; their careers are liberally sprinkled with miraculous episodes, and their return is always expected by their respective groups. In central Asia the tribesmen still look for the return of Genghis Khan; in Tibet, China, and India it is Buddha; in Islam it is Mohammed; among the Amerinds it was Hesunanin Onamonalonton; with the Hebrews it was, in general, Adam’s return as a material ruler. In Babylon the god Marduk was a perpetuation of the Adam legend, the son-of-God idea, the connecting link between man and God. Following the appearance of Adam on earth, so-called sons of God were common among the world races.
92:5.8 (1009.2)
There have been hundreds upon hundreds of religious leaders in the million-year human history of Urantia from Onagar to Guru Nanak. During this time there have been many ebbs and flows of the tide of religious truth and spiritual faith, and each renaissance of Urantian religion has, in the past, been identified with the life and teachings of some religious leader. In considering the teachers of recent times, it may prove helpful to group them into the seven major religious epochs of post-Adamic Urantia:
92:5.9 (1009.3)
1. The Sethite period. The Sethite priests, as regenerated under the leadership of Amosad, became the great post-Adamic teachers. They functioned throughout the lands of the Andites, and their influence persisted longest among the Greeks, Sumerians, and Hindus. Among the latter they have continued to the present time as the Brahmans of the Hindu faith. The Sethites and their followers never entirely lost the Trinity concept revealed by Adam.
92:5.10 (1009.4)
2. Era of the Melchizedek missionaries. Urantia religion was in no small measure regenerated by the efforts of those teachers who were commissioned by Machiventa Melchizedek when he lived and taught at Salem almost two thousand years before Christ. These missionaries proclaimed faith as the price of favor with God, and their teachings, though unproductive of any immediately appearing religions, nevertheless formed the foundations on which later teachers of truth were to build the religions of Urantia.
3. 멜기세덱 이후 시대. 아메네몹과 이크나톤이 이 기간에 가르쳤지만, 멜기세덱 이후 시대에 뛰어난 종교적 천재는, 레반트의 베두윈 집단의 지도자요 히브리인 종교의 창시자인--모세였다. 모세는 일신교를 가르쳤다. 그가 말했다:“오, 이스라엘아 들어라, 우리 하나님이신 주{主}는 유일하신 하나님이시다.” “주가 하나님이시다. 그분 외에는 아무도 없다.” 그는 자기 민족 가운데서 유령 예찬집단의 잔재를 뿌리 뽑으려고 끈질기게 노력했고, 심지어 그 실행자들을 사형에 처하도록 명했다. 후계자들이 모세의 일신교에 불순물을 섞었지만, 그들은 나중에 그의 여러 교훈으로 되돌아갔다. 모세의 위대함은 지혜와 총명함에 있다. 하나님에 대한 더 위대한 개념을 가진 다른 사람이 여럿 있었으나, 그런 진보된 믿음을 채택하도록 많은 사람을 설득하는 데 그토록 성공한 사람은 아무도 없었다.
92:5.11 (1009.5)
3. The post-Melchizedek era. Though Amenemope and Ikhnaton both taught in this period, the outstanding religious genius of the post-Melchizedek era was the leader of a group of Levantine Bedouins and the founder of the Hebrew religion—Moses. Moses taught monotheism. Said he: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.” “The Lord he is God. There is none beside him.” He persistently sought to uproot the remnants of the ghost cult among his people, even prescribing the death penalty for its practitioners. The monotheism of Moses was adulterated by his successors, but in later times they did return to many of his teachings. The greatness of Moses lies in his wisdom and sagacity. Other men have had greater concepts of God, but no one man was ever so successful in inducing large numbers of people to adopt such advanced beliefs.
4. 기원전 6세기. 많은 사람이 이 세기에 진리를 선포하려고 일어났는데, 이때는 유란시아에서 전에 증거됐던 종교적 각성에 대한 가장 중대한 세기{世紀} 가운데 하나였다. 이 사람들 중에는 가우타마, 공자, 노자, 조로아스터, 및 자이나교 선생들이 포함돼야 할 것이다. 가우타마의 교훈은 아시아에 널리 퍼졌고, 수많은 사람이 그를 부다로 공경한다. 공자와 중국인의 도덕성의 관계는, 플라톤과 그리스 철학의 관계와 같았고, 그 두 사람의 교훈에 종교적 영향이 있었지만, 엄밀히 말해서 둘 다 종교 지도자가 아니었으며;인간성에 치중한 공자나, 이상주의에 치중한 플라톤보다는, 노자가 도{道}에서 하나님을 더 많이 상상해냈다. 조로아스터는, 널리 퍼진 이중 심령주의 곧 선한 영과 악한 영 개념의 영향을 많이 받았으나, 동시에, 하나의 영원한 신격 관념과 빛이 결국에는 어둠을 이긴다는 관념을 확실히 강화시켰다.
92:5.12 (1009.6)
4. The sixth century before Christ. Many men arose to proclaim truth in this, one of the greatest centuries of religious awakening ever witnessed on Urantia. Among these should be recorded Gautama, Confucius, Lao-tse, Zoroaster, and the Jainist teachers. The teachings of Gautama have become widespread in Asia, and he is revered as the Buddha by millions. Confucius was to Chinese morality what Plato was to Greek philosophy, and while there were religious repercussions to the teachings of both, strictly speaking, neither was a religious teacher; Lao-tse envisioned more of God in Tao than did Confucius in humanity or Plato in idealism. Zoroaster, while much affected by the prevalent concept of dual spiritism, the good and the bad, at the same time definitely exalted the idea of one eternal Deity and of the ultimate victory of light over darkness.
92:5.13 (1010.1)
5. The first century after Christ. As a religious teacher, Jesus of Nazareth started out with the cult which had been established by John the Baptist and progressed as far as he could away from fasts and forms. Aside from Jesus, Paul of Tarsus and Philo of Alexandria were the greatest teachers of this era. Their concepts of religion have played a dominant part in the evolution of that faith which bears the name of Christ.
92:5.15 (1010.3)
7. The fifteenth century after Christ. This period witnessed two religious movements: the disruption of the unity of Christianity in the Occident and the synthesis of a new religion in the Orient. In Europe institutionalized Christianity had attained that degree of inelasticity which rendered further growth incompatible with unity. In the Orient the combined teachings of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism were synthesized by Nanak and his followers into Sikhism, one of the most advanced religions of Asia.
92:5.16 (1010.4)
The future of Urantia will doubtless be characterized by the appearance of teachers of religious truth—the Fatherhood of God and the fraternity of all creatures. But it is to be hoped that the ardent and sincere efforts of these future prophets will be directed less toward the strengthening of interreligious barriers and more toward the augmentation of the religious brotherhood of spiritual worship among the many followers of the differing intellectual theologies which so characterize Urantia of Satania.
20세기의 유란시아 종교들은, 사람의 경배 충동이 사회에서 어떻게 진화했는지에 관한 흥미로운 견본을 제공한다. 많은 신념이 유령 예찬집단 시대 이후로 거의 진보하지 못했다. 아프리카의 피그미족은, 그들 가운데 더러는 환경을 미약하게 믿지만, 한 부류로서의 종교적 반응은 보이지 않는다. 그들의 오늘날 상태는 종교 진화가 시작했을 당시의 원시인 상태와 똑같다. 원시 종교의 기본 믿음은 죽음 이후의 생존이었다. 인격자이신 하나님을 경배하는 관념은, 진보된 진화 발전까지, 심지어 계시에서 첫 단계까지 이르렀음을 나타낸다. 다야크족은 가장 원시적인 종교 풍습만 진화시켜왔다. 비교적 최근에 에스키모인과 아메리카 원주민이 빈약한 하나님 개념을 갖게 됐으며;유령을 믿었고, 죽음 이후에 어떤 종류로 생존한다는 불분명한 관념을 가졌다. 오늘날 오스트랄리아 원주민에게는, 유령에 대한 두려움, 어둠에 대한 공포, 그리고 미숙한 조상 공경만 있다. 줄루족은 유령에 대한 두려움과 제물을 바치는 종교를 진화시키고 있다. 그리스도교인과 마호메트교도의 선교 활동을 통한 경우 외에는, 대부분의 아프리카 부족이 종교 진화에서 주물숭배 단계를 벗어나지 못했다. 그러나 어떤 집단들은, 옛 트라키아인처럼, 일신교를 오랫동안 간직해오고 있는데, 트라키아인도 불멸을 믿었다.
92:6.1 (1010.5)
Twentieth-century Urantia religions present an interesting study of the social evolution of man’s worship impulse. Many faiths have progressed very little since the days of the ghost cult. The Pygmies of Africa have no religious reactions as a class, although some of them believe slightly in a spirit environment. They are today just where primitive man was when the evolution of religion began. The basic belief of primitive religion was survival after death. The idea of worshiping a personal God indicates advanced evolutionary development, even the first stage of revelation. The Dyaks have evolved only the most primitive religious practices. The comparatively recent Eskimos and Amerinds had very meager concepts of God; they believed in ghosts and had an indefinite idea of survival of some sort after death. Present-day native Australians have only a ghost fear, dread of the dark, and a crude ancestor veneration. The Zulus are just evolving a religion of ghost fear and sacrifice. Many African tribes, except through missionary work of Christians and Mohammedans, are not yet beyond the fetish stage of religious evolution. But some groups have long held to the idea of monotheism, like the onetime Thracians, who also believed in immortality.
92:6.2 (1010.6)
On Urantia, evolutionary and revelatory religion are progressing side by side while they blend and coalesce into the diversified theologic systems found in the world in the times of the inditement of these papers. These religions, the religions of twentieth-century Urantia, may be enumerated as follows:
92:6.14 (1011.12)
The most advanced religions of ancient times were Hinduism and Judaism, and each respectively has greatly influenced the course of religious development in Orient and Occident. Both Hindus and Hebrews believed that their religions were inspired and revealed, and they believed all others to be decadent forms of the one true faith.
히브리인 종교는, 다신교{多神敎}에서 일신교로 바뀌는 철학적 과도기를 포함하며;진화 종교와 계시 종교 사이의 진화 연결고리다. 히브리인은, 초기에 진화된 신들을 따르다가, 계시의 하나님을 직접 받아들이게 된 유일한 서방 민족이었다. 그러나 이 진리는 이사야 시대 전에는 광범하게 받아들여진 적이 없었는데, 이사야는 우주의 창조주와 종족 신격 개념이 섞여서 합쳐진 개념을 다시 한 번 가르쳤다:“오 만군의 주{主}, 이스라엘의 하나님이시여, 당신만이 유일하신 하나님이시며;당신이 하늘과 땅을 지으셨습니다.” 한때 서양 문명이 살아남을 희망은, 선{善}에 대한 탁월한 히브리 개념과, 미{美}에 대한 진보된 헬라 개념 속에 있었다.
92:6.17 (1011.15)
The Hebrew religion encompasses the philosophic transition from polytheism to monotheism; it is an evolutionary link between the religions of evolution and the religions of revelation. The Hebrews were the only western people to follow their early evolutionary gods straight through to the God of revelation. But this truth never became widely accepted until the days of Isaiah, who once again taught the blended idea of a racial deity combined with a Universal Creator: “O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, you are God, even you alone; you have made heaven and earth.” At one time the hope of the survival of Occidental civilization lay in the sublime Hebraic concepts of goodness and the advanced Hellenic concepts of beauty.
92:6.18 (1011.16)
The Christian religion is the religion about the life and teachings of Christ based upon the theology of Judaism, modified further through the assimilation of certain Zoroastrian teachings and Greek philosophy, and formulated primarily by three individuals: Philo, Peter, and Paul. It has passed through many phases of evolution since the time of Paul and has become so thoroughly Occidentalized that many non-European peoples very naturally look upon Christianity as a strange revelation of a strange God and for strangers.
92:6.19 (1011.17)
Islam is the religio-cultural connective of North Africa, the Levant, and southeastern Asia. It was Jewish theology in connection with the later Christian teachings that made Islam monotheistic. The followers of Mohammed stumbled at the advanced teachings of the Trinity; they could not comprehend the doctrine of three divine personalities and one Deity. It is always difficult to induce evolutionary minds suddenly to accept advanced revealed truth. Man is an evolutionary creature and in the main must get his religion by evolutionary techniques.
조상 숭배는 종교 진화에서 한때 결정적 진보를 이루도록 기여했지만, 이런 원시 개념이, 불교와 힌두교처럼 비교적 더 진보를 이룩한 종교들이 가득 들어찬, 중국과 일본과 인도에서 존속된다는 사실은 놀랄만한 일인 동시에 유감스런 일이 아닐 수 없다. 서양에서는, 조상숭배가 발전하여, 민족의 신들을 공경하고 민족의 영웅들을 존경하는 것으로 바뀌었다. 20세기에, 영웅을 숭배하는 이런 국가적 종교는, 서양의 여러 종족과 국가의 특징을 이루는, 여러 가지 급진적이고 민족주의적인 세속주의에서 그 모습을 드러내고 있다. 바로 이런 태도 대부분 역시, 영어를 사용하는 민족들의 이름난 대학과 큰 산업 공동체에서 발견된다. 이런 개념과 크게 다를 바 없는 관념은, 종교가 “풍족한 삶을 함께 추구하는 것”이라는 관념이다. “민족 종교”는 로마 초기의 황제 숭배로, 그리고 --국가의 황제 가족을 숭배하는-- 신토로 돌아가는 것에 지나지 않는다.
92:6.20 (1012.1)
Ancestor worship onetime constituted a decided advance in religious evolution, but it is both amazing and regrettable that this primitive concept persists in China, Japan, and India amidst so much that is relatively more advanced, such as Buddhism and Hinduism. In the Occident, ancestor worship developed into the veneration of national gods and respect for racial heroes. In the twentieth century this hero-venerating nationalistic religion makes its appearance in the various radical and nationalistic secularisms which characterize many races and nations of the Occident. Much of this same attitude is also found in the great universities and the larger industrial communities of the English-speaking peoples. Not very different from these concepts is the idea that religion is but “a shared quest of the good life.” The “national religions” are nothing more than a reversion to the early Roman emperor worship and to Shinto—worship of the state in the imperial family.
92:7.2 (1012.3)
New religions cannot be invented; they are either evolved, or else they are suddenly revealed. All new evolutionary religions are merely advancing expressions of the old beliefs, new adaptations and adjustments. The old does not cease to exist; it is merged with the new, even as Sikhism budded and blossomed out of the soil and forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and other contemporary cults. Primitive religion was very democratic; the savage was quick to borrow or lend. Only with revealed religion did autocratic and intolerant theologic egotism appear.
유란시아의 여러 종교는, 사람을 하나님께로 인도하고 사람에게 아버지를 깨닫게 하는 범위 안에서, 모두 유익하다. 어떤 종교인 집단이든지, 자기 신조만 진리라고 생각하는 것은 잘못이며;그런 태도는 신앙의 확신보다 신학적 오만함을 나타낸다. 다른 모든 신앙에 담긴 최고 진리를, 유익한 방향으로 연구하고 흡수하지 못할 유란시아 종교는 없는데, 모두 진리를 포함하고 있기 때문이다. 종교인들은, 미련을 버리지 못하는 이웃의 미신적인 것과 시대에 뒤떨어진 제례식에 있는 최악의 것들을 비난하기보다, 그들이 갖고 있는 생생한 영적 신앙에서 최선의 것들을 빌려오는 편이 훨씬 나을 것이다.
92:7.3 (1012.4)
The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth; such attitudes bespeak more of theological arrogance than of certainty of faith. There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religionists would do better to borrow the best in their neighbors’ living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their lingering superstitions and outworn rituals.
92:7.4 (1012.5)
All these religions have arisen as a result of man’s variable intellectual response to his identical spiritual leading. They can never hope to attain a uniformity of creeds, dogmas, and rituals—these are intellectual; but they can, and some day will, realize a unity in true worship of the Father of all, for this is spiritual, and it is forever true, in the spirit all men are equal.
92:7.5 (1012.6)
Primitive religion was largely a material-value consciousness, but civilization elevates religious values, for true religion is the devotion of the self to the service of meaningful and supreme values. As religion evolves, ethics becomes the philosophy of morals, and morality becomes the discipline of self by the standards of highest meanings and supreme values—divine and spiritual ideals. And thus religion becomes a spontaneous and exquisite devotion, the living experience of the loyalty of love.
종교적 의미는, 자녀가 전능{全能} 관념을 부모로부터 하나님께로 돌릴 때 자아-의식 속에서 진보한다. 그리고 그런 자녀의 종교 체험 전체는 주로, 두려움과 사랑 중에서 어떤 것이 부모-자식 관계를 지배했느냐에 따라서 달라진다. 노예는, 주인에 대한 두려움으로부터 하나님을-사랑하는 개념으로 옮겨가기까지 항상 큰 어려움을 겪었다. 문명과 과학과 진보된 종교는, 자연 현상에 대한 공포심에서 발생된 이런 두려움으로부터 인류를 구출해야한다. 마찬가지로, 더 훌륭히 계몽된 교양 있는 필사자들은, 신격과 교류할 때 중간 매개체에 의존하려는 모든 성향으로부터 벗어나야한다.
92:7.11 (1013.6)
Religious meanings progress in self-consciousness when the child transfers his ideas of omnipotence from his parents to God. And the entire religious experience of such a child is largely dependent on whether fear or love has dominated the parent-child relationship. Slaves have always experienced great difficulty in transferring their master-fear into concepts of God-love. Civilization, science, and advanced religions must deliver mankind from those fears born of the dread of natural phenomena. And so should greater enlightenment deliver educated mortals from all dependence on intermediaries in communion with Deity.
92:7.12 (1013.7)
These intermediate stages of idolatrous hesitation in the transfer of veneration from the human and the visible to the divine and invisible are inevitable, but they should be shortened by the consciousness of the facilitating ministry of the indwelling divine spirit. Nevertheless, man has been profoundly influenced, not only by his concepts of Deity, but also by the character of the heroes whom he has chosen to honor. It is most unfortunate that those who have come to venerate the divine and risen Christ should have overlooked the man—the valiant and courageous hero—Joshua ben Joseph.
92:7.13 (1013.8)
Modern man is adequately self-conscious of religion, but his worshipful customs are confused and discredited by his accelerated social metamorphosis and unprecedented scientific developments. Thinking men and women want religion redefined, and this demand will compel religion to re-evaluate itself.