Please see the general introduction to these questions preceding the
questions for Part I. Why is Part II separated from Part I?
Note the ways in which Part II prepares Part III.
1. How
does 360.2 comment on 354.6 regarding mortal destiny?
2.
Why can it be so vital to us to hold on to the truth-fact of the presence
of the Father in the Creator Son (361.2)? What
factors lead us to grow weary, entertain spiritual doubts, stumble into
confusion, and isolate ourselves?
3.
How does the teaching in #5 help us crystallize our thoughts about
"those values which are of infinite nature and eternal import"?
4.
What are the implications of 364.0-2 for us mortals and as a guideline
for leaders?
5.
Why race for perfection (365L)?
1.
In what ways do the Creator Son and Universe Mother Spirit provide a
pattern for human marriage?
2.
What can human systems of justice learn from this paper?
3.
What can we learn about administration here?
1.
How does this paper help you appreciate our Local Universe Mother Spirit?
2.
What additional aspects of pattern for cooperation do you find in 376#3?
Do men tend to me more time oriented and women more spatially oriented?
3.
Analyze the structure of sections 5-7 (at the level of groups of
paragraphs). How does the sequence
of teachings add meaning and power to your favorite passages?
What variables affect the function of the spirit?
Can we distinguish the Deities in our personal experience?
If the Spirit does not quicken our theories, what do we have left?
What is it to be spirit born? Spirit
filled? What qualities mark the leadership of the Spirit?
What extremes of conscientiousness should we avoid?
4.
What kind of relationship can we have with the Holy Spirit?
5.
What help does this paper offer to someone struggling with a self-mastery
issue?
1.
Compare the procedure of correction for Melchizedeks who err (386.7) with
the procedure for rehabilitating Lanonandeks who default (394.3,7).
Are there any implications for responding to mortal wrongdoing?
2.
The character of the Vorondadeks is sketched on 391.1.
Do you see any possible connection between the different traits
mentioned? Analogies to mortal personality types?
3.
Study the theodicy (account showing how universe evil can be consistent
with the Creators’ goodness) presented on 393.8-9, and compare 1222.3 with
1268.1-2. Does the first passage
help reconcile the latter two?
4.
What can you infer about the discipline of history from 390.5?
5.
What are the connotations of the term "paternal" in 393.6?
6.
What will it be like to review this life with other Urantians (388.1-6)?
7.
What gospel do the evangels of destiny proclaim (388.9)?
What kind of training do they receive?
8.
What pattern for an "eldest son" is given in 386.2-6?
1.
Focus on 398.4 and #5.
2.
Does 399.0 definitely teach that genes significantly help determine
one’s receptivity to the various adjutant mind-spirits?
And that spirit response depends on mind endowment?
3.
How do the teachings about life in this paper differ from current
scientific speculations?
4.
How do the various adjutant mind-spirits relate to each other?
What difference would it make in education to honor the functions of mind
to which the Adjutants minister?
5.
How does "biological" life relate to the life that is "in
the Sons" (2097.last)?
1.
What do we learn about mercy, justice, and fairness from the description
of the High Commissioners?
2.
What do the race commissioners do?
3.
Design an educational unit based on the principles of universe education
(412#6).
4. “Enough of the life and administration of this universe is being herewith portrayed to afford the mortal mind a grasp of the reality and grandeur of the survival existence” (417.1). Put this statement with other thoughts in the book explaining the rationale for the information we are being given (1.2; 1162.1; 2090.4).
1.
How can good come from our efforts to understand and love the seraphim
(419.1)?
2.
Why are angels called daughters of God (419.2)?
In what sense are seraphim “negative and positive” (420.4)?
3.
Why are military images apparently used in describing the organization of
seraphim?
4.
While this paper contributes to some of the philosophic themes of ongoing
interest (justice and mercy, 419.4; pair relationships, 420.4, 422.3; the quest
for perfection 422.6), the primary opportunity with this paper is to learn about
those unseen friends who are so near us. Let
us try to retain as much detail from these sections as we can and ask: How can
we facilitate the divine purposes in our interaction with them?
1.
What do seraphim study who are preparing to serve humankind in
association with the mission of a Planetary Prince (427.1)?
Can we do less?
2.
What do we learn about justice and mercy in this paper (428.1-2; 430.1;
432.5; 434.4-5)?
3.
What would it be like to be consciously unconscious (431.0)?
4.
If you were to pause now (see 428.4-5 and 435.1-2) what achievements
would you consider behind you? What
ahead?
5.
What are the differences between pair relationship and social systems of
three or more (433.0)?
6.
What is the relation between morality, ethics, and social and
governmental progress (433.2)?
7.
What are the implications of the paragraphs on the Quickeners of Morality
for epochal revelation management (435.4-8)?
What if sincerity is divorced from loyalty and patience?
8.
Comment on the evolution of trust (437.6, 1747.5, 317-18).
9.
Suppose your friend reads 438.2, says s/he understands it intellectually,
but has trouble identifying with such an attitude about the uncertain future.
How could you respond?
1.
Paragraphs 2 and 3 in the introduction characterize the rest of the
paper. What is it like to view the
story of the ascending sons as (a) a recital of “the unstinted bestowal of
divine love and gracious condescension” (443.2) and (b) as a recital of the
eternal purpose of the Gods respecting the ascending orders of sonship? (443.3)
2.
How is the gospel illuminated by 447#6?
What are the meanings of sonship—and the bases for sonship--provided
in this paper? (443.5; 447#6)
3.
Why should the ascension career be “the supreme study of mortal man”?
Is this consistent with 2090.4?
4.
What further implications can you draw from the teaching about the love
of God for the individual, which “utterly eclipses all other facts”? (454.3)
1.
Could Urantian astronomers ever formulate equations to describe stellar
phenomena capable of taking into account the intelligent activities of the
Nebadon Power Centers and the Satania Physical Controllers and others?
If not, is this a fundamental limit on science’s ability to predict and
understand stellar phenomena?
2.
How are suns used by the power centers and physical controllers? (458.4)
3.
How is density independent of the state of matter (gas, liquid, solid)?
(459.7)
4.
Why do we perceive energy as waves? (461.2-4)
5.
Why is the language used to describe calcium nearly “anthropomorphic”
language? (cf. 1437.4; 102.5)
6.
Do you find analogies to other levels of reality in any of the
descriptions of section 7?
1.
How does the author work to bring our concepts of material energy and
spirit closer together? (see 467.2;
467.3-4; 468.3; 479.L; 480.5; 481.5; 483#12)
2.
What lessons for thinking do you find here?
Any comment on 483.1?
3.
What does section 12 teach about the body?
(cf. pp. 8; 261d; 404b; 419a; 431b; 542; 544; 1303b).
1.
Describe the rule of the Most Highs in the kingdoms of men: see 488.7;
491.12-13; 1209d; 1255; 1257; 1882b; 1906.5; 1910.2; 1912.3; 1913.2.
2.
What ideals of beauty (625b) are revealed in this paper that could be
more exemplified on Urantia?
3.
What lessons in socialization are learned in the Edentia training worlds?
How does the knowledge of such things affect our attitude to
socialization now?
1.
How is the attitude of the Archangel author toward human beings
progressively revealed in this paper?
2.
What practical consequences should follow from the revelations concerning
Urantian music (500.3-6)?
3.
How can we expand our comprehension of personal experience in the light
of the note about the life-story tellers (501b)?
4.
What does The Urantia Book say and imply about the laws of
spiritual energy intake (505.2,6-506.2)?
5.
What lessons on feeling are to be found in the note on the emotion
designers (506c)?
6.
Explicate all the meanings and values you can discern in section 7 on the
Harmony Workers. How are beauty, rhythm, and harmony spiritually akin?
How are truth, fact, and relationship related to beauty?
How does the teaching on unifying truth, beauty, and goodness in our
lives help us understand how gifted and accomplished people can be so impressive
while lacking real soul expression?
7.
Can you distinguish sincere from egotistical ambition for excellence in
self-expression (508.2-3; cf. 21.3; 557.3; 1758.4)?
1.
What can you infer about humankind from the descriptions of the four and
twenty (513#4)? What do they have
to do with us? Why did the great
leaders so consistently lead their people in worship?
Why does worship unify people?
2.
Why is parental experience essential?
What ideas about sex relations do you derive from section 6?
3.
What implications about the Father concept are contained in the
requirement of parental experience (516.3)?
4.
Who is Lanaforge? What does he do? What
relation do we have with him?
1.
What are the key functions of the local system headquarters?
2.
What happens during the quiet hour on Jerusem (520.3)?
In the theater of morontia activities devoted to rest and recreation
(526.5)
3.
How do the beauties of nature change on Jerusem (520#2; 526.6)?
4.
Of which elements—work, progress, play—do you think the following are
composite: social intercourse, group entertainment, divine worship (526.5)?
5.
Is there any evidence in the book that helps us predict what effect
lifting the quarantine will have on Urantia mortals?
1.
Summarize the sequence of achievements that we complete in the mansion
worlds.
2.
What do you learn about child rearing from this paper?
3.
Comment on 536.4: Why are all these aspects linked in the description of
a new social order?
4.
To what extent can we begin these experiences in our lives?
“Bona fide experiential enthusiasm for the Havona ascent . . . . Study is becoming voluntary, unselfish service natural, and
worship spontaneous” (537.5).
5.
Why does “coming up through great tribulation” serve to make us
“very kind and understanding,” “sympathetic and tolerant”?
6.
Comment on the sequences of verbs pertaining to morontia achievement:
“fully mobilized, realized, unified.” What
do these verbs mean? Is there any
significance in the sequence?
1.
Why did so few learn of heavenly things in the past (542.5; 553.1,4)?
2.
List the lessons implicit in section 4 on the reversion directors (cf.
1558.6; 1562.1; 1610#3).
3.
Try organizing some teachings you cherish, for example about God or the
philosophy of living or the religion of Jesus--into headings that would fit in
the schools of thinking, the schools of feeling, and the schools of doing
(551.1).
4.
What is the leading theme in the gospel of the seraphic evangels (552-3)?
What are the supporting aspects of their gospel teaching? How do these aspects form a unity? What do they have to do with the gospel as presented in Part
IV?
5.
Give an example of a situation in which rectification of an error by
revelation might jeopardize emerging truths (555.1).
6.
Explain how souls get kindled by the divine fire of the will to service
(555.3).
7.
How can you let pressure develop stability and certainty (555.4)?
8.
How can the planting of a seed ever necessitate its death (555.5)?
9.
What exhausts immature creatures (555.6; cf. 380.7; 548.5)?
10.
What additional insight can you derive from the human statements of
philosophy associated with morontia mota by considering (a) the justaposition of
sentences within a given teaching and (b) the sequence of teachings?
1.
What are the eugenic implications of section 1?
2.
What clue to humor do you note in section 2?
3.
Where may our solar system harbor non-breathers?
4.
What is the import of the fact that we stand erect on two feet?
5.
What teachings about sex equality do you derive from section 4?
6.
What are the implications for understanding human nature from the
teaching on the brain on p. 566?
7.
Does 570.1 imply that parents have a special responsibility to survive if
their children die before receiving Adjusters?
8.
Finaliters are sent to administer such a variety of worlds as these.
What transformations will have taken place before we are ready to do so?
1.
What risks go along with being so far from Paradise (573.0)?
Is there any implication here for epochal revelation management?
2.
If humankind are “halfway” between primitive conditions and advanced
civilization, should we expect that every aspect of
early “autocratic” rule (573.4) should be left behind?
3.
Knowing that “culture presupposes quality of mind” (578.4), the
Prince’s staff select “the cream of the evolutionary races” (575.2).
What analogies and disanalogies are there between this policy and our
wisdom in selecting people to whom to introduce The Urantia Book?
4.
What reforms would make Urantian education more like the education
established by the Prince’s staff?
5.
The Prince’s work is independent of the missions of the higher Sons
(576.4). Does this fact carry any
implications about the relation between the movement of students of The
Urantia Book and the gospel movement?
6.
How can religious teaching reflect the fact that struggle, effort, and
decision (578.4) are essential to progress?
7.
“Reward follows effort as a result of causes.”
What causes do you need to attend to in your project?
1.
Study this paper for every principle of epochal revelation management you
can discern.
2.
Since the Nazi era, eugenics has been largely taboo, though change is
gradually emerging. Reflect on the eugenics teachings here until you
can experience that “all truth—material, philosophic, or spiritual—is both
beautiful and good” (43.4).
3.
What reason for race differentiation is given at 584L?
What desirable traits do you see emerging from such differentiation?
4.
Single-matedness is an Adamic norm (586.2).
What will it take to make that ideal effective today?
5.
What seven fathers do we recognize (587c)?
1.
How shall we recover the courage of the mighty hunters and fierce
fighters of primitive man?
2.
What principle of revelation would you formulate from the observation
that the Planetary Prince’s staff teaches only as much as their pupils can
receive (591.3)?
3.
What implications might possibly be drawn about a vegetarian diet from
593.7?
4.
Normally, intellectual culture should be at a very high level to prepare
for the Bestowal Son. What intellectual background would you consider ideal for
understanding the teachings of Jesus?
5.
In what sense is the golden rule impractical today (596.6)?
6.
Study and discuss section 6 as carefully as possible; it offers Part
II’s main recipe for planetary transformation—without making any reference
to The Urantia Papers. What is the difference between spiritual brotherhood and
social brotherhood? How has Jesus
shown the way to the immediate realization of spiritual brotherhood?
1.
Why is self-contemplation “most disastrous” (601.5)?
2.
What are the steps leading from pride to sin (603.1)?
What is pride? Given the
fact that the word “pride” today is commonly used to denote self-respect or
self-esteem, how can we express the danger of pride in popular discourse?
Can we keep ourselves from pride? All
by ourselves?
3.
What themes of the Lucifer rebellion can we observe in planetary history
and in our culture today? How do
self-assertion and unbridled personal liberty continue to cause us problems?
What can be done?
4.
Explain the division of labor: Why did Michael remain aloof and Gabriel
undertake the exposure of rebel sophistries?
5.
“It’s all relative.” How
is this slogan—despite its kinship with insight (42.2; 1039.3)—pressed into
the service of false freedom?
6.
Have you ever been spiritually blinded by someone’s brilliance and
charming ways?
7.
In the encounter on Urantia of Jesus of Nazareth and his universe
enemies, given the fact Jesus elected to meet his enemies simply as the Son of
Man, and given the fact that in any contest between a higher being and a lower
being, the higher wins out, what does it say about the power of faith that can
make a mortal with faith higher than a Lanondek Son without faith?
8.
Have you observed enough of life to begin to confirm that “the way of
the transgressor is hard” and that “every sin contains within itself the
seeds of its own destruction”? Explain.
1.
Explain the distinction between true and false liberty.
How may this Luciferian sophistry be observed in present-day society?
2.
What was the contradiction in Lucifer’s program of tyranny?
3.
Why does righteous adjudication take time?
4.
What are the benefits of the mercy time lag?
5.
What kinds of reasons do you find in the list of reasons explaining the
wisdom of delay?
6.
Can you wholeheartedly embrace the Creator’s love that permits you to
suffer the consequences of others’ misuse of creature freedom?
Reflect on your own missteps. What
does it take to participate in the mercy process on a planet gone astray?
1.
How can you explain to someone that our destiny is not just an eternal
condition of static bliss?
2.
624.0 proposes that we learn to view natural death with something of the
“cheerfulness and lightheartedness” of the era of light and life.
How can we make progress toward that goal?
What obstacles are there? What
ways around them?
3.
Notice what areas of activity are classified on p. 625 under the headings
of truth, beauty, and goodness.
4.
How can we communicate a positive sense of planetary destiny today?
5.
How are we unconsciously compromised by our own accommodation to this
planet, characterized as “sin-stricken, evil-dominated, [and] self-seeking”
(629d)?
6.
To what extent can we personally grow into a way of living akin to that
portrayed on 630.1-2, even though our planet is far removed from such culture?
7.
Humanists sometimes say that life is worthwhile (without the prospect of
life after death) if one can only make a contribution to a grand future for
humanity. How close to that
sentiment does the author comes at 631.6?
1.
Why is a paper on universal unity needed after the preceding papers?
How does this paper culminate Part II and unify it with Part I?
2.
How does the last section integrate on the level of individual experience
the grand achievements on higher levels discussed in the previous sections?
3.
Contemplate the unity of God—a unifying theme for many of the world’s
religions. 640.4 tells us that
despite the fact that we are told of many universe fathers, experientially, we
can only have one father. Why are many of us in practice more at ease with the
intellectual idea of the plurality of beings revealed in the papers than with
the truth of the spiritual, experiential unity of God?
4.
641.5 presents a remarkable sequence of steps for us to follow in
developing our concept of God. Why
this sequence?
5.
Sometimes a human beings experiences impersonal levels of Deity before
becoming able to recognize the Deity personality (642.4).
How does this thought help unify our understanding of the different types
of religious experience highlighted among the world’s religions?
6.
If our destiny is to reveal the Supreme, how can we start now?
7.
Are you prepared to believe it? “All
that God the Father and his Paradise Sons do for us, we in turn and in spirit
have the opportunity to do for and in the emerging Supreme Being” (644.1).
What would this mean?
8.
Notice that the major philosophic proposition of the master universe is a
question! What does that imply about the character of philosophy?
9.
Note, in the last four paragraphs of 645, a summary statement of creation
and, in the last paragraph, a summary statement of the essence of human living.
Note the sequence here, different from that at 21.2: loving God precedes
knowing God. How might you
harmonize this apparent tension?
10.
How is your conception of your chosen project affected by the integration
of truth, beauty, and goodness?
11.
List the teachings on beauty given in section 10 and list possible ways
in which you could live beauty more fully.
12.
In a world where specializations often become increasingly narrow, how
can we show the blessings of the holistic perspective of 647.4-7?
13.
Discuss the concept of love that emerges here.
Why are truth, beauty, and goodness essential to love?
How does the revealed concept of love differ from popular concepts?
Explain the implications of the closing definition of love—the desire
to do good to others: what is the place of the heart, the place of action, and
the importance of the plural?