© 2012 Chris Ragetly
© 2012 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
In any universe contest between actual levels of reality, the personality of the higher level will ultimately triumph over the personality of the lower level. This inevitable outcome of universe controversy is inherent in the fact that divinity of quality equals the degree of reality or actuality of any will creature. Undiluted evil, complete error, willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically suicidal. Such attitudes of cosmic unreality can survive in the universe only because of transient mercy-tolerance pending the action of the justice-determining and fairness-finding mechanisms of the universe tribunals of righteous adjudication. (UB 2:3.5)
Note that there are 4 conditions that lead to suicide. In this study it is suicide that leads to the definitive annihilation of the personality concerned.
These seraphim teach the fruitfulness of patience: That stagnation is certain death, but that overrapid growth is equally suicidal; that as a drop of water from a higher level falls to a lower and, flowing onward, passes ever downward through a succession of short falls, so ever upward is progress in the morontia and spirit worlds—and just as slowly and by just such gradual stages. (UB 39:4.12)
In other words, a sustained and smooth progression where patience is required is the surest guarantee of a good evolution. This is unfortunately not always the case for us Urantian mortals, but it is probable that as we progress on the morontia worlds and later on the spiritual worlds, the jolts will become increasingly rare.
- Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal—destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival. (UB 52:6.6)
This is an individual suicide that leads to group suicide… Only emotional maturity guarantees that international techniques of civilized judgment will replace the barbaric arbitration of war. We always come back to maturity which is synonymous with self-control. This self-control is the greatest victory we can win over ourselves, and it demands constant vigilance.
Liberty is suicidal when divorced from material justice, intellectual fairness, social forbearance, moral duty, and spiritual values. Liberty is nonexistent apart from cosmic reality, and all personality reality is proportional to its divinity relationships. (UB 54:1.4)
If everyone is free to do what they want, then no one can enjoy freedom. Society must establish justice, promote intellectual righteousness, show patience, indulgence and clemency and finally moral duty and spiritual values must be the credo of every society both at the individual and group levels. A personality is real, that is to say it represents a value in the eyes of the Deities, to the extent that this personality maintains relations with these same Deities. The freedom of this personality will then be integrated into cosmic reality.
All down through the ages the standards of living have determined the quality of a surviving population in contrast with mere quantity. Local class standards of living give origin to new social castes, new mores. When standards of living become too complicated or too highly luxurious, they speedily become suicidal. Caste is the direct result of the high social pressure of keen competition produced by dense populations. (UB 68:6.7)
Suicide was a common mode of retaliation. If one were unable to avenge himself in life, he died entertaining the belief that, as a ghost, he could return and visit wrath upon his enemy. And since this belief was very general, the threat of suicide on an enemy’s doorstep was usually sufficient to bring him to terms. Primitive man did not hold life very dear; suicide over trifles was common, but the teachings of the Dalamatians greatly lessened this custom, while in more recent times leisure, comforts, religion, and philosophy have united to make life sweeter and more desirable. Hunger strikes are, however, a modern analogue of this old-time method of retaliation. (UB 70:10.10)
But I notice that in our Western world, the number of young people who commit suicide is constantly increasing. They despair of their material future. They lack an ideal, only an introduction to the spiritual level coordinated with the intellectual and material levels can help them in this quest.
4. Human resources. Man power is indispensable to the spread of civilization. All things equal, a numerous people will dominate the civilization of a smaller race. Hence failure to increase in numbers up to a certain point prevents the full realization of national destiny, but there comes a point in population increase where further growth is suicidal. Multiplication of numbers beyond the optimum of the normal man-land ratio means either a lowering of the standards of living or an immediate expansion of territorial boundaries by peaceful penetration or by military conquest, forcible occupation. (UB 81:6.11)
Here we find the search for the happy medium, the ideal balance between a population that is too small and a population that is too large. It is the whole art of control and self-mastery that must extend to all the individuals of a given population. Certain governments of Urantia are tackling this complicated task.
With scientific progress, wars are going to become more and more devastating until they become almost racially suicidal. How many world wars must be fought and how many leagues of nations must fail before men will be willing to establish the government of mankind and begin to enjoy the blessings of permanent peace and thrive on the tranquillity of good will—world-wide good will—among men? (UB 134:5.17)
Nuclear war has nearly occurred several times, and this sword of Damocles still hangs over our heads.
Animals respond nobly to the urge of life, but only man can attain the art of living, albeit the majority of mankind only experience the animal urge to live. Animals know only this blind and instinctive urge; man is capable of transcending this urge to natural function. Man may elect to live upon the high plane of intelligent art, even that of celestial joy and spiritual ecstasy. Animals make no inquiry into the purposes of life; therefore they never worry, neither do they commit suicide. Suicide among men testifies that such beings have emerged from the purely animal stage of existence, and to the further fact that the exploratory efforts of such human beings have failed to attain the artistic levels of mortal experience. Animals know not the meaning of life; man not only possesses capacity for the recognition of values and the comprehension of meanings, but he also is conscious of the meaning of meanings—he is self-conscious of insight. (UB 160:1.5)
Chris Ragetly