Richard Urban | Daily Inspiration

The god of this World Has Blinded the Minds of the Unbelievers

The Richard Urban Show
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1 Samuel 2

³⁰I am the Lord, the God of Israel. I promised to always let your family serve me as priests, but now I tell you that I cannot do this any longer! I honor anyone who honors me, but I put a curse on anyone who hates me. ³¹The time will come when I will kill you and everyone else in your family. Not one of you will live to an old age.

Matthew 3

¹³Jesus left Galilee and went to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. ¹⁴But John kept objecting and said, “I ought to be baptized by you. Why have you come to me?”

¹⁵Jesus answered, “For now this is how it should be, because we must do all that God wants us to do.” Then John agreed.

Ignorance and Atheism

3. Spiritual Blindness and Delusion

The unbelievers… are like the depths of
darkness
In a vast deep ocean,
Overwhelmed with billow,
Topped by billow,
Topped by dark clouds:
Depths of darkness,
One above another:
If a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly
see it!
For any to whom God gives not light,
There is no light!
Qur’an 24.40

Blind is this world. Few are those who clearly see.
As birds escape from a net, few go to a blissful state.
Dhammapada 174 (Buddhism)

This vast universe is a wheel, the wheel of Brahman. Upon it are all creatures that are subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Round and round it turns, and never stops. As long as the individual self thinks it is separate from the Lord, it revolves upon the wheel in bondage to the laws of birth, death, and rebirth…
The Lord supports this universe, which is made up of the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual soul, forgetful of the Lord, attaches itself to pleasure and thus is bound.
Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.6-8 (Hinduism)

On a certain occasion the Exalted One was seated in the open air, on a night of inky darkness, and oil lamps were burning. Swarms of winged insects kept falling into these oil lamps and thereby met their end, came to destruction and utter ruin. Seeing this, the Exalted One saw the meaning in it and uttered this verse of uplift,
They hasten up and past, but miss the real;
a bondage ever new they cause to grow.
Just as the flutterers fall into the lamp,
so some are bent on what they see and hear.
Udana 72 (Buddhism)

To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.

Titus 1.15

The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.

2 Corinthians 4.4

Fools dwelling in darkness, but thinking them-selves wise and erudite, go round and round, by various tortuous paths, like the blind led by the blind.

Katha Upanishad 1.2.5 (Hinduism)

The soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance. Philosophy sees the terrible nature of her confinement, and that the captive through desire is led to conspire in her own captivity.

Plato, Phaedo (Hellenism)

Woe to Those Who Call Evil Good and Good Evil

The Richard Urban Show
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Cheon Seong Gyeong 2233

God created heaven and earth, not just to see human beings, but for the sake of love. God cannot possess love by Himself, nor can He feel it on His own. Certainly, He contains love, but He can-not experience the kind of love that overflows with the joy of being in per-fect harmony all by Himself. No matter how beautiful a flower may be, it must give off a fragrance; no matter how sweet its fragrance is, the wind must blow for that fragrance to be spread about. So, as the flower needs the wind, God, too, needs an object partner who sill stimulate Him.(210-223,1990.12.23)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1121

Instead of beating His enemy to death God must set the condition of having loved him. In the same way the person standing in the position of Adam has to set up a condition of having loved the enemy Satan. If you endure over and over again while being persecuted, and prevail over all the tears, blood and sweat, until the enemy naturally surrenders to you, and return embracing God’s love, then you can receive the blessing. That is when Satan will let you go. You must receive this public approval; “You can now become a child qualified to go to the heavenly kingdom.” Who must sign this approval? Satan must. After Satan signs this, you will sign it, and then True Parents must sign it. You can only stand before God only after getting this signature from True Parents. That is the heavenly kingdom. (141-202, 1986.2.22)

Ignorance and Atheism

2. False Views

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5.20

Beings who are ashamed of what is not shameful, and are not ashamed of what is shameful, embrace wrong views and go to a woeful state.

Beings who see fear in what is not to be feared, and see no fear in the fearsome, embrace false views and go to a woeful state.

Beings who imagine faults in the faultless and perceive no wrong in what is wrong, embrace false views and go to a woeful state.
Dhammapada 316-18 (Buddhism)

Whenever people are deceived and their notions are at variance with reality, it is clear that the error slips in through resemblances [to reality].
Plato, Phaedrus (Hellenism)

When the Tao was lost, there was virtue;
When virtue was lost, there was benevolence;
When benevolence was lost, there was
rectitude;
When rectitude was lost, there were rules of
propriety.
Propriety is a wearing thin of loyalty and good
faith,
And the beginning of disorder.
Tao Te Ching 38 (Taoism)

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Philosophers, saints and sages set out to pave the way of goodness for the people of their times. Yet so many of their accomplishments have become added spiritual burdens for the people of today. Consider this objectively. Has any philosopher ever arrived at the knowledge that could solve humanity’s deepest anguish? Has any sage ever clearly illuminated the path by resolving all the fundamental questions of human life and the universe? Have not their teachings and philosophies raised more unsettled questions, thus giving rise to skepticism? (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Introduction)

Despite the fact that human beings are meant to live attending God as their Parent and to follow His guidance day by day, many people are ignorant of God’s existence. Taking one more step, they proclaim, “God is dead.” More and more, God is being removed from human society. Who made such a world, God or human beings? (135:268, December 15, 1985)

Serious problems are rampant in society, including the confusion of value systems, moral corruption, drug addiction, terrorism, racial discrimination, unequal distribution of wealth, atheistic communism, violations of human rights, war and genocide. These evils, which threaten humanity’s destruction, are the inevitable consequences of atheistic materialism, secular humanism and hedonism,which have at their core the rejection of God. All these are the effects of the declining faith and spiritual exhaustion of this generation. (135:221, November 16, 1985)

I am not one to condemn humanism altogether, but the problem with the humanism we see today is that it is based on a thoroughly atheistic outlook. Once we deny the existence of God and the significance of the Creator’s creative acts, human beings are reduced to just a handful of dust. It is a perspective that considers human beings no better than mere machines. This was precisely the fallacy in Marxist-Leninism. If we say there is no God, and that human beings are no better than machines or animals, then there is no basis for morality. Without a belief in the spirit and eternal life, people cease to feel responsible for each other and commit atrocities against other human beings. (234:232, August 22, 1992)

Although They Knew God They Did Not Honor Him

Happy New Year!

The Richard Urban Show
#81-Who Will Give the Faithful Report?

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John 18

¹⁵Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. That disciple knew the high priest, and he followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest’s house. ¹⁶Peter stayed outside near the gate. But the other disciple came back out and spoke to the girl at the gate. She let Peter go in, ¹⁷but asked him, “Aren’t you one of that man’s followers?”

“No, I am not!” Peter answered.

¹⁸It was cold, and the servants and temple police had made a charcoal fire. They were warming themselves around it, when Peter went over and stood near the fire to warm himself.

Job 7

^{¹⁸Why do you test us
    from sunrise to sunset?
¹⁹Won’t you look away
just long enough
    for me to swallow?
²⁰Why do you watch us so closely?
    What’s it to you, if I sin?
Why am I your target
    and such a heavy burden?
²¹Why do you refuse to forgive?
Soon you won’t find me,
    because I’ll be dead.}

Ignorance and Atheism

Many religions regard ignorance as the cause of evil in human life. being ignorant of God and the purpose of life, people’s values become confused, and consequently they act wrongly. the apostle Paul taught that ignorance of God lay at the root of all forms of license and immorality. in Islam it is called “forgetting God,” causing people to deviate from the path and lose their souls. in Buddhism, this ignorance leads to grasping after self and begets delusion (moha). Many scriptures warn against the illusory goals and vanities that infect worldly life.
In their search for knowledge, people have embraced various philosophies, yet it is clear that none of them have illuminated the truth one hundred percent. oftentimes, valid insights are mixed with false views, leading to confusion and conflict over values, to skepticism and even atheism. this too is the result of humanity’s fundamental ignorance, whose source stems from the human Fall, according to Father Moon. as a prophet of the twentieth century who lived through the struggle with communism, he is particularly concerned about this contemporary form of ignorance.
The concluding passages describe humanity’s spiritual blindness. they describe ignorance as a veil that obscures the faculty of insight. the buddha used metaphors such as moths drawn to perish in a lamp to represent people’s attraction to the illusory vanities of this world. in Hinduism and Jainism, this blindness (avidya) is what binds people to the wheel of birth-and-death (samsara), binding them sense pleasures instead of seeking reality itself. Plato’s famous Myth of the cave speaks to this topic. Father Moon likewise describes a pervasive delusion, born of the human Fall, that leaves human beings blind to spiritual truth and totally unable to know God’s inner heart.

Ignorance of God

Be not like those who forget God, and therefore He made them forget their own souls!
Qur’an 59.19

Although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their sense-less minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Romans 1.21-25

The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are all corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none that does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven
upon the children of men,
to see if there are any that act wisely,
that seek after God.
They have all gone astray,
they are all alike corrupt;
there is none that does good,
no, not one.
Have they no knowledge,
all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord ?
Psalm 14.1-4

Whoever wants to do some evil against another does not remember God.
Proverb (African Traditional Religions)

He who does not clearly understand Heaven will not be pure in virtue. He who has not mastered the Way will find himself without any accept-able path of approach. He who does not under-stand the Way is pitiable indeed!
Chuang Tzu 11 (Taoism)

No man lies to his neighbor until he has denied the Root. It happened once that Rabbi Reuben was in Tiberias on the Sabbath, and a philosopher asked him, “Who is the most hateful man in the world?” He replied, “The man who denies his Creator.” “How so?” asked the philosopher. Rabbi Reuben answered, “‘Honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, thou shalt not covet.’ No man denies the derivative [the Ten Commandments] until he has previously denied the Root [God], and no man sins unless he has denied Him who com-manded him not to commit that sin.”
Tosefta Shevuot 3.6 (Judaism)

The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth.

“There is no God,” they say, “no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?” Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction.

Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue their unclean ends. Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they still maintain with complete assurance, “Gratification of lust is the highest that life can offer.”

Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings.

“I got this today,” they say; “tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful. I am happy. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity.”

This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell.
Bhagavad-Gita 16.7-16 (Hinduism)

Only Rev. Moon’s Ideology Is the Hope

Petition Congress Rally-January 6th, 2021, Washington DC

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Cheon Seong Gyeong 1924

There are 3 billion people living in Asia. We are now living in the time of the Pacific cultural sphere. Such a time has come. History has passed through a riv-er culture, through the Mediterranean cultural sphere, and has come around to the Atlantic cultural sphere. Now we are entering an age where we can leap into the cultural sphere of outer space, centering on the Pacific cultural sphere. How to continue linking all this together is a question for the world’s political tacticians to explore, but they will not find an answer. I have gathered the prominent politicians of the world to countless international conferences. Their conclusion is that only Rev. Moon’s ideology is the hope for this age – and not America, France, Germany, Britain or even the Soviet Union. (174-48, 1988.2.23)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1265

What do true parents signify? They are the symbol of hope for everyone. They are the absolute symbol of hope for fallen humankind. They are the fruit of past history, the center of this era, and the starting point of the future of hope which connects to the world we live in today. (35-236, 1970.10.19)

Egoism and Pride

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

In your walk of faith, regard arrogance as the enemy, regard stubbornness as the enemy, and regard insisting on your own way as the enemy. (67:139, June 1, 1973)\

Because people are self-centered in their thinking, they speak ill of others. When others have some-thing good, they want to take it from them. Such people are doomed. What about you? Is your mind self-centered or other-centered? No one can solve this problem but you. (36:183, November 29, 1970)

People whose philosophy of life is “me first” are doomed to perish. In pursuing their own desires they harm others and damage their nation—such people will perish. Individuals should not take advantage of their nation; rather, individuals should offer themselves for their nation. That is a duty of citizens.
People are not meant to live for themselves. Yet today many live only for their own sake. They say, “I live for me.” They are people to be pitied, like orphans who have no parents or siblings. (24:20-21, June 22, 1969)

The first step towards the Fall was the appearance of individualism. It was thinking that nothing in the world matters but me. The next step was to think people have unlimited freedom: “What’s this with God telling us we cannot eat that fruit? Why should there be any rules to restrict us? We can do as we please.” Is it freedom when people do just as they please? It should not be that way. (49:190, October 10, 1971)

From the day the first human ancestors fell and received the blood of Satan, people unconsciously became arrogant and have used others to satisfy their needs. They have pursued that direction throughout human history. (46:142, August 13, 1971)

What is the Fall? It is to unlawfully take what belongs to someone else. Self-centeredness ruined the world. Knowing this universal principle, human beings should return to the world of oneness, but instead they continue to play the game of pulling the world for themselves. That is evil. (170:174, November 15, 1987)

Human beings have inherited Satan’s nature: the inclination to regard everything, even God, from a self-centered viewpoint. (91:242, February 23, 1977)

Are Americans proud of their money? Do not be proud of it before God. God can create money as much as He wants. Nor should Americans be proud of their power and military might: God is all-powerful. God is all-knowing: who can challenge Him with knowledge? It doesn’t matter that you earned a Ph.D. from Harvard; you are all the same when you stand naked before Him. Your knowl-edge will not gain you admission into the Kingdom of Heaven. All who are proud of these things will fall into hell. (358:162, October 14, 2001)

I know that American culture upholds individualism. However, there must not be individualism that disregards the relationship between God, the Subject, and human beings, His objects. Selfish individualism is destructive, and its prevalence is driving America into a corner.

Now America should recover the essence of Christianity by seeking for God’s original way of life: The individual lives for the sake of the family; families contribute to the community; communities give their strength to the nation; nations exist to benefit the world; and the world exists for the sake of God. These are God’s heavenly ethics. If we practice it, then what is God’s is also mine, and whatever I do for God also benefits me. Living for the sake of God is ultimately living for my own benefit. (69:88-89, October 20, 1973)

Selfish individualism is Satan’s creation, a result of the Fall. As Satan centers on himself, he divides people by having them center on themselves. Thus one [an individual] becomes two [mind and body in conflict.] Two [a couple] become four [the man’s mind, the man’s body, the woman’s mind and the woman’s body.]

Why did America become such an individualistic nation? It is because Satan is exerting his dominion there. The so-called right of privacy is at the heart of American individualism. Yet this individualism is causing the family to break down, the society to break down, and the nation to weaken. Individualism is a most fearful thing; it leads people to hell. (361:234, November 25, 2001)

What is the origin of the dirt that has stained human history? It begins from ourselves. Dirt did not just fall on our first ancestors; they made themselves dirty. How did they become dirty? They thought of themselves as being the center of everything; egoism and selfishness are what stained them.

If our ancestors had lived in service to what is more precious than themselves, then they would not have taken the path to defilement. What is more precious than oneself? We are resultant beings; therefore, we should live for the Causal Being. God is that most precious existence, and we should live for Him. Had people truly lived for God and thought of God before thinking of themselves, we could never have become evil. (92:58-59, March 13, 1977)

Many of you soon become arrogant and think, “I am a member of the Unification Church. I have worked for the church for three years, so it’s about time that Reverend Moon gives me the Blessing. Then he should recognize me, and so should the church.” What a pity if you think that way! In our church there are two ways of life: arrogance and humility. The way of arrogance leads to hell, while the way of humility leads to heaven. What about you: do you belong to heaven or to hell? (92:71, March 13, 1977)

The Fool Who Thinks He Is Wise Is Called a Fool Indeed

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Luke 24

⁴⁴Jesus said to them, “While I was still with you, I told you that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Books of the Prophets, and in the Psalms^[d] had to happen.”

Proverbs 30

30 These are the sayings
    and the message
    of Agur son of Jakeh.
Someone cries out to God,
    “I am completely worn out!
    How can I last?^[a]
²I am far too stupid
    to be considered human.
³I never was wise,
    and I don’t understand
    what God is like.”

⁴Has anyone gone up to heaven
    and come back down?
    Has anyone grabbed hold
    of the wind?
Has anyone wrapped up the sea
    or marked out boundaries
    for the earth?
If you know of any
    who have done such things,
    then tell me their names
    and their children’s names.

⁵Everything God says is true—
    and it’s a shield for all
    who come to him for safety.
⁶Don’t change what God has said!
    He will correct you and show
    that you are a liar.

Egoism and Pride

Egoism, the inordinate preoccupation with one’s own self, makes people blind to the reality of God. the problem is compounded by pride—pride in oneself, pride in one’s wealth, knowledge or power. ego-ism and pride close us off from God. thinking ourselves to be independent, we cannot recognize that our very existence is dependent upon ultimate reality. pride makes us blind to the needs of others and too stubborn to accept help from others. pride makes us unable even to take an accurate measure of ourselves.

In Christianity, pride is regarded as the first step to the fall and rebellion against God. in Buddhism, grasping after the self and the sense of ego is the chief of all cravings and the deepest root of ignorance. in the Indic religions egoism is a fetter that binds people to the wheel of rebirth.

Father Moon reiterates these universal teachings, but with particular emphasis on the social manifestations of pride and egoism among the affluent people of today’s wealthy and powerful nations. he warns America in particular that it had better repent for its arrogance, which is seeping into every cranny of the social fabric, or inevitably it will decline. he also links egoism and pride to the human Fall, which implanted that wicked propensity deep in the human mind.

Verily man is rebellious
For he thinks himself independent.
Lo! unto thy Lord is the return.
Qur’an 96.6-8

Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16.18

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
and shrewd in their own sight!
Isaiah 5.21

Selfishness may be sweet for oneself, but no har-mony of the whole can come from it.

Osashizu (Tenrikyo)

We maintain that all pain and suffering are results of want of Harmony, and that the one terrible and only cause of the disturbance of Harmony is selfishness in some form or another.

Helena Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy

In thinking, “This is I” and “That is mine,” he binds himself with his self, as does a bird with a snare.

Maitri Upanishad 3.2 (Hinduism)

“Sons have I; wealth have I”: Thus is the fool worried. Verily, he himself is not his own. Whence sons? Whence wealth?

Dhammapada 62 (Buddhism)

Where egoism exists, Thou are not experienced,Where Thou art, is not egoism.

Adi Granth, Maru-ki-Var, M.1, p. 1092 (Sikhism)

But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked;
you waxed fat, you grew thick, you became sleek;
then he forsook God who made him,
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
Deuteronomy 32.15

Nzame [God] is on high, man is on the earth.
Yeye O, Yalele, God is God, man is man.
Everyone in his house, everyone for himself.
Fang Tradition (African Traditional Religions)

For the Lord of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up and high;
against all the cedars of Lebanon
lofty and lifted up;
and against all the oaks of Bashan;
against all the high mountains
and against all the lofty hills;
against every high tower,
and against every fortified wall;
against all the ships of Tarshish,
and against all the beautiful craft.
And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the pride of men shall be brought low;
and the l ord alone will be exalted in that day.
Isaiah 2.12-17

The fool who thinks he is wise is called a fool indeed.

Dhammapada 63 (Buddhism)

Whoever proclaims himself good,

know, goodness approaches him not.

Adi Granth, Gauri Sukhmani 12, M.5, p. 278 (Sikhism)

Confucius said, A faultless man I cannot hope ever to meet; the most I can hope for is to meet a man of fixed principles. Yet where all around I see Nothing pretending to be Something, Emptiness pretending to be Fullness, Penury pretending to be Affluence, even a man of fixed principles will be none too easy to find.

Analects 7.25 (Confucianism)

He who tiptoes cannot stand;
He who strides cannot walk.
He who shows himself is not conspicuous;
He who considers himself right is not illustrious;
He who brags will have no merit;
He who boasts will not endure.
From the point of view of the Way, these are like “excessive food and useless excrescences” which all creatures detest.
He who has the Way does not abide in them.
Tao Te Ching 24 (Taoism)

Pride has seven forms:
Boasting that one is lower than the lowly,
Or equal with the equal, or greater than
Or equal to the lowly
Is called the pride of selfhood.
Boasting that one is equal to those
Who by some quality are better than oneself
Is the pride of being superior. Thinking
That one is higher than the extremely high,
Who fancy themselves to be superior,
Is pride greater than pride;
Like an abscess in a tumor
It is very vicious.
Conceiving an “I” through ignorance
In the five empty [aggregates]
Which are called the appropriation
Is said to be the pride of thinking “I.”
Thinking one has won fruits not yet
Attained is pride of conceit.
Praising oneself for faulty deeds
Is known by the wise as wrongful pride.
Deriding oneself, thinking
“I am senseless,” is called
The pride of lowliness.
Such briefly are the seven prides.
Nagarjuna, Precious Garland 406-12 (Buddhism)