The Seven Stages of Evolutionary Progress of Human Beings in an Evolutionary Planet !

According to the Urantia Book, material planets suitable of sustaining material life forms come in to existence following an evolutionary development process running in to billions of years. Though the process is evolutionary, it is not automatic. The evolutionary process is initiated, supervised and controlled by invisible agencies of God, which might consist of innumerable invisible, immortal personalities, deriving their power and abilities from God. 

The material life sustainable planets which are located in innumerable planetary systems more or less similar to our solar system are in trillions. We are not able to count them because they are all many many light years away from our earth. Moreover, none of these planets are luminaries such as our sun or the stars to be detected by our telescopes. 

No two life sustaining material planets have the same features. But, the general pattern of progress of life and civilization in them could be similar. 

Notwithstanding these many diversifications of planetary development along physical, intellectual, and social lines, all evolutionary spheres progress in certain well-defined directions.

Under the careful and periodical supervision of the agencies of God, the mortal races on an average world formed in time and space will successively pass through the following seven developmental epochs [stages of time period]:

1. The nutrition epoch. The pre-human creatures and the dawn races of primitive man are chiefly concerned with food problems. These evolving beings spend their waking hours either in seeking food or in fighting, offensively or defensively. The food quest is paramount in the minds of these early ancestors of subsequent civilization.

2. The security age. Just as soon as the primitive hunter can spare any time from the search for food, he turns this leisure to augmenting his security. More and more attention is devoted to the technique of war. Homes are fortified, and the clans are solidified by mutual fear and by the inculcation of hate for foreign groups. Self-preservation is a pursuit which always follows self-maintenance.

3. The material-comfort era. After food problems have been partially solved and some degree of security has been attained, the additional leisure is utilized to promote personal comfort. Luxury vies with necessity in occupying the center of the stage of human activities. Such an age is all too often characterized by tyranny, intolerance, gluttony, and drunkenness. The weaker elements of the races incline towards excesses and brutality. Gradually these pleasure-seeking weaklings are subjugated by the more strong and truth-loving elements of the advancing civilization.

4. The period with quest for knowledge and wisdom. Food, security, pleasure, and leisure provide the foundation for the development of culture and the spread of knowledge. The effort to execute knowledge results in wisdom, and when a culture has learned how to profit and improve by experience, civilization has really arrived. Food, security, and material comfort still dominate society, but many forward-looking individuals are hungering for knowledge and thirsting for wisdom. Every child is provided an opportunity to learn by doing; education is the watchword of these ages.

5. The epoch of philosophy and brotherhood. When mortals learn to think and begin to profit by experience, they become philosophical -- they start out to reason within themselves and to exercise discriminative judgment. The society of this age becomes ethical, and the mortals of such an era are truly becoming moral beings. Wise moral beings are capable of establishing human brotherhood on such a progressing world. Ethical and moral beings can learn how to live in accordance with the golden rule.

6. The age of spiritual striving. When evolving mortals have passed through the physical, intellectual, and social stages of development, sooner or later they attain those levels of personal insight which impel them to seek for spiritual satisfactions and cosmic understandings. Religion is completing the ascent from the emotional domains of fear and superstition to the high levels of cosmic wisdom and personal spiritual experience. Education aspires to the attainment of meanings, and culture grasps at cosmic relationships and true values. Such evolving mortals are genuinely cultured, truly educated, and exquisitely God-knowing.

7. The era of light and life. This is the flowering of the successive ages of physical security, intellectual expansion, social culture, and spiritual achievement. These human accomplishments are now blended, associated, and co-ordinated in cosmic unity and unselfish service. Within the limitations of finite nature and material abilities, there are no bounds set upon the possibilities of evolutionary attainment by the advancing generations who successively live upon these supernal and settled worlds of time and space.

The seventh stage is the highest level of civilization and material progress that a world like earth can achieve. The authors of the above book says that at this era, humans would satisfactorily advance in the knowledge of science, medicine and other such aspects that the average life span becomes around 500 years. Moreover, the spiritual knowledge level during this time would be so high that people no longer would be afraid of material death (because, they are confident with the knowledge of life even after their material life ends on their material world!) 

Now what would you think about the stage of our earth now? 

[See and read from the scan of the originally printed Urantia Book here!]

Adam and Eve : Did God Create them for Making Us Sinners for Ever ?

The Bible says the story of Adam and Eve and the original sin that was committed by these first human couple. They were told as created by God for the first time to live in this earth which was made ready for them to live happily.The place that was prepared was the garden called Aden. They were supposed to take care of this world. They were to  progress and prosper with their progeny and rule over every thing in this world. 

For those who are not familiar with this Bible story of Adam and Eve, I am providing this link to read it on line [The Creation of Man and Woman : Bible Narration from the Book of Genesis]

Chapter three of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament Bible tells the story of 'the fall' of this couple from the grace of God. God had given them permission to eat every fruit in the garden except the one from one called the tree of knowledge. But they were lured to eat that forbidden fruit  by 'Satan' in the guise as a clever serpant. Thus they violated God's command and that violation was the 'original sin'. Because these two great great grandparents of humanity sinned like this, all humans became natural sinners! [You can also read that story from the Bible here: The Fall-Bible Narration ]

Now that was indeed a simple narration useful for children and simplistic people . But the whole of Bible is built on this narration. Human beings are 'branded' sinners as per this theory, whether they actually commit sin or not. For people of the advanced types, far more greater theories and philosophies are built over that simple narration by successive generations of intellectual people.

By this theory of the original sin, all peoples who are descendants of Adam and Eve who lived on this earth through the successive ages till the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus Christ were all borne sinners and had to die as a 'punishment' for their sins.

God could simply not forgive the generations of people from their sins till such time He made a big plan of sending His only son, Jesus Christ, as a human being to be killed and as a 'sacrificial goat' and as a ransom for the sins of all mankind ! And those who believed this are assured of an everlasting and gloriful life after death in the heaven ! This is the second part of the story that the Christians are made to believe and are believing !

Is our God, who is all merciful and benovalent and always loving so 'stonehearted' that he would ever make such a plan?

My heart tells me 'NO'.

Then what do all these writings  that are in the Bible mean ? Am I to reject all these as mere fables of the old, supplemented with narrations of various other kinds ?

Is there an iota of truth in all these Bible narrations ?

If I have to reject it as such, then where do I stand as a 'believer' of my faith and religion?

Is there a God who listens to the predicament of people like me who are born in this modern world of science and technology who no longer would be satisfied with illogical and irrational stories that were sufficient to keep the old timers believing without ever questioning ?

But to my surprise and great relief, I found that God exists and all those things that are told in the Bible are true ! Truths are hidden in those writings from the past generations, but I need to augment those old stories with new inputs and knowledge, commensurate with my present day brain capacity !

To my great surprise, I got the opportunity to realize that my God is so infinitely great that it would not be ever possible for me to comprehend Him ! And yet He cares for me and loves me !

He knew for sure that people like me would ask such questions.

And to my great relief, He had made plans to provide me and those like me with satisfactory answers. Satisfactory in the sense that our brains do not have the capacity to dissect and digest more than that for the time being.

Since I was curious, He guided me by giving me mental inputs that helped me to find the knowldege book that He had got prepared for people like me in this earth to go quench our curiosities.

So I happened to read that book. I was overwhelmed by reading all those truths that I was so curiously inquisitive to know all these years. And I keep reading it and trying to digest the huge resources of knowledge that it contains.

Being a born unbeliever that I am,  I tried hard to find out some inconsistencies and illogical things in this book. And I failed miserably. At least with my present brain capacity it would not be possible. Thus I got satisfied with the explanations of everything that those authored the book offered through this book. And those explanations made Bible now meaningful to me !

From this book, I learnt that Adam and Eve indeed lived in this earth. That was some 38000 odd years ago. The book tells exactly the date as per our present system of counting years. But that is not that important.

Adam and Eve did not sin by eating some banned fruits of a mystical tree. But Eve did commit some error. A gross error that caused grave consequences to the people of this earth for all the generations afterwards! An error of judgement that was not according to what God wanted them to do! Ofcourse, there was another influence that caused her to commit the mistake !

Had they not done that mistake, we would have made greater progress in this earth and our lives would have been much better. We would have got a greater opportunity to know and understand God and live according to His plans- A plan that would ensure a fulfilling life not only during our lives in this world but even after our present bodies perish by death in this world.

We even now have that opportunity.

Had this Adam and Eve not made this mistake, we would have an opportunity for a better life in this world!

That's the point.

Adam and Eve were greater personalities than what they are actually made out in the simple story of the Bible. The mistake they committed had caused them great hardships.

But God is not that harsh and cruel that He made them to suffer by irrevocable death or everlasting spiritual sufferings in what has been designated as 'hell' !

Adam and Eve were God's chosen couple of a superior status who were materialized on this earth to guide evolutionary human beings who existed and populated this earth from thousands of years before them.

Those human beings had the 'mark of the beast'. That simply means they were evolved from the animal kingdom by a process of evolution.

But not by the automatic evolution that Charles Darwin and those scientists who break their heads to prove their theory of evolution. But by a process of controlled evolution which is one of the methods of life creation according to the plans of the incomprehensible and Omnipotent God of the Universes. The word 'controlled evolution' is explained well in this book that God provided me to study together with the Bible that I had.

What is now clear to me is this: God did not create Adam and Eve for making us sinners for ever.

It is the immature minds of we the human beings that keep trying to make stories and theories suiting to our minuscule intellect about this incomprehensible God and His plans !

So I am happy reading this book that God gave me to know more about His plans in an elaborate manner. This book tells about the factual story of Adam and Eve in the manner that it all happened, though my old bias created some difficulty to understand this history as told in the most matter-of-fact manner in this book.

The more I read it, the more I get convinced.

Convinced not only about Adam and Eve, but also about God and His Love to me and all those like me in this world !