Vol. 3: Topical and Doctrinal Studies
Prayer and Worship
I. NATURE WORSHIP
1. Early worship was suggested by nature objects close at hand.
(UB 85:0.2).
2. Man has worshipped everything on the face of the earth — including himself.
(UB 85:0.4).
3. The first object of worship was a stone.
(UB 85:1.1).
4. Hills and mountains were early worshipped; gods lived on mountains, demons in caves.
(UB 85:1.5).
5. The cults of tree worship are among the oldest religions.
(UB 85:2.3).
6. Clouds, hail, windstorms, thunder and lightning overawed early man.
(UB 85:4.3).
7. Nature worship led to the deification of sun, moon, and stars.
(UB 85:5.1).
8. Fire was long worshipped.
(UB 85:4.4).
9. Man’s early fear became religious as nature became personalized, spiritized, and eventually deified.
(UB 86:0.2).
II. CHANCE AND LUCK
1. Early man lived in fear of chance — existence was a gamble.
(UB 86:1.4).
2. Even the wise man said: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
(UB 86:1.6).
3. The savage personalized everything — both nature and chance.
(UB 86:2.3).
4. Presently, good luck was associated with good spirits — bad luck with bad spirits.
(UB 86:6.4).
5. The savage willingly paid the premiums of fear and priest gifts toward his magic insurance against bad luck.
(UB 86:7.1).
6. Modern man has removed the insurance business from the realm of priests to the domain of economics.
(UB 86:7.2).
III. THE GHOST CULT
1. Ghost fear was the fountainhead of world religion.
(UB 87:4.1).
2. Men viewed ghosts as having unlimited rights but no duties.
(UB 87:5.1).
3. Self-deprecation was an effort to avoid ghost jealousy. All this led to civilized modesty and restraint.
(UB 87:5.7).
4. The effort to placate ghosts and bribe spirits led to a world philosophy.
(UB 87:5.9).
5. The ghost cult rendered ancestor worship inevitable.
(UB 87:3.1).
6. Evolutionary religion was born of man’s fear of the unknown, the inexplicable, and the incomprehensible.
(UB 90:0.3).
IV. DEATH FEAR
1. To primitive man, death was a shocking combination of chance and mystery.
(UB 86:3.1).
2. Dreams gave origin to the belief in a future life.
(UB 86:4.2).
3. The ghost cult led to the belief in recurring incarnations.
(UB 86:4.5).
4. Death was feared, because it released another ghost to be contended with.
(UB 87:1.1).
5. The funeral service was an effort to get rid of the ghost.
(UB 87:2.3).
6. Man inherited a natural environment, acquired a social environment, and imagined a ghost environment. The state is man’s reaction to natural environment, the home to his social environment, the church to his illusory ghost environment.
(UB 86:6.1).
V. FETISHES, MAGIC, AND CHARMS
1. For ages the “breath of life” was a fetish.
(UB 86:5.13).
2. The doctrine of spirit possession is fetishism.
(UB 88:0.1).
3. Belief in relics is an outgrowth of the fetish cult.
(UB 88:2.1).
4. Magic developed science; astrology led to astronomy; magic numbers to mathematics.
(UB 88:6.5).
5. Magic still lingers — many fossil words afford evidence — spellbound, entrancing, and astonished.
(UB 88:6.7).
6. Ancient magic was the cocoon of modern science.
(UB 88:6.8).
VI. SACRAMENTS AND RITUALS
1. Salvation depended on vows, oaths, pledges, fasting, and prayer. Then came self-denial, suffering, and deprivation.
(UB 87:6.16).
2. The cult of sacrifice evolved into the cult of sacrament.
(UB 89:9.4).
3. Religious observances evolved through placation, avoidance, exorcism, coercion, conciliation, and propitiation to sacrifice, atonement, and redemption.
(UB 90:0.1).
4. Ritual sanctifies custom and perpetuates myths.
(UB 90:5.2).
5. Mysticism often leads to social isolation and religious fanaticism.
(UB 91:7.1).
6. The common people craved consolation and promises of salvation.
(UB 98:4.1).
VII. EVOLVING PRAYER
1. The first prayers were not addressed to God — they were like saying: “Wish me luck.”
(UB 91:0.2).
2. With the coming of God-consciousness, these petitions attained the level of prayer.
(UB 91:0.3).
3. Man prayed before he knew God — when in need or when jubilant.
(UB 91:8.1).
4. Primitive prayer was bargaining, argument, with the gods.
(UB 89:8.8).
5. Early prayer was hardly worship. It sought health, wealth, and life.
(UB 89:8.8).
6. Prayer may be an angry cry for vengeance or the joy of a liberated son of God.
(UB 91:8.7).
VIII. PROVINCE OF PRAYER
1. Prayer is communion between man and his Maker.
(UB 91:2.5).
2. It is impossible to separate the psychological and spiritual aspects of prayer.
(UB 91:3.6).
3. Prayer can never be ethical when the petitioner seeks selfish advantage over his fellows.
(UB 91:4.1).
4. Prayer must not be so prostituted as to become a substitute for action.
(UB 91:4.2).
5. Prayer does not change God, but it may effect great changes in the one who prays.
(UB 91:4.5).
6. Prayer is a sure cure for the habit of criticizing others.
(UB 91:5.3).
7. We should be tolerant of those who pray in primitive fashion.
(UB 91:5.7).
8. Prayer is not the cure for organic diseases.
(UB 91:6.2).
9. Prayer enriches the life; worship illuminates destiny.
(UB 102:4.5).
10. Jesus taught sixteen conditions for effective prayer.
(UB 146:2.1).
IX. TRUE WORSHIP
1. In the highest sense, we worship only the Universal Father.
(UB 5:3.1).
2. Worship is dispatched over the Father’s personality circuit.
(UB 5:3.2).
3. Worship asks nothing for the worshiper.
(UB 5:3.3).
4. From the standpoint of worship, God is one — a unified and personal Deity.
(UB 56:4.5).
5. Worship is the highest joy of Paradise existence.
(UB 27:7.5).
X. REAL RELIGION
1. The early Christian cult was most effective, but is today devitalized by the loss of fundamental ideas.
(UB 87:7.4).
2. No cult will survive unless it embodies some masterful mystery.
(UB 87:7.9).
3. Doctrines may differ, but in worship unity can be realized.
(UB 92:7.4).
4. Religion is the foundation and guiding star of enduring civilization.
(UB 92:7.15).
5. Jesus enlarged the neighbor concept to embrace the whole of humanity.
(UB 103:5.2).
6. The great need of both science and religion is fearless self-criticism.
(UB 103:7.7).
7. The religion of the Hebrews exalted morals, the Greeks beauty. Paul preached faith, hope, and charity. Jesus revealed a religion of love, security, and service.
(UB 196:3.19).
8. To Jesus, prayer was “doing the Father’s will” — a way of religious living.
(UB 196:0.10).
XI. RELIGION AND CIVILIZATION
1. The power of an idea lies not in its truth, but in its vividness of appeal.
(UB 92:3.3).
2. Religion handicaps social development, but without it, there would be no morals or ethics.
(UB 92:3.6).
3. Evolutionary religion is man’s most expensive but effective institution.
(UB 92:3.8).
4. Religion is the efficient scourge which drives indolent mankind from inertia forward to levels of reason and wisdom.
(UB 92:3.9).
5. The church, in fostering racial degeneracy, has retarded civilization.
(UB 99:3.5).
6. In these unsettled times, as never before, man needs the stabilization of sound religion.
(UB 99:4.6).
7. The cosmology of the Urantia revelation is not inspired.
(UB 101:4.2).
8. Every new revelation gives rise to a new cult — with new and appropriate symbolism.
(UB 87:7.6).
9. There have been five epochal revelations on Urantia: