Posted on 02/14/2002 10:45:28 AM PST by ramdalesh
Actually, the Mormon belief regarding the war in heaven is much more logical. The idea is that two plans were presented to God regarding salvation. In Christ's plan there was free will - but not everyone was saved. In Lucifer's plan, everyone was saved but life was totally deterministic - no free will. When God rejected Lucifer's plan, the war in heaven started, because Lucifer could not handle rejection.
One of the reasons I like this idea is that it associates lack of freedom of action with Lucifer.
And why is this is Extended News?!?!?!?!
Actually, the Mormon belief regarding the war in heaven is much more logical.... In Lucifer's plan, everyone was saved but life was totally deterministic - no free will.I take it this means that human life would be totally deterministic; otherwise, Lucifer (a spirit) wouldn't have had the choice of rejecting God's plan.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit (and Benjamin Bunny)
The LEPORIDAE REBELLION
Peter Rabbit, unlike sisters Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, is following the advice of his tummy (and his cousin, Benjamin) versus the advice of his mother. Everyone (and we mean everyone!) knows that you stay out of Mr. McGregor's garden. But Peter and Benjamin still venture into a world filled with excitement, adventure and scrumptious vegetables! The thrills are just beginning when the angry farmer spots the silly bunnies. From the beginning, you and your audiences will meet other fun characters such as Caw and Kem, the two silly crows who know that a picket fence could never stop a bird. And who can forget the easy-going Cat, just waiting around the garden for her own meal. And, of course, there's Mr. McGregor, the angry, befuddled farmer, who is willing to go to great lengths to protect his garden. This sparkling musical adaptation of Potter's wonderful story is filled with delightful tunes that will make everyone smile. From Mr. McGregor's "This Is War," and Caw and Kem's "Bugs and Berries," to the beloved finale of "The Family That Sings Together," this will have your audiences hopping with delight.
[The Tale of Peter Rabbit (and Benjamin Bunny) ]
One of the things I have never been able to do is get an accurate or even informed discussion of its provenance. Where did this come from? When did it appear? What would give anyone the idea that it had anything to do with reality?
I will say also that having looked at it in a somewhat cursory way, there are at least several places where it outright flies in the face of the litteral Word although not having a copy of the material at hand any more I cannot cite chapter and verse.
I would also point out that conceptually, the organization of the documents assumes the validity of the Augustianian foundation of Covenant Theology--Satan was bound for the thousand years at the death of Jesus Christ; that the thousand years has been extended because of the failure of mankind to do what we were directed to do and spread the Word everywhere; that there is no tribulation to come; no end of the Church Age on Earth; no rapture; and no finite expected visible physical return of Jesus Christ.
Now I do not want to offend anyone here who is a Covenant Theologist. However at this point, I think it is a reasonable position that Darby was correct--Dispensationalism is a reasonable analysis of the words without regard to the facts on the ground (pretty hard to believe that the devil is in chains somewhere) and the events as they unfold seem to be those which Darby and the Dispensationalists tell us to expect.
Thus these guys are pitching the idea that they have the word of truth from one who knows all but the truth they are pitching seems to be founded on a doctrine that is being eliminated by the facts on the ground.
So does anyone know where this stuff comes from? Or where it is supposed to have originated in deep dark history?
I don't have the details memorized, but the book was supposed to have been "channeled" via, if I remember correctly, a combination of automatic writing trance dictation. Here is a skeptical assessment:
According to The Urantia Book Fellowship (UBF), The Urantia Book (UB) is
an anthology of 196 'papers' indited [i.e., dictated] between 1928 and 1935 by superhuman personalities.... The humans into whose hands the papers were delivered are now deceased. The means by which the papers were materialized was unique and is unknown to any living person.Martin Gardner is skeptical of the UBF's claims. He believes the UB has very real human authors. Originally, he says, the UB was the "Bible" of a cult of separatist Seventh Day Adventists, allegedly channeled by Wilfred Kellogg and edited by founder William Sadler, a Chicago psychiatrist. According to Gardner, in addition to an array of bizarre claims about planets and names of angels, etc., the Urantia Book contains many Adventist doctrines. Sadler died in 1969 at the age of 94 but his spiritual group lives on. Sadler got his start working for Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, Adventist surgeon, health and diet author, and brother of cornflake king William Keith Kellogg. These are the same Kellogg brothers who were featured and lampooned in the movie "The Road to Wellville." <
[The Skeptic's Dictionary: The Urantia Book]
Mark W.
At one point he gave me a box of several thousand pages of material and I read enough of it to conclude that there were internal inconsistencies and conflicts with the record. His story I think was that the documentary history of this was older than the bible and therefore entitled to great credibility.
Your link citation contemplates a considerably more recent origin--I suppose his story would be well it is ancient but we just got the rendition in 1936 or whenever.
From time to time I have run across this in the hands of guys almost all of who are normally clear thinking business investor types and the idea that they would buy it even though they can't come up with a coherant explaination of its authenticity is interesting.
Methinks the author should have channeled lithium.
Newsflash, Michael defeats Lucifer in heaven, Enron goes to court... More at 11:00
The second basic law of human stupidity (there are four basic laws of human stupidity which define human existence) is:
The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
A great deal of the modern world -- at least pop America in the modern world -- is built around the Second Law. (And failure to recognize it is the defining failure of the Rand Objectivists, who divide the world simply into the competents and the incompetents...)
Mark W.
There are FIVE basic laws of human stupidity.
I guess I prove my own point. [laughs]
Without their explanations, they are:
(1) Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
(2) The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
(3) A stupid person is a person who caused losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
(4) Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be costly mistake.
(5) A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
[The (five!) Basic Laws of Human Stupidity]
Mark W.
This book was very influencial to several famous individuals including: Isaac Asimov, Gene Rodenbury, and Jerry Garcia. In more than 1000 pages, it stands as an attempt to bridge the gap between science and religion. It goes without saying that the military has a great deal of science concealed in their bowels which are not revealed to the public. Their urgent need to conceal science from the public is based on their fear of disrupting the social order, or destroying a perception of the world that exists in common people, without giving anything in its place. This book works at filling a spiritual void for individuals who have reached an awareness of science and the cosmos which is beyond that of the normal catholic simplicity.
I agree with confucious in this matter. Complicated is stupidly unnecessary, but in many cases, desperately unavoidable.
?!
Isaac Asimov was famously buttoned-down.
Do you want to put up a link to anything that would back up this insane statement? (If you don't have a link, can you make a specific reference to any of the auto-biographical material Asimov put out where he talks about this "book" being in any way "influential" to him?)
"Isaac Asimov, Gene Rodenbury, and Jerry Garcia" -- Just lumping Asimov's name in with those other two names should be some kind of cultural crime. Have you no shame?
Mark W.
That's what the cocoa is for. Oh, and the whiskey.
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