Paper 92 Overview: The Later Evolution of Religion

Long before any systematic revelations occurred on Urantia, humans possessed natural religion as part of their evolutionary experience. This evolutionary religion developed gradually through the influence of the adjutant of worship, the adjutant of wisdom, and the Holy Spirit, which awakened human consciousness to spiritual realities. These divine influences enabled humans to perceive higher concepts of Deity and establish increasingly meaningful relationships with the divine.

The evolution of religion has followed a progressive path from primitive fear through various stages of development toward more enlightened understanding. While evolutionary religion tends to resist change, it has been periodically uplifted through the pressures of advancing social customs and the illumination of epochal revelations. This paper examines how religion has evolved alongside human civilization, exploring the contributions of religious leaders and describing how the major religions of the twentieth century represent different stages of spiritual development.

Man possessed natural religion as part of his evolutionary experience long before any systematic revelations occurred on Urantia. This natural religion itself emerged from man's superanimal capacities and developed gradually throughout mankind's experiential history through the influence of three primary spiritual forces. These influences operated within savage, barbarian, and civilized humans, shaping their religious consciousness.

The three influences were the adjutant of worship (which created the instinct for Deity perception), the adjutant of wisdom (which directed worship toward expanded concepts of Deity), and the Holy Spirit (which created the capacity to realize human survival as both concept and experience). These divine ministrations were later augmented by Thought Adjusters, seraphim, and the Spirit of Truth, which accelerated religious development. These spiritual agencies have operated on Urantia throughout human history and will continue to function as long as the planet remains inhabited, though much of their potential remains unexpressed and awaits future ages of spiritual advancement.

The evolution of religion has been traced from early fear and ghost worship through many successive developmental stages. This progress included early efforts to coerce spirits, which later evolved into attempts to persuade them through offerings and ceremonies. Tribal fetishes gradually developed into totems and tribal gods, while magic formulas evolved into modern prayers. Practices like circumcision transformed from sacrificial rituals into hygienic procedures.

Religion progressed from nature worship through ghost worship and fetishism during humanity's primitive childhood. With the dawn of civilization, mankind embraced more mystical and symbolic beliefs. Now, as humanity approaches maturity, we are becoming ready to appreciate genuine religion and even experiencing the beginnings of truth revelation. Religion arises as both a biological reaction of mind to spiritual beliefs and as a response to the mysterious elements of the environment. As a social institution, religion encompasses rituals, symbols, scriptures, and various sacred elements, and it proves remarkably resistant to change even as civilizations transform around it.

Religion stands as the most rigid and unyielding of all human institutions, yet it does gradually adjust to changing society. Eventually, evolutionary religion reflects the changing customs and mores, which may themselves have been influenced by revealed religion. Slowly and reluctantly, religion follows in the wake of wisdom—knowledge directed by experiential reason and illuminated by divine revelation.

Religion clings tenaciously to established customs and ancient practices. Anything old is considered sacred, which explains why stone implements persisted long into the bronze and iron ages. Many religious prohibitions and requirements originated from this resistance to change, such as the command not to build altars of hewn stone. When modern people question obscene elements in religious scriptures, they should understand that previous generations feared to eliminate what their ancestors considered holy. Religious controversies have often centered on attempts to reconcile outdated practices with advancing reason and to justify the continuation of ancient customs.

To study human religion is to examine the fossil-bearing social strata of past ages. The moral standards attributed to anthropomorphic gods accurately reflect the moral values of the people who first conceived these deities. Ancient religions and mythology faithfully preserve the beliefs and traditions of peoples long lost to history. These older religious practices persist alongside newer economic customs and social developments, often appearing inconsistent with modern values and understanding.

Evolutionary religion makes no provision for change or revision. Unlike science, it does not provide mechanisms for its own progressive correction. Evolved religion commands respect because its followers believe it represents final and infallible truth—"the faith once delivered to the saints." Religious organizations resist development because genuine progress would necessarily modify or destroy the established cult. Only two influences have successfully modified and uplifted primitive religion: the pressure of gradually advancing social customs, and the periodic illumination brought by epochal revelation. It should not be surprising that progress was slow, as in ancient times, those who were progressive or innovative were often killed as sorcerers.

Revelation is evolutionary but always progressive in nature. Throughout a world's history, revelations of religion continuously expand and provide successively greater enlightenment. The mission of revelation is to sort through and refine the religions of evolution. To successfully elevate evolutionary religions, divine revelations must present teachings that aren't too far removed from the thought patterns and cultural reactions of the age in which they appear, ensuring they remain accessible to the people they aim to help.

Regardless of their apparent connections or origins, religions of revelation are always characterized by belief in a Deity of final value and by some concept of personal identity survival after death. Evolutionary religion is sentimental rather than logical—it represents humanity's reaction to believing in a hypothetical ghost-spirit world. In contrast, revealed religion comes from the genuine spiritual realm; it is the response of the superintellectual cosmos to humanity's hunger for belief in universal Deities. There have been numerous religious revelations throughout history, but only five have been of truly epochal significance: the Dalamatian teachings, the Edenic teachings, Melchizedek of Salem, Jesus of Nazareth, and The Urantia Papers.

In evolutionary religion, gods are conceived to resemble humans. In revealed religion, people learn they are God's children, created in the finite image of divinity. In synthesized beliefs that combine teachings from revelation with products of evolution, the God concept blends pre-existing evolutionary ideas, sublime ideals from revealed religion, and the personal perspectives of great religious leaders, prophets, and teachers of mankind.

Most significant religious periods have been inaugurated by the life and teachings of an outstanding personality. Leadership has initiated the majority of worthwhile moral movements throughout history. Humans have consistently tended to venerate leaders, even at the expense of their teachings, and to revere their personalities while losing sight of the truths they proclaimed. This tendency stems from an instinctive longing for help from above, designed to anticipate the appearance of superhuman leaders like the Planetary Prince and Material Sons. Since Urantia has been deprived of these superhuman rulers, humans compensate by surrounding their human leaders with legends about supernatural origins and miraculous lives.

Twentieth-century Urantia religions present an interesting study of the social evolution of human worship impulses. Many faiths have progressed very little since the early days of ghost cults. Some groups, like the Pygmies of Africa, have almost no religious reactions as a class and remain at the same stage where primitive humans were when religious evolution first began. The basic concept in primitive religion was survival after death, while worshiping a personal God indicates advanced evolutionary development and the first stage of revelation.

On Urantia, evolutionary and revelatory religions are progressing side by side while blending into the diverse theological systems found in the world. These religions of twentieth-century Urantia include: Hinduism (the most ancient), the Hebrew religion, Buddhism, Confucian teachings, Taoist beliefs, Zoroastrianism, Shinto, Jainism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism (the most recent). Hinduism and Judaism, as the most advanced ancient religions, have significantly influenced religious development in the Orient and Occident respectively. Both traditions believed their religions were inspired and revealed, considering all others to be deteriorated forms of the true faith.

Religion can never become a scientific fact. While philosophy may rest on a scientific foundation, religion will always remain either evolutionary or revelatory, or possibly a combination of both, as it exists in the world today. New religions cannot be artificially invented; they either evolve gradually from earlier beliefs or arise suddenly through revelation. Primitive religion was highly democratic, with people readily borrowing religious ideas from others. Only with revealed religion did autocratic and intolerant theological exclusivity appear.

The religions of Urantia are all beneficial to the extent that they bring people to God and bring awareness of the Father to humanity. No religious group should claim their creed as The Truth, as such attitudes demonstrate theological arrogance rather than faith certainty. Every Urantia religion contains truth that other faiths could beneficially study and incorporate. Modern man is adequately self-conscious of religion, but worship practices have become confused by accelerated social changes and unprecedented scientific developments. As thinking men and women demand that religion be redefined, they face the task of making more human value adjustments in one generation than have occurred in the previous two thousand years.