Abortion and resurrection for the unborn

Context

What does The Urantia Book have to say about conception, resurrection of the unborn, abortion, morality and mores?

Some people of faith believe that there is a resurrection for the unborn. This belief constitutes the foundation for treating the unborn as children of God and also, therefore, as earthly citizens. As earthly citizens, they are, then, entitled to protection under the law from being harmed and/or killed, the same as any other citizen. This faith-based perspective can leave people disinclined to be deferential to the dictates of a democratic process; some people believe a higher authority is calling upon them to take action in obedience to God.

Of course, people can be against abortion without it being based on spiritual beliefs. But generally speaking, these people are comfortable with democratic processes because they acknowledge that a personal perspective, not a religious cosmology, is being promoted.

Alternatively, people without a belief in resurrection for the unborn, based on religious beliefs or a lack there of, are inclined to believe that it is wrong for the government to be stepping into people’s private personal lives based on religious beliefs. Laws against abortion are criticized as an inappropriate connection between church and state, the imposition of religious beliefs onto the general population.

Further complicating these issues are considerations raised by medical advances that allow us to know in advance whether a baby will be born with birth defects. As well, there are issues of overpopulation, subnormal human beings, and other related eugenic concerns pertaining to “the biologic disfellowshiping of [our] more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial stocks.” (51:4.8)

The reason that this is a Topical Study is because The Urantia Book is neither specific nor prescriptive on a number of important issues. Perhaps this is the first lesson of which to take note when studying the topic. If giving us clearer answers and more guidance was a good idea, they would have done it. The lack of specificity and guidance is well evidenced by the fact that Urantia Book readers are not universally aligned around a particular set of beliefs regarding resurrection of the unborn and morality issues related to abortion. Because this is a controversial subject, on which Urantia Book readers are known to disagree, I think it best to share the disposition of your editor.

My study of this topic has led me to favor the perspective that personality is assigned at conception (even though it is not active until later in life) and that there is resurrection for the unborn.

I support a woman’s right to choose whether she should have an abortion and I support a man’s right to choose whether he has sexual relations that risk getting a woman pregnant. These days, I think enormous legal and eugenic problems attend laws that limit a woman’s right to choose an abortion. These problems are best avoided. I find the interest some people have in getting laws passed that forbid abortion based on genetic abnormalities to be especially misguided and cruel, as well as those that disallow exceptions for rape and incest.

I trust that there is a divine destiny and most excellent potential life pattern provided for those who start out their mortal adventure dead before they are born; there is no reason to doubt God’s abilities to so provide. (This is fundamentally no different or more of a problem for God than preparing a place for babies who die soon after birth.) Because I trust in God to provide a most excellent life pattern for those conceived on this world but not born here, I have high standards for bringing innocent, vulnerable babies into this world. What I believe is most important for newborns to have when they enter this world is two loving, biological parents, who want to raise that child together, as husband and wife.

Morality Quotes to Consider

(16:7.9) Morality can never be advanced by law or by force. It is a personal and freewill matter and must be disseminated by the contagion of the contact of morally fragrant persons with those who are less morally responsive, but who are also in some measure desirous of doing the Father’s will.

(16:7.10) Moral acts are those human performances which are characterized by the highest intelligence, directed by selective discrimination in the choice of superior ends as well as in the selection of moral means to attain these ends. Such conduct is virtuous. Supreme virtue, then, is wholeheartedly to choose to do the will of the Father in heaven.

(196:3.25) Morality is the essential pre-existent soil of personal God-consciousness, the personal realization of the Adjuster’s inner presence, but such morality is not the source of religious experience and the resultant spiritual insight. The moral nature is superanimal but subspiritual. Morality is equivalent to the recognition of duty, the realization of the existence of right and wrong. The moral zone intervenes between the animal and the human types of mind as morontia functions between the material and the spiritual spheres of personality attainment.

Beginnings

See “Conception and Birth” by Chris Halvorson: a two-page essay on material, mental, and spiritual conceptions and births. Even though this essay does not quote The Urantia Book to support the perspective, it can be useful in the contemplation of the quotes provided in this Topical Study.

Pre Birth Individuation and Recording Keeping

Consider the possibility that the assignment of a personality to a potential will creature and the volunteering of Thought Adjusters may not be the type of event that gets recorded at the Local Universe or the Superuniverse levels.

Note the implication here that the existence of a child is acknowledged from conception.

(25:5.3) Every occurrence of significance in the organized and inhabited creation is a matter of record. While events of no more than local importance find only a local recording, those of wider significance are dealt with accordingly. From the planets, systems, and constellations of Nebadon, everything of universe import is posted on Salvington; and from such universe capitals those episodes are advanced to higher recording which pertain to the affairs of the sector and supergovernments. Paradise also has a relevant summary of superuniverse and Havona data; and this historic and cumulative story of the universe of universes is in the custody of these exalted tertiary supernaphim.

(25:6.6) On Uversa these senior Celestial Recorders can show the records of everything of cosmic import in all Orvonton since the far-distant times of the arrival of the Ancients of Days, while on the eternal Isle the Custodians of Records guard the archives of that realm which testify to the transactions of Paradise since the times of the personification of the Infinite Spirit.

(37:3.7) The Worlds of the Archangels. The seventh group of the encircling Salvington worlds, with their associated satellites, is assigned to the archangels. Sphere number one and all of its six tributary satellites are occupied by the personality record keepers. This enormous corps of recorders busy themselves with keeping straight the record of each mortal of time from the moment of birth up through the universe career until such an individual either leaves Salvington for the superuniverse regime or is “blotted out of recorded existence” by the mandate of the Ancients of Days.

(37:3.8) It is on these worlds that personality records and identification sureties are classified, filed, and preserved during that time which intervenes between mortal death and the hour of repersonalization, the resurrection from death.

(37:8.4) The Nebadon Census Director, Salsatia, maintains headquarters within the Gabriel sector of Salvington. He is automatically cognizant of the birth and death of will and currently registers the exact number of will creatures functioning in the local universe. He works in close association with the personality recorders domiciled on the record worlds of the archangels.

Does the spirit of intuition begin to function at conception?

(36:5.5) We are handicapped for words adequately to designate these seven adjutant mind-spirits. They are ministers of the lower levels of experiential mind, and they may be described, in the order of evolutionary attainment, as follows:

(36:5.6) 1. The spirit of intuition—quick perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts, the directional and other self-preservative endowments of all mind creations; the only one of the adjutants to function so largely in the lower orders of animal life and the only one to make extensive functional contact with the nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.

(112:5.4) Human beings possess identity only in the material sense. Such qualities of the self are expressed by the material mind as it functions in the energy system of the intellect. When it is said that man has identity, it is recognized that he is in possession of a mind circuit which has been placed in subordination to the acts and choosing of the will of the human personality. But this is a material and purely temporary manifestation, just as the human embryo is a transient parasitic stage of human life. Human beings, from a cosmic perspective, are born, live, and die in a relative instant of time; they are not enduring. But mortal personality, through its own choosing, possesses the power of transferring its seat of identity from the passing material-intellect system to the higher morontia-soul system which, in association with the Thought Adjuster, is created as a new vehicle for personality manifestation.

(1:4.6) To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.

(42:12.9) Mind is always creative. The mind endowment of an individual animal, mortal, morontian, spirit ascender, or finality attainer is always competent to produce a suitable and serviceable body for the living creature identity. But the presence phenomenon of a personality or the pattern of an identity, as such, is not a manifestation of energy, either physical, mindal, or spiritual. The personality form is the pattern aspect of a living being; it connotes the arrangement of energies, and this, plus life and motion, is the mechanism of creature existence.

(42:12.10) Even spirit beings have form, and these spirit forms (patterns) are real. Even the highest type of spirit personalities have forms—personality presences in every sense analogous to Urantia mortal bodies. Nearly all beings encountered in the seven superuniverses are possessed of forms. But there are a few exceptions to this general rule: Thought Adjusters appear to be without form until after fusion with the surviving souls of their mortal associates. Solitary Messengers, Inspired Trinity Spirits, Personal Aids of the Infinite Spirit, Gravity Messengers, Transcendental Recorders, and certain others are also without discoverable form. But these are typical of the exceptional few; the great majority have bona fide personality forms, forms which are individually characteristic, and which are recognizable and personally distinguishable.

(42:12.11) The liaison of the cosmic mind and the ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits evolve a suitable physical tabernacle for the evolving human being. Likewise does the morontia mind individualize the morontia form for all mortal survivors. As the mortal body is personal and characteristic for every human being, so will the morontia form be highly individual and adequately characteristic of the creative mind which dominates it. No two morontia forms are any more alike than any two human bodies. The Morontia Power Supervisors sponsor, and the attending seraphim provide, the undifferentiated morontia material wherewith the morontia life can begin to work. And after the morontia life it will be found that spirit forms are equally diverse, personal, and characteristic of their respective spirit-mind indwellers.

(42:12.12) On a material world you think of a body as having a spirit, but we regard the spirit as having a body. The material eyes are truly the windows of the spirit-born soul. The spirit is the architect, the mind is the builder, the body is the material building.

Will Creatures and Soul Conception

(24:2.7) The Census Directors are concerned with human beings—as with other will creatures—only to the extent of recording the fact of will function. They are not concerned with the records of your life and its doings; they are not in any sense recording personalities. The Census Director of Nebadon, number 81,412 of Orvonton, now stationed on Salvington, is at this very moment personally conscious and aware of your living presence here on Urantia; and he will afford the records confirmation of your death the moment you cease to function as a will creature.

(24:2.8) Census Directors register the existence of a new will creature when the first act of will is performed; they indicate the death of a will creature when the last act of will takes place. The partial emergence of will observed in the reactions of certain of the higher animals does not belong to the domain of the Census Directors. They keep count of nothing but bona fide will creatures, and they are responsive to nothing but will function. Exactly how they register the function of will, we do not know.

(48:6.2) You should understand that the morontia life of an ascending mortal is really initiated on the inhabited worlds at the conception of the soul, at that moment when the creature mind of moral status is indwelt by the spirit Adjuster. And from that moment on, the mortal soul has potential capacity for supermortal function, even for recognition on the higher levels of the morontia spheres of the local universe.

(61:6.2) 1,000,000 years ago Urantia was registered as an inhabited world. A mutation within the stock of the progressing Primates suddenly produced two primitive human beings, the actual ancestors of mankind.

(62:6.5) Imagine our joy one day—the twins were about ten years old—when the spirit of worship made its first contact with the mind of the female twin and shortly thereafter with the male. We knew that something closely akin to human mind was approaching culmination; and when, about a year later, they finally resolved, as a result of meditative thought and purposeful decision, to flee from home and journey north, then did the spirit of wisdom begin to function on Urantia and in these two now recognized human minds.

(62:7.3) “To the Life Carriers on Urantia—Greetings! We transmit assurance of great pleasure on Salvington, Edentia, and Jerusem in honor of the registration on the headquarters of Nebadon of the signal of the existence on Urantia of mind of will dignity. The purposeful decision of the twins to flee northward and segregate their offspring from their inferior ancestors has been noted. This is the first decision of mind—the human type of mind—on Urantia and automatically establishes the circuit of communication over which this initial message of acknowledgment is transmitting.”

(63:0.1) URANTIA was registered as an inhabited world when the first two human beings—the twins—were eleven years old, and before they had become the parents of the first-born of the second generation of actual human beings. And the archangel message from Salvington, on this occasion of formal planetary recognition, closed with these words:

(63:0.2) “Man-mind has appeared on 606 of Satania, and these parents of the new race shall be called Andon and Fonta. And all archangels pray that these creatures may speedily be endowed with the personal indwelling of the gift of the spirit of the Universal Father.”

(111:3.2) During the life in the flesh the evolving soul is enabled to reinforce the supermaterial decisions of the mortal mind. The soul, being supermaterial, does not of itself function on the material level of human experience. Neither can this subspiritual soul, without the collaboration of some spirit of Deity, such as the Adjuster, function above the morontia level. Neither does the soul make final decisions until death or translation divorces it from material association with the mortal mind except when and as this material mind delegates such authority freely and willingly to such a morontia soul of associated function. During life the mortal will, the personality power of decision-choice, is resident in the material mind circuits; as terrestrial mortal growth proceeds, this self, with its priceless powers of choice, becomes increasingly identified with the emerging morontia-soul entity; after death and following the mansion world resurrection, the human personality is completely identified with the morontia self. The soul is thus the embryo of the future morontia vehicle of personality identity.

Spirit Life

(30:4.19) Morontia progression pertains to continuing advancement of intellect, spirit, and personality form. Survivors are still three-natured beings. Throughout the entire morontia experience they are wards of the local universe. The regime of the superuniverse does not function until the spirit career begins.

Breath of Life

Breath of life is used five times:

(28:5.21) I assure you that all these transactions of the spirit world are real, that they take place in accordance with established usages and in harmony with the immutable laws of the universal domains. The beings of every newly created order, immediately upon receiving the breath of life, are instantly reflected on high; a living portrayal of the creature nature and potential is flashed to the superuniverse headquarters. Thus, by means of the discerners, are the Censors made fully cognizant of exactly “what manner of spirit” has been born on the worlds of space.

(34:2.5) In the creation of a universe of intelligent creatures the Creative Mother Spirit functions first in the sphere of universe perfection, collaborating with the Son in the production of the Bright and Morning Star. Subsequently the offspring of the Spirit increasingly approach the order of created beings on the planets, even as the Sons grade downward from the Melchizedeks to the Material Sons, who actually contact with the mortals of the realms. In the later evolution of mortal creatures the Life Carrier Sons provide the physical body, fabricated out of the existing organized material of the realm, while the Universe Spirit contributes the “breath of life.”

(36:6.4) When the Life Carriers have designed the patterns of life, after they have organized the energy systems, there must occur an additional phenomenon; the “breath of life” must be imparted to these lifeless forms. The Sons of God can construct the forms of life, but it is the Spirit of God who really contributes the vital spark. And when the life thus imparted is spent, then again the remaining material body becomes dead matter. When the bestowed life is exhausted, the body returns to the bosom of the material universe from which it was borrowed by the Life Carriers to serve as a transient vehicle for that life endowment which they conveyed to such a visible association of energy-matter.

(63:6.6) “O Breath of Life, give us this day our daily food, deliver us from the curse of the ice, save us from our forest enemies, and with mercy receive us into the Great Beyond.”

(86:4.3) Early man was also much concerned about his breath, especially in cold climates, where it appeared as a cloud when exhaled. The breath of life was regarded as the one phenomenon which differentiated the living and the dead. He knew the breath could leave the body, and his dreams of doing all sorts of queer things while asleep convinced him that there was something immaterial about a human being. The most primitive idea of the human soul, the ghost, was derived from the breath-dream idea-system.

Personality

(118:7.6) The bestowal of life renders material-energy systems capable of self-perpetuation, self-propagation, and self-adaptation. The bestowal of personality imparts to living organisms the further prerogatives of self-determination, self-evolution, and self-identification with a fusion spirit of Deity.

(5:6.3) Personality is potential in all creatures who possess a mind endowment ranging from the minimum of self-consciousness to the maximum of God-consciousness. But mind endowment alone is not personality, neither is spirit nor physical energy. Personality is that quality and value in cosmic reality which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these living systems of the associated and co-ordinated energies of matter, mind, and spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality may be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there is no personality. The other-than-personal never attains the level of the personal except by the direct act of the Paradise Father.

(5:6.4) The bestowal of personality is the exclusive function of the Universal Father, the personalization of the living energy systems which he endows with the attributes of relative creative consciousness and the freewill control thereof. There is no personality apart from God the Father, and no personality exists except for God the Father. The fundamental attributes of human selfhood, as well as the absolute Adjuster nucleus of the human personality, are the bestowals of the Universal Father, acting in his exclusively personal domain of cosmic ministry.

(5:6.5) The Adjusters of prepersonal status indwell numerous types of mortal creatures, thus insuring that these same beings may survive mortal death to personalize as morontia creatures with the potential of ultimate spirit attainment. For, when such a creature mind of personality endowment is indwelt by a fragment of the spirit of the eternal God, the prepersonal bestowal of the personal Father, then does this finite personality possess the potential of the divine and the eternal and aspire to a destiny akin to the Ultimate, even reaching out for a realization of the Absolute.

(5:6.6) Capacity for divine personality is inherent in the prepersonal Adjuster; capacity for human personality is potential in the cosmic-mind endowment of the human being. But the experiential personality of mortal man is not observable as an active and functional reality until after the material life vehicle of the mortal creature has been touched by the liberating divinity of the Universal Father, being thus launched upon the seas of experience as a self-conscious and a (relatively) self-determinative and self-creative personality. The material self is truly and unqualifiedly personal.

(5:6.7) The material self has personality and identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal spirit Adjuster also has identity, eternal identity. This material personality and this spirit prepersonality are capable of so uniting their creative attributes as to bring into existence the surviving identity of the immortal soul.

(16:8.4) Personalities may be similar, but they are never the same. Persons of a given series, type, order, or pattern may and do resemble one another, but they are never identical. Personality is that feature of an individual which we know, and which enables us to identify such a being at some future time regardless of the nature and extent of changes in form, mind, or spirit status. Personality is that part of any individual which enables us to recognize and positively identify that person as the one we have previously known, no matter how much he may have changed because of the modification of the vehicle of expression and manifestation of his personality.

(112:7.13) When once an Adjuster fuses with an ascending mortal, the number of that Adjuster is stricken from the records of the superuniverse. What happens on the records of Divinington, I do not know, but I surmise that the registry of that Adjuster is removed to the secret circles of the inner courts of Grandfanda, the acting head of the Corps of the Finality.

Is a specific personality assigned at conception?

(122:3.4) Gabriel’s announcement to Mary was made the day following the conception of Jesus and was the only event of supernatural occurrence connected with her entire experience of carrying and bearing the child of promise.

How might the following teaching relate to the theory advanced by some medical researchers that sex is not determined at conception?

(108:1.7) With these facts before them, it is our belief that the Monitors freely volunteer for assignment. Probably more than one Adjuster volunteers; perhaps the supervising personalized orders select from this group of volunteering Adjusters the one best suited to the task of spiritualizing and eternalizing the personality of the mortal candidate. (In the assignment and service of the Adjusters the sex of the creature is of no consideration.)

Actuals and Potentials: Is there resurrection for the unborn?

(102:5.1) Although the establishment of the fact of belief is not equivalent to establishing the fact of that which is believed, nevertheless, the evolutionary progression of simple life to the status of personality does demonstrate the fact of the existence of the potential of personality to start with. And in the time universes, potential is always supreme over the actual. In the evolving cosmos the potential is what is to be, and what is to be is the unfolding of the purposive mandates of Deity.

(115:3.16) The final dynamics of the cosmos have to do with the continual transfer of reality from potentiality to actuality. In theory, there may be an end to this metamorphosis, but in fact, such is impossible since the Potential and the Actual are both encircuited in the Original (the I AM), and this identification makes it forever impossible to place a limit on the developmental progression of the universe. Whatsoever is identified with the I AM can never find an end to progression since the actuality of the potentials of the I AM is absolute, and the potentiality of the actuals of the I AM is also absolute. Always will actuals be opening up new avenues of the realization of hitherto impossible potentials—every human decision not only actualizes a new reality in human experience but also opens up a new capacity for human growth. The man lives in every child, and the morontia progressor is resident in the mature God-knowing man.

(118:4.7) 3. Creation and evolution of universe actuals. It is upon a cosmos impregnated by the capacity-producing presence of the Ultimacy of Deity that the Supreme Creators operate to effect the time transmutations of matured potentials into experiential actuals. Within the master universe all actualization of potential reality is limited by ultimate capacity for development and is time-space conditioned in the final stages of emergence. The Creator Sons going out from Paradise are, in actuality, transformative creators in the cosmic sense. But this in no manner invalidates man’s concept of them as creators; from the finite viewpoint they certainly can and do create.

The Probationary Nurseries

(45:6.7) This probation nursery of Satania is maintained by certain morontia personalities on the finaliters’ world, one half of the planet being devoted to this work of child rearing. Here are received and reassembled certain children of surviving mortals, such as those offspring who perished on the evolutionary worlds before acquiring spiritual status as individuals. The ascension of either of its natural parents insures that such a mortal child of the realms will be accorded repersonalization on the system finaliter planet and there be permitted to demonstrate by subsequent freewill choice whether or not it elects to follow the parental path of mortal ascension. Children here appear as on the nativity world except for the absence of sex differentiation. There is no reproduction of mortal kind after the life experience on the inhabited worlds.

(45:6.8) Mansion world students who have one or more children in the probationary nursery on the finaliters’ world, and who are deficient in essential parental experience, may apply for a Melchizedek permit which will effect their temporary transfer from ascension duties on the mansion worlds to the finaliter world, where they are granted opportunity to function as associate parents to their own and other children. This service of parental ministry may be later accredited on Jerusem as the fulfillment of one half of the training which such ascenders are required to undergo in the families of the Material Sons and Daughters.

(47:2.1) The infant-receiving schools of Satania are situated on the finaliter world, the first of the Jerusem transition-culture spheres. These infant-receiving schools are enterprises devoted to the nurture and training of the children of time, including those who have died on the evolutionary worlds of space before the acquirement of individual status on the universe records. In the event of the survival of either or both of such a child’s parents, the guardian of destiny deputizes her associated cherubim as the custodian of the child’s potential identity, charging the cherubim with the responsibility of delivering this undeveloped soul into the hands of the Mansion World Teachers in the probationary nurseries of the morontia worlds.

(47:2.2) It is these same deserted cherubim who, as Mansion World Teachers, under the supervision of the Melchizedeks, maintain such extensive educational facilities for the training of the probationary wards of the finaliters. These wards of the finaliters, these infants of ascending mortals, are always personalized as of their exact physical status at the time of death except for reproductive potential. This awakening occurs at the exact time of the parental arrival on the first mansion world. And then are these children given every opportunity, as they are, to choose the heavenly way just as they would have made such a choice on the worlds where death so untimely terminated their careers. [emphasis added]

exact physical status: How might status be different than form? It does not say they are peronsalized as of their exact physical form at the time of death. Note that reproductive potentials involve issues of both form and status.

(49:6.11) 3. Mortals of the probationary-dependent orders of ascension. The arrival of an Adjuster constitutes identity in the eyes of the universe, and all indwelt beings are on the roll calls of justice. But temporal life on the evolutionary worlds is uncertain, and many die in youth before choosing the Paradise career. Such Adjuster-indwelt children and youths follow the parent of most advanced spiritual status, thus going to the system finaliter world (the probationary nursery) on the third day, at a special resurrection, or at the regular millennial and dispensational roll calls.

(49:6.12) Children who die when too young to have Thought Adjusters are repersonalized on the finaliter world of the local systems concomitant with the arrival of either parent on the mansion worlds. A child acquires physical entity at mortal birth, but in the matter of survival all Adjusterless children are reckoned as still attached to their parents.

(49:6.13) In due course Thought Adjusters come to indwell these little ones, while the seraphic ministry to both groups of the probationary-dependent orders of survival is in general similar to that of the more advanced parent or is equivalent to that of the parent in case only one survives. Those attaining the third circle, regardless of the status of their parents, are accorded personal guardians.

Abortion, repopulation, and overpopulation.

Abortion and Repopulation

(68:6.9) Many races learned the technique of abortion, and this practice became very common after the establishment of the taboo on childbirth among the unmarried. It was long the custom for a maiden to kill her offspring, but among more civilized groups these illegitimate children became the wards of the girl’s mother. Many primitive clans were virtually exterminated by the practice of both abortion and infanticide. But regardless of the dictates of the mores, very few children were ever destroyed after having once been suckled—maternal affection is too strong.

(84:5.10) In the ideals of pair marriage, woman has finally won recognition, dignity, independence, equality, and education; but will she prove worthy of all this new and unprecedented accomplishment? Will modern woman respond to this great achievement of social liberation with idleness, indifference, barrenness, and infidelity? Today, in the twentieth century, woman is undergoing the crucial test of her long world existence!

Primitive mixes of religion and fertility

(83:4.4) Childlessness was greatly dreaded, and since barrenness was attributed to spirit machinations, efforts to insure fecundity also led to the association of marriage with certain magical or religious ceremonials. And in this effort to insure a happy and fertile marriage, many charms were employed; even the astrologers were consulted to ascertain the birth stars of the contracting parties. At one time the human sacrifice was a regular feature of all weddings among well-to-do people.

Morals, Ethics, and Mores

(84:7.3) Sex association is natural, but marriage is social and has always been regulated by the mores. The mores (religious, moral, and ethical), together with property, pride, and chivalry, stabilize the institutions of marriage and family. Whenever the mores fluctuate, there is fluctuation in the stability of the home-marriage institution. Marriage is now passing out of the property stage into the personal era. Formerly man protected woman because she was his chattel, and she obeyed for the same reason. Regardless of its merits this system did provide stability. Now, woman is no longer regarded as property, and new mores are emerging designed to stabilize the marriage-home institution:

(84:7.4) 1. The new role of religion—the teaching that parental experience is essential, the idea of procreating cosmic citizens, the enlarged understanding of the privilege of procreation—giving sons to the Father.

(84:7.5) 2. The new role of science—procreation is becoming more and more voluntary, subject to man’s control. In ancient times lack of understanding insured the appearance of children in the absence of all desire therefor.

(84:7.6) 3. The new function of pleasure lures—this introduces a new factor into racial survival; ancient man exposed undesired children to die; moderns refuse to bear them.

(84:7.7) 4. The enhancement of parental instinct—each generation now tends to eliminate from the reproductive stream of the race those individuals in whom parental instinct is insufficiently strong to insure the procreation of children, the prospective parents of the next generation.

Eugenic Considerations

(51:4.8) These six evolutionary races are destined to be blended and exalted by amalgamation with the progeny of the Adamic uplifters. But before these peoples are blended, the inferior and unfit are largely eliminated. The Planetary Prince and the Material Son, with other suitable planetary authorities, pass upon the fitness of the reproducing strains. The difficulty of executing such a radical program on Urantia consists in the absence of competent judges to pass upon the biologic fitness or unfitness of the individuals of your world races. Notwithstanding this obstacle, it seems that you ought to be able to agree upon the biologic disfellowshiping of your more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial stocks.

Chronological list of quotes:

(47:2.2) It is these same deserted cherubim who, as Mansion World Teachers, under the supervision of the Melchizedeks, maintain such extensive educational facilities for the training of the probationary wards of the finaliters. These wards of the finaliters, these infants of ascending mortals, are always personalized as of their exact physical status at the time of death except for reproductive potential. This awakening occurs at the exact time of the parental arrival on the first mansion world. And then are these children given every opportunity, as they are, to choose the heavenly way just as they would have made such a choice on the worlds where death so untimely terminated their careers.

(49:6.11) 3. Mortals of the probationary-dependent orders of ascension. The arrival of an Adjuster constitutes identity in the eyes of the universe, and all indwelt beings are on the roll calls of justice. But temporal life on the evolutionary worlds is uncertain, and many die in youth before choosing the Paradise career. Such Adjuster-indwelt children and youths follow the parent of most advanced spiritual status, thus going to the system finaliter world (the probationary nursery) on the third day, at a special resurrection, or at the regular millennial and dispensational roll calls.

(63:6.6) “O Breath of Life, give us this day our daily food, deliver us from the curse of the ice, save us from our forest enemies, and with mercy receive us into the Great Beyond.”

(84:7.6) 3. The new function of pleasure lures—this introduces a new factor into racial survival; ancient man exposed undesired children to die; moderns refuse to bear them.

(103:2.1) Religion is functional in the human mind and has been realized in experience prior to its appearance in human consciousness. A child has been in existence about nine months before it experiences birth. But the “birth” of religion is not sudden; it is rather a gradual emergence. Nevertheless, sooner or later there is a “birth day.” You do not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you have been “born again”—born of the Spirit. Many spiritual births are accompanied by much anguish of spirit and marked psychological perturbations, as many physical births are characterized by a “stormy labor” and other abnormalities of “delivery.” Other spiritual births are a natural and normal growth of the recognition of supreme values with an enhancement of spiritual experience, albeit no religious development occurs without conscious effort and positive and individual determinations. Religion is never a passive experience, a negative attitude. What is termed the “birth of religion” is not directly associated with so-called conversion experiences which usually characterize religious episodes occurring later in life as a result of mental conflict, emotional repression, and temperamental upheavals.

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