© 1959 William S. Sadler
© 1961 Urantia Foundation
The northern and more settled Canaanites (the Baalites) freely bought, sold, and mortgaged their lands. The word Baal means owner. The Baal.cult was founded on two major doctrines: First, the validation of property exchange, contracts, and covenants—the right to buy and sell land, Second, Baal was supposed to send rain—he was a god of fertility of the soil. Good crops depended on the favor of Baal. The cult was largely concerned with land, its ownership and fertility. In general the Baalites owned houses,lands, and slaves. They were the aristocratic landlords and lived in the cities Each Baal had a sacred place, a priesthood, and the “holy women,” the ritual prostitutes. UB 97:3.3
The term “baptism of the spirit,” which came into such general use about this time, merely signified the conscious reception of this gift of the Spirit of Truth and the personal acknowledgment of this new spiritual power as an augmentation of all spiritual influences previously experienced by God—knowing souls. UB 194:2.10
Truth,beauty, and goodness are divine realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and unified in God, who is love. UB 2:7.10
Philosophy you somewhat grasp, and divinity you comprehend in worship, social service, and personal spiritual experience, but the pursuit of beauty—cosmology—you all too often limit to the study of man’s crude artistic endeavors. Beauty, art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of beauty. The supreme beauty, the height of finite art, is the drama of the unification of the vastness of the cosmic extremes of Creator and creature. Man finding God and God finding man—the creature becoming perfect as is the Creator—that is the supernal achievement of the supremely beautiful, the attainment of the apex of cosmic art. UB 56:10.3
Beauty is the intellectual recognition of the harmonious time-space synthesis of the far-flung diversification of phenomenal reality, all of which stems from pre-existent and eternal oneness. UB 56:10.11
Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living.
Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.
Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates…But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more then an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God—knowing and man-serving. UB 101:8.1
Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only In the heart of the individual religionist. UB 101:8.2
Jesus made plain to his apostles the difference between the repentance of so-called good works as taught by the Jews and the change of mind by faith—the new birth—which he required as the price of admission to the kingdom. UB 138:8.8
Men are, Indeed, by nature evil, but not necessarily sinful. The new birth—the baptism of the spirit—is essential to deliverance from evil and necessary for the entrance into the kingdom of heaven. UB 148:4.8
Body. The material or physical organism of man. The living electrochemical mechanism of animal nature and origin. UB 0:5.7
Material evolution has provided you a life machine, your body; UB 111:1.4
In time, man’s body is just as real as mind or spirit, but in death, both mind (identity) arid spirit survive while the body does not. UB 12:8.16
The courage of the flesh is the lowest form of bravery. Mind bravery is a higher type of human courage but the highest and supreme is uncompromising loyalty to the enlightened convictions of profound spiritual realities. and such courage constitutes the heroism of the God—knowing man. UB 143:1.7