A Urantia Book Study - 12

A review of The Urantia Book's proclamations regarding war and peace shows that war is inevitable for the foreseeable future, aspirations to the contrary notwithstanding. We are to strive for peace, make plans for peace, yearn for peace, all the while knowing that as our efforts once again fail war and rumors of war will prevail. This will continue until that time when the social climate of the world has developed beyond the point where war provides value.

We anticipate that the age of light and life will become the natural condition for life here even though we are also the inheritors of a bellicose animal nature. War is part of our heritage, but even its destructiveness provides benefits that point us toward an ever improving future.

During the evolutionary course from chaos to glory on a world such as this we are subjected to numerous inevitable trials that polish our individual characters making us ready for that future time. We should take some comfort from understanding the purposes behind the inevitabilities of human existence as they're explained in Paper 3 because they give further evidence of the benefits collective humanity accrues from the challenges life affords.

If courage is desirable then we must be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with the hardships and disappointments war inflicts.

If altruism is desirable then life experience must provide situations of social inequality, which war tends to equalize.

If hope is desirable then we must constantly be confronted with insecurities and uncertainties such as war unleashes.

If faith is desirable then our mind must find itself in that troublesome predicament where it always knows less than it can believe.

If the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads is desirable then we must grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.

If idealism is desirable then we must struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.

If loyalty is desirable then we must carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion.

If unselfishness is desirable then we must live face to face with the incessant clamoring for recognition and honor of our inescapable self, both individually and as a country.

If pleasure is desirable then we must live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present possibilities.

These realities are inevitable in the world in which we live. War is a reality until, by confronting those truths over a long enough history the human character is up-stepped. While war will eventually become obsolete, the inevitabilities of the vissicitudes of life on a material world will not.

In answer then to the lead question, "Is the World Ready for Peace?", the obvious answer is "no", not for a long time to come. Peace rallys, peace petitions, conscientious objecting to war, opposition to government policy, political rallys, peace candidates, civil disobednience ... these each fall under the categories of ineffective activism and wishful thinking.

The Urantia Book contains the tools by which active peace promotion can effectively be pursued. It's time to read the book again and to put into practice in each of our own lives the teachings of Jesus; that's the only truly effective solution for bringing the world to the culmination of peace prayed for by so many.