Science & Materialism Vs. A Religion About Jesus & The Weakness of Both, Part 6

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  We continue our study of Urantia Paper 195 - After Pentecost, which is a succinct summation of the spread of Christianity as a religion about Jesus and some of the difficulties that Christianity has overcome since Jesus walked on earth. Also recounted is its amazing resilience and strength. Last week we read Section 5. The Modern Problem, this week we'll unpack,Section 6. Materialism. What an amazing blessing to have the help of scholars like Chuck Thurston and Charles Olivea with this amazing and important paper. We've invited them back this week and also look forward to the participation of our regular callers like Marvin Gawryn as well as the lively chats that occur on our chat board with great friends and faithful listeners. Certainly we all have thoughts about materialism. But this section starts out saying this, "Scientists have unintentionally precipitated mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the moral bank of the ages..."   Later, it dramatically states, "Materialism reduces man to a soulless automaton and constitutes him merely an arithmetical symbol finding a helpless place in the mathematical formula of an unromantic and mechanistic universe."  It goes on to say, "To say that mind "emerged" from matter explains nothing. If the universe were merely a mechanism and mind were unapart from matter, we would never have two differing interpretations of any observed phenomenon. The concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are not inherent in either physics or chemistry. A machine cannot know, much less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness." This paper and this section are beyond thought provoking. Please join us for another great study of this remarkable paper!