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


The Richard Urban Show

#81-Who Will Give the Faithful Report?

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

Sample letters to Congressman about opposing election fraud on January 6th, 2021.

1 Samuel 2

30 I 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. 31 The 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

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

15 Jesus 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
#81-Who Will Give the Faithful Report?

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

Sample letters to Congressman about opposing election fraud on January 6th, 2021.

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?

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

Sample letters to Congressman about opposing election fraud on January 6th, 2021.

John 18

15 Simon 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. 16 Peter 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, 17 but asked him, “Aren’t you one of that man’s followers?”

“No, I am not!” Peter answered.

18 It 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

18 Why do you test us
    from sunrise to sunset?
19 Won’t you look away
just long enough
    for me to swallow?
20 Why do you watch us so closely?
    What’s it to you, if I sin?
Why am I your target
    and such a heavy burden?
21 Why 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.

  1. 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)