This event has over the centuries been called by many names.  The end of the world.  The end of time.  The end times.  The day of judgment.  The last judgment.  The day of reckoning.  Doomsday.  And no doubt many other names depending upon time and place.

On this day, the world as we know it will come to an end.  The dead will be awakened from their slumber to be judged by God.  Good actions will be weighted against sins.  If the bad outweigh the good you’re consigned to the fires of hell.  The reverse will send you to paradise.  There is an element of mercy in that all efforts will be made by our Creator to spare a sinner from eternal damnation.  There is also plenty of disagreement; for example, some Talmudists believe that hell is not forever.  There is general agreement that on Sabbath the fires are extinguished.  Other religions have their own beliefs and their own disagreements.

Such beliefs tax the modern mind.  We have mapped the human genome, and thanks to the internet we have instant communication and knowledge at our fingertips.  Many intelligent and educated men and women believe in God, but find themselves at odd with their religious doctrines.  Their faith is precious, but concepts like the end of the world are not believable to them.  People ask themselves a lot of questions.  Some examples:  Why would God want to destroy a world He has created?  A lot of love and efforts has been poured on this planet.  How do you reconcile that with its total annihilation?  Are we talking of our planet only or the whole universe?  How can a merciful God throws people in the fire, and for all eternity at that?  How can a body that has been in the grave for centuries if not millennia be reconstituted?  Of course God can do anything.  The only problem is that He does not break His own natural laws, nor does He engage in magic tricks.  It is blasphemy to even think like that.

The 21st century person want intelligent explanations.  Therefore, with the help of the Urantia Book let me try to do that.  A word of caution.  This is a complex matter.  Therefore, I will do my best to be clear and concise.

First of all YOU is not simply a human body:  a collection of limbs, senses, organs, and a material brain governing the whole thing.  You are so much more than that.  Piecing it together from the Book, this is who YOU are.

The material body is your starting point.  You literally start as two cells joining together and you will grow from here.

Early on you will receive a Personality (not to be confused with the genetic package) from the Universal Father.  It is unique, no one (material or spiritual being) has the same one.  And, yes, that may explain why identical twins are in some aspects different.

Around the age of 6 or 7 you will receive a Thought Adjuster (also known as a Mystery Monitor).  It is a Fragment of God and it stays with you for the sole purpose of spiritualizing you.  You get it when you perform your first moral act.  For example challenging older boys who are beating a younger child.  There is a mind-blowing series of five papers on the Thought Adjuster in the Book.

The Soul is again different from the above gifts you receive from the Paradise Father.  It is slowly evolving through the interactions of your Personality, your genetic package, the influence of your environment, the choices you make (within existing constraints) and last but not least your Thought Adjuster.

Upon mortal dissolution, your Soul will be judged and a decision is made as to whether you will survive or not (more on that later).  If you’re a sleeping survivor (more on that later) a Seraphic Host will preserve the information of who you are so that in due time you can be repersonalized and reassembled.

What happens next in the context of being adjudicated as to whether you will survive or not?  Let me start by reassuring you.  The odds are heavily in your favor.  Everything possible is done before rejecting a Soul.  Context is taken into consideration.  For example if you kill a person in self-defense, or murder in cold blood but then pay for it and be truly repentant.  (These are examples only and may not coincide with the views the Superuniverse Personalities will take).  Ultimately, one main thing is asked from you:  To believe in God.  Even if you don’t, but it is determined that you have the potential to believe in Him, then you’re given a chance.  What about a really evil person?  He/she will most probably be annihilated.  The Book puts it this way:  “Undiluted evil, complete error, willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically suicidal.”

Who is responsible for determining your fate?  The Universal Censors.  The book explains it this way:

In some way not fully understood, the Universal Censors are able to gain possession of an epitome of the human life as it is embodied in the Adjuster’s duplicate transcription of the spiritual values and morontia meanings of the indwelt mind.  The Censors are able to appropriate the Adjuster’s version of the deceased human’s survival character and spiritual qualities, and all this data, together with the seraphic records, is available for presentation at the time of the adjudication of the individual concerned.  This information is also used to confirm those superuniverse mandates which make it possible for certain ascenders immediately to begin their morontia careers, upon mortal dissolution to proceed to the mansion worlds ahead of a formal termination of a planetary dispensation.

Lest you conclude that God plays no part in this process, another part of the Book tells us that “These unique beings are the judgment of the Deity.”

Some explanations are in order.  First of all your Adjuster has a record of who you were.  From a spiritual and moral viewpoints only.  If during your lifetime you managed to build a financial empire, your Adjuster doesn’t give a hoot about that!

Second, your Seraphic Host also has the equivalent information.  This angel may be responsible for 1 (advanced) mortal, 10, 100, or 1000.

What is a planetary dispensation?  Unless a planet is advanced, its mortals may be required to “sleep” and wait for a planetary dispensation which will allow them to be repersonalized en masse.  Advanced mortals on this same planet may not be required to wait.  A planetary dispensation as far as I remember is about 1000 years.  That doesn’t mean that you have to wait for 1000 years.  Say there was a planetary dispensation in 2000.  If somebody dies in 1999, he will have to wait for 1 year.  Somebody that died in 2000 will have to sleep for 1000 years!  Since you’re wholly unconscious, whether you sleep for a year or 1000 is of little importance.  You will feel that you moved from the physical realm to the morontia (next stage of existence) one in no time.  An extract from the Book follows:

When the more spiritually and cosmically advanced mortals die, they proceed immediately to the mansion worlds; in general this provision operates with those who have had assigned to them personal Seraphic Guardians.  Other mortals may be detained until such time as the adjudication of their affairs has been completed, after which they may proceed to the mansion worlds, or they may be assigned to the ranks of the sleeping survivors who will be repersonalized en masse at the end of the current planetary dispensation.

I pause here to make two points:

First I suggest that the planetary dispensation was understood to be a time of judgment for everybody that ever lived on our planet.  Thereafter, the world was supposed to come to an end.  From the information the Book has provided us, you now know that this is wrong.  You also understand the origin of this misunderstanding.

Next we need to ask the status of our planet.  Do we need to wait for a planetary dispensation or do we repersonalize after 3 days (the minimum time required for different administrators to complete the procedures concerning you).  The status of our planet has often been discussed when my group of readers met to discuss the Book.  As you can appreciate, there were different views.  As far as I am concerned I remember reading in the Book that, by and large, we translate to the next stage after 3 days.  Despite the fact that we are still a backward planet, this exception was made because Jesus incarnated on Urantia.

What happen if a mortal does not survive?  The Personality returns to God and as far as I can remember is never used again.  The Thought Adjuster returns to its specific sphere.  It will await until it receives instructions to indwell the mind of another mortal (usually on another planet).  It is now an experienced Adjuster and will probably be of great value to its new partner.  Mozart and Beethoven, Shakespeare and Moliere may have had an Adjuster who partnered with great composers and  great writers who did not survive.

Note that the adjuster leaves if the mind is gone; example, if the person is in a coma or in case of insanity.  If the person had previously (before the illness) made the decision to survive, the Adjuster will return, thus ensuring the survival status of the mortal in question.

On reasonably advanced planets, the knowledge recently imparted to Urantians is routinely known.  On such planets, some people may elect not to survive (probably a very small percentage).  The power to choose is always available.  Nobody will ever force you to embark on the ascending mortal adventure.

Always remember that fairness and mercy are the foundation of this whole process.  The Seraphim will provide the necessary context taking into consideration the conditions prevailing on the planet at a given time and place.  The Book describes it as follows:

The seraphic court advisers serve extensively as defenders of mortals.  Not that there ever exists any disposition to be unfair to the lowly creatures of the realms, but while justice demands the adjudication of every default in the climb towards divine perfection, mercy requires that every such misstep be fairly adjudged in accordance with the creature nature and the divine purpose.  These angels are the exponents and examplification of the element of mercy inherent in divine justice – of fairness based on the knowledge of the underlying facts of personal motives and racial tendencies.

Finally, even though we survive, we need to pay for major sins we committed.  They are cosmic debts.  We repay them by doing specific tasks that will be assigned to us.

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