Religion has at one time or another sanctioned all sorts of contrary and inconsistent behavior, has at some time approved of practically all that is now regarded as immoral or sinful. Conscience, untaught by experience and unaided by reason, never has been, and never can be, a safe and unerring guide to human conduct. Conscience is not a divine voice speaking to the human soul. It is merely the sum total of the moral and ethical content of the mores of any current stage of existence; it simply represents the humanly conceived ideal of reaction in any given set of circumstances.
92:2.6 (1005.2)
Before I sat down to prepare this material, I did not think much about the nature of conscience. Perhaps I found it completely elusive, in some sense dangerous; perhaps, on the contrary, it was too obvious. So I decided that there was little point in reflecting on it. I knew it was, but I never went deeper. Religious influences did their job.
In religions, conscience is a spiritual gift, a voice that helps and distinguishes between right and wrong. We feel, moreover, that this is how it works (more or less). The elusive nature of his hints also seems to confirm such theses. It is also probably the only evidence for the existence of supernatural, moralizing forces, about which religions teach so eagerly. So it is easy to get an impression, that through remorse God expresses His disapproval. How does conscience resonate in the definition of The Urantia Book?
This post opens a series of studies comparing subjective interpretations of the messages of the Catholic Church with the teachings of The Urantia Book. My first intention is to present the record of the book, and that is the purpose of this page, but criticism of the religious organization closest to me comes up as an occasion and naturally. The papers are consistent in their neutral tone and although they do not directly criticize any religion, they unequivocally condemn all erroneous ideas that concern God and faith. My approach will not be so subtle.
The godless people
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “man must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience” and that “he has the right to act in accordance with his conscience and freedom to make moral decisions personally”. Therefore, he must not be forced to act against his conscience. But he must not be hindered from acting according to his conscience, especially in the religious sphere”. Of course, it was added that “rejecting the authority of the Church and its teaching” can distort the moral attitude, and thus also the conscience. Elsewhere it is said that conscience “can make both a right judgment in accordance with God’s reason and law and, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that deviates from it”, but by listening to the voice of conscience a person “can hear God who speaks”. Logical.
On the one hand, man should always follow the voice of conscience – because through it he can find out what God himself has to say, but on the other hand, it turns out that conscience can be wrong. Does this mean that God is fallible? Also interesting in this context is God’s justice when the Creator for some reason does not suggest how He should to those who were not lucky enough to be born a Catholic country. Morality and ethics, and thus also conscience, are understood completely differently depending on the place of origin or religion. From a broader perspective, however, the matter is simple – conscience is God’s voice only when his admonitions coincide with the current interest of the Church.
The message quoted at the beginning succinctly and accurately defines how conscience should be treated. However, starting from the beginning – conscience simply exists and every (normal) person has it. Here, regardless of the nomenclature or beliefs, I don’t see any room for manoeuvre. Even atheists do not deny it, so it is difficult to associate them with exclusively religious feelings. The Catholic Church has simply seized this (and many others) natural evolutionary tool for the socialization of man and, as always, it makes authoritative judgments on this subject as well. Hence, there is a short way to point out those whose views do not agree with the current message of the organization as people without conscience. And thus it is worse and unbelievable, because they are deprived of this supposedly divine voice.
The sum of the moral and ethical content of customs
The Urantia Book unequivocally contradicts the revelations of the Church. Conscience is not a divine voice. The God fragment of the Thought Adjuster who sustains every human being has nothing to do with conscience. At most, we can confuse his hints with remorse.
The quality of religious philosophy derives from the ability to distinguish the material world from spiritual realities. “Sound religious philosophy does not confuse the things of God with the things of Caesar.” This means that remorse with the taste of everyday life will never have a direct connection with God. This is bluntly illustrated by one of the papers, where primitive religions are called “fairy tales told by conscience”. The attitude towards our neighbour and the direction in which we want to develop are of course important, but what we are and who we are becoming, depends only on the decisions we make ourselves. Not from God and not from a priest. It would be convenient to hear what I have to do (and what I don’t have to do) to live according to the will of the Creator, I don’t deny it. And it is on this spiritual laziness that religious organizations and sects prey. Unfortunately, we have to take responsibility for ourselves. And if we are spiritually instructed, it is certainly not by conscience; and not in the way we think.
The quoted above revelation says that conscience is “the sum total of the moral and ethical content of the mores of any current stage of existence; it simply represents the humanly conceived ideal of reaction in any given set of circumstances”. It is therefore a moral code instilled by current (and local) customs and nothing more. That is why people’s consciences are so different, that is why they evolve over time. Australian Aborigines, sheikhs from Saudi Arabia and Polish atheists have different moral codes. Not because they have turned away from the only true Catholic God, but because circumstances and customs have shaped their consciences in the way they have.
Arbitrary evaluation of human behavior through the prism of self-established (and repeatedly changed) dogmas is at least brazen. The constant, aggressive indoctrination of children, so that the judgments forced on them, in many cases harmful ones, later arouse remorse, make me nauseous. Especially, when the Church pushes all this values into the mouth of God himself.
Social construct
The Catechism of the Catholic Church proclaims that “conscience should be formed” and that “the education of conscience is the task of the whole of life” in which of course, we are “guided by a certain teaching of the Church”. Perhaps I am misinterpreting these words, but doesn’t it mean that we ourselves (okay, with the necessary help of a priest) form and educate the voice of God? It seems that the word of God should be unchangeable and universal, and not educated; much less with the teachings of other people. It turns out that here too, is the same old story – conscience will be the voice of God only when the Church trains it properly.
The Church cleverly invented a special procedure for this purpose – an examination of conscience. In the Catechism it is called ‘preparation for penance’, that is, for ‘a radical change of the whole life’; to “turn away from evil”. Priests, in accordance with their sacred mission, and of course, in the name of God, will explain to us how to examine our conscience correctly. After all, it cannot be that we think about what behavior we really regret on our own and in harmony with ourselves.
In the Catechism itself I did not find information on how to properly conduct an examination of conscience, but priests teach it in schools – as an everyday (!) spiritual exercise. Some parishes publish recommendations on their websites regarding the examination of conscience. The procedure itself first requires getting to know your possible sins. It consists in making specific statements – sins, in order to assess whether or not one has committed them. If the answers are yes, it means that we have sinned. Then we should confess and, most importantly, decide that we will not sin anymore; and consistently stick to these decisions.
While some of such issues are quite justified, such as “I treated my parents in an insulting way, argued with them, badmouthed them, beat them, was ashamed of my parents” or “I wished death for myself or my neighbor”; And although there are quite a few such objectively correct questions-statements, among them there are neatly interwoven those that serve only the Church. For example: “I spoke against the teaching of God or the teaching of the Church”, “I missed the Holy Mass on Sunday or on a holy day of obligation” or “I did not care about the moral and religious education and upbringing of children (prayer, Holy Mass on Sundays and holidays, attending religion classes, receiving the Sacraments)”. There are a lot of such idiotic pseudo-sins. Many of them are full of hypocrisy (“I believed in superstitions, fortune-telling or horoscopes”, “I valued money, comforts, pleasures, sport, etc. more than the things of God”, “I forced someone to accept views contrary to his beliefs”).
The Church requires not only children to make a cyclical and as frequent examination of conscience as possible. After all, before each reception of communion, one should confess beforehand. And an effective confession is possible only after an examination of conscience. So, if we notoriously, systematically and from childhood tell ourselves, for example, that skepticism towards the teachings of the Church is a sin, we will eventually train our conscience in such a way that every small doubt about its noble intentions will cause reproaches. Do you see the perfidy of such calculated indoctrination? How does all this affect the receptive minds of children? How for elderly people who have never been allowed to know another truth, so for decades, bombarded with the teachings of the Church, they systematically examined their conscience? Let us not forget about the omnipresent political and social Catholic pressure that is conducive to such training. For, if during the examination of conscience somebody escaped distinguishing the sin of ‘acting against the teaching of the Church’, blessed priests will remind through every possible channel of mass media that ‘an attack on the Church is an attack on God, family and our country‘. And so for many years.
The three apostles were shocked this afternoon when they realized that their Master’s religion made no provision for spiritual selfexamination. All religions before and after the times of Jesus, even Christianity, carefully provide for conscientious self-examination. But not so with the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ philosophy of life is without religious introspection. The carpenter’s son never taught character building; he taught character growth, declaring that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. But Jesus said nothing which would proscribe selfanalysis as a prevention of conceited egotism.
140:8.27 (1583.1)
Conscientious Progress
Despite so many contradictions on the issue of the formation of conscience itself, the teachings of the Church are in some places consistent with the position of The Urantia Book. Conscience develops and is formed with time; both from the point of view of an individual – with age, and from a broader perspective – following the civilizational progress of entire social groups. It is for this reason that the papers indicate that it is wrong to judge the “primitive religion of man” or the “religion of primitive man” by modern standards. This can be seen in the Church itself, which with the passage of time (although quietly and painfully) modifies its messages and supposedly unchangeable divine laws. In this case, it should be considered a positive trend. Although they are reluctant to admit it, the past actions of people of the Church, in accordance with the word of God, were often inhuman and hideous. They are still there. Here again, the message quoted in the introduction fits like a glove: “Religion has at one time or another sanctioned all sorts of contrary and inconsistent behavior, has at some time approved of practically all that is now regarded as immoral or sinful”.
What the Church is well aware, and on which so willingly preys, is also evident from the Urantia Papers. The shape of conscience is influenced by customs and peer pressure. Not God. Development, to put it simply, is about getting to know yourself and following paths that look attractive at a given moment. However, in order to be able to develop, a dose of self-criticism is necessary and support from the environment (or at least as few obstacles as possible). This is what conscience is; a self-critical impulse based on values and ideals that for some reason we have claimed as our own. Thanks to this, a person developing, willy-nilly, adapts his behavior to the rules of the group. Whether we call them holy or sinful, or whether they really are as such. Civilization sometimes forms strange rules, but it is based on them. Conscience is not picky and will accept them all. Thanks to this, it makes it easier for us to live side by side; so that we can grow together. And this is its basic task.
The Voice of God
Just because conscience is not God’s chastisement does not mean that we should ignore it. Its mechanism results from purely psychological reactions, but as The Urantia Book says, “it is not to be despised”.
It is worth putting a subjective, healthy margin next to the conscience, because the true and authentic voice of God functions in us in the form of the Thought Adjuster. And while conscience stings to do right, it is through the Adjuster’s signals that we can learn what is really good. Conscience is a typically human, evolutionary tool that allows us to distinguish what is currently considered bad; The Thought Adjuster tells us what is simply wrong. These two “evils” do not have to be the same at all. The former can be and often is local and temporary; the latter is always universal and unchangeable. Problems with determining what is what should be solved by individual distinction and personal decisions of each of us and not by the teachings of the priests.
I have no conscience
The closer I feel God, the further I am from the Church; although it seemed to me that I could not go any further. When preparing materials like this one, I rub my eyes in amazement and still can’t believe how much universal truths can be distorted and how distasteful the actions of this organization are because of it. The Church never ceases to surprise me. And not only in this case he considers himself God. Robbing one’s conscience is one of the peak symptoms of its perfidy, because not only does it really seem to be something superhuman – intangible and difficult to define – but the vast majority of people hear it. After all, everyone has felt the discomfort of remorse at least once. Conscience even sounds a bit like the voice of God. I believe that it is not (pseudo) miracles, not tradition, but poisoned consciences that most effectively keep the members in the hypocritical reins of the Church; it is also the strongest lure for the undecided and doubting. The Urantia Book once again knocks the tools of manipulation out of the priests’ hands.
Take a few moments for introspection. Evaluate for yourself what your conscience tells you. Then think about which of these exhortations are universal and serve the good of each and every one of us, and which result from religious indoctrination, so they are related to the rites or privileges of specific groups of people. Although it may not be easy, patiently train your conscience to be a good person, a brother to others; not a soldier fighting on behalf of an organization greedy for money and power.
The sense of guilt (not the consciousness of sin) comes either from interrupted spiritual communion or from the lowering of one’s moral ideals. Deliverance from such a predicament can only come through the realization that one’s highest moral ideals are not necessarily synonymous with the will of God. Man cannot hope to live up to his highest ideals, but he can be true to his purpose of finding God and becoming more and more like him.
103:4.3 (1133.3)