© 2023 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Thank you for sending the newspaper “Le Lien”! I read it with great interest, hoping that all French-speaking readers around the world will take the time to read our publications (Le lien, Réflectivité, etc.) which extend the study of the Urantia Book by bringing our human reflections of meaning. I have three observations to make to the authors of this issue 103:
1- In the very interesting and well-documented text by Jean Claude Romeuf entitled “Life”, he attributes to plants a mechanical mind that cannot be taught. Obviously, we are all entitled to our opinions, which allows me to formulate my comments. According to my understanding, plants are indeed living organisms. They are endowed with the capacity to react chemically to aggressions and physically to light. They also manage to communicate with each other through a complex root network. They are not conscious of their existence as animals are and even less so as humans. However, they are endowed with the original gift of adaptation, the “desire” to achieve perfection (UB 65:6.2). I do not have the impression that they have a nervous system capable of supporting a mental circuit. I would tend to think that the action of the intuitional spirit manifests itself much later in the process of biological evolution, because for it to be able to act, there must be the presence of a sufficiently developed nerve center to support the mental circuit provided by the Divine Minister of our universe (UB 36:5.4-6). The faculty of learning, memory and differential reaction to the surrounding environment are the endowment of the mind (UB 65:6.8). Pre-intelligent organisms react to environmental stimuli, but organisms responsive to the ministry of the mind can manipulate and adjust the surrounding environment itself (UB 65:6.9).
2- Still in the same text by Jean Claude Romeuf, he determines that the appearance of the adjutants of worship and wisdom (which differentiates the animal from the human being) appeared in “the family of higher mammals”, the primates. In fact, it is in a descendant of these primates. This event is particular to our world, because on a normal planet the human will “does not emerge before the colored races have existed for a long time” (UB 65:4.11). I think that this fact goes rather unnoticed by Urantian readers. The humanoids of the different colored races exist for a certain time as animals before really becoming human beings. Andon and Fonta are exceptions to our world!
3- In the fascinating text by Sophie Malicot, I think that for the human mind to access meanings beyond known material facts, it must be guided by the spirit that inhabits it. The only restrictive vision of physical laws limits the vision that man can have of reality. This is the dilemma that modern science is facing where the reality of the morontial and spiritual level is absent. Thanks to consciousness in spirit (born from the spirit), we can transcend the limits of the material mind and perceive the reality of the spiritual world.
Georges, I wish you good luck in all your projects!
Fraternally!
Claude Flibotte