Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining us from you're in New York today. Is that correct?

Byron Belitsos
I'm actually not. I moved to Washington, DC, so I'm in Washington.

Greg Voisen
Washington, DC. So, Byron is a returning guest, and he used to be in San Rafael, but we're going to be speaking with him this morning about one of his many books. But this is the newest one “Reason and Revelation: Scholarly Essays about The Urantia Book, and it's Byron Belitsos, am I saying it right? He was on the show a couple of other times. We were just actually speaking about that. We're gonna put a link to his other book, “Your Evolving Souls”, one of his many books, which he did a podcast with us back in August of 2017 and he always was also on the show for a podcast 117 “The Center Within” and that was in 2009 so he has quite a history with us. We actually reached out to him because we saw that he'd published a new book, and he responded, and we appreciate that. And I think for my listeners, let's just give them a tad bit about you. He was telling me that this bio isn't complete, but it is a bio, and we want all of our listeners to go to Rodan Institute, r-o-d-a-n-i-n-s-t-i-t-u-t-e.org, after you listen to this podcast and you want to learn more, go there and leave your information, put in your name, your email address, and they will get back to you. And this is a new site for him that he's just launched, but I'm going to tell him a little bit about you. Byron. He's a leading expert in the Urantia book with training in psychology and philosophy, history and theology, and he just got his is a master's degree in theology. And where'd you get that from

Byron Belitsos
Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Greg Voisen
Okay, he is a publisher. He's a real publisher, meaning he publishes his own books and he publishes other books as well. And the coauthor of numerous acclaim and award winning books, including many related to the urantian Revelation, a student of the raja book for many decades, and he's spoken about its teachings at many conferences and innumerable radio and TV shows. And he is also the founder of origin press. That's originpress.org There we actually have a later interview today that's coming up with Ken Wilber, and he has actually worked with Ken. It looks like even published maybe some of his original books at one point.

Byron Belitsos
Yeah, no, I haven't published Ken, but I was part of his Institute as well, the integral Institute, and known him a very long time. Yes, yeah.

Greg Voisen
So, this is, this is my spirituality day. I got all spirituality people on today, so it's a good thing. Well, I appreciate you joining us on Inside personal growth. And I'm sure my listeners do. And you know, as you get into this book, I think I keyed you up a little bit before the origins, kind of of how this came about. Dr Sadler, well known psychiatrist in Chicago with his wife, Lena, in 1955 they compiled these teachings, or claimed to have received it via this. Well, how do you want to call it? It's almost like it came through them, correct? That'd be the best way to say it from celestial beings. And I think it'd be good for you, because you've studied this so much, to actually give the listeners just a little bit of an overview of how this whole series came about, and how did you get involved in it.

Byron Belitsos
Well, it's a big story, but I'll kind of condense it down to a few, a few ideas, a few historical thoughts about what so it's, it's. A it's a kind of a big narration, because there is no channel for the text. It is not actually channeled by Sadler and his wife. It is the case that in the way back in like 19, sorry, 1910 there was a contact that was brought to them. And Sadler was a psychiatrist and a pretty famous guy already, and was an expert in psychology. And he they brought this person who had been speaking through him. And he was, he was, his thing was debunking channeling at that time. So he, he was, he was trained by Freud. He was, he was a man of his time. He was a scientist. He also surgeon. Back then, you could be a surgeon and a psychiatrist, right? So he, so this, he was debunking various channels, because there were all over the place that those in those days, psychic phenomena was a big thing. People don't realize that. So he tried to debunk this, and this being was speaking to him through this guy, and asking him to interact. And so they did, the wife, and it was secret they interacted. So basically what they said was it's time for an update for Western civilization regarding your scripture. And he's like, oh, yeah, sure, you know. So, you know, and so. But the dialog went on for years, and adding a scientist, he tested it, and he he was trying to find out, how is this guy making this up? Because it was like Edgar Cayce, you know, because Edgar Casey's in a kind of sleep, sleeping, right? So, so some people think this is Edgar Casey,

Greg Voisen
kind of like the Course in Miracles too. You know, that was another one that was supposedly channeled, right? I'm not saying that it is or it wasn't, because I'm not here to deny it. I'm just saying that Course in Miracles, same thing, right?

Byron Belitsos
Well, it's compared to the course, but the course is different because we know that Helen Schucman actually wrote it. She acknowledges that, and Bill Thetford was there and saw the whole thing. And so this is different, although it's similar in the sense that it's an amazing text, you know, like, how she

Greg Voisen
and not to get off the subject, but she was in the Bay Area where you live most of your life, right, right? So, did you ever meet her? No,

Byron Belitsos
I never did. But I met the people around her because everybody, you know, they were doing those outreach and everybody, but she was reclusive. I never met her, yeah,

Greg Voisen
but yeah. So the Saddler and his wife, they literally tried to debunk this, and they said, It's time for a new update, right? It's like, what? And that update took how many years?

Byron Belitsos
20 years so, so by 1924 the the being said, Well, we've been talking for a while, and I've answered your questions, and others have come here and answered your questions. These are like Edgar Casey kind of dialogs, right? And now we're going to bring through for you a new epochal revelation to mankind, right? And they're like, Well, what do you mean? They said, well, you'll see. So we don't know exactly how these papers, they call their chapters or papers, but they would, in a sense, materialize. Okay, so the my book, reason of Revelation, tells that story in one of the chapters. How noticed, correct? Yeah. So it's kind of a must read, because this is the definitive history by the guy that was present in Dr Sandler.

Greg Voisen
So what compiled you to take this reasons in Revelation at a scholarly examination of this Urantia Book. Because, you know, look, there's been lots written around it, and you're one of, if not, the key experts, I would say. And I used the term expert, because I really believe that you are, what were you? What are you trying to do for our listeners through this volume that you've written,

Byron Belitsos
it's a kind of like a testimony to love, because if our divine parent is the way I like to say it, or divine parents, Father God, Mother God, if they really love us, right? If your parents love you, right? So your parents want to talk to you, say, once a month, right? It'll give you a call, right? They don't like say, Oh, we're your parents, and we're never going to talk to you again for 2000 years. That's sort of what Christianity is. Like you get I see, let me get this to. X but no updates. That's all over, and we're not going to be updating that. We don't care if you have World War Two. We don't care if you have artificial intelligence. We're not giving you any updates, because all it's all done in the first century. So, you know, take it or leave it.

Greg Voisen
So this is, this is, in your estimation, kind of an update. It's a talk from the parents to the children, right? If we want to refer it, saying, I still love you. I'm here, but you don't have to wait 2000 years in between to hear from me again. Yeah,

Byron Belitsos
but I say hello, you know. But not only that, I'll give you a little update on things. And you know, because back in the first century, they didn't, you know, they didn't have email, they didn't have, you know, fax, they didn't have television. But now you're, you know, electronic age. You're in the post Einstein era of your world. And so you have an update. And you know, plus, you know we love you, because you're our creature. You know We're your parents. And so it's, it's incumbent upon us to give you new revelations. And we have been giving you some revelations through prophets. You know, through you know Martin Luther King, you know, through the great prophets of the Middle Ages, you know, the early years of Christianity. So prophets are one thing. Those are, those are great personal revelations that come through important teachers, and also in eastern you know Buddha and other Lao, Tzu and all the rest. These are prophets of God of spirit. So we're giving you prophets but, but that's more personal. We're also going to give you a collective update to all the planet all at once. And that's a type of Scripture.

Greg Voisen
Well, you kind of describe this the Urantia Book, and for any listeners who have it, fine, if you don't, you can go out and buy it, and you can get it anywhere, and you you, I put this in quote, a futuristic Encyclopedia of theology, Marta, modern cosmology and spirituality. How does this, this inner disciplinarian approach, kind of benefit our readers? There's a lot of people here that come to my show. They're spiritual. They're not they're not religious. Okay? Obviously, we know the main religions in the world, and we see what's happening and going on and the divisions that occur. I think I've always said this on the show religions have done more to divide people than unite people. I would hope that this is a book around love and uniting people, right? So we'll have, let's go there, right? I

Byron Belitsos
mean, so it's, it's always the teaching from above is about unity, love, sharing and taking care of one another. And certainly the golden rule is as like the universal rule of ethics, right? So that's but, you know, so we get the children down here, and the children squabble. So the parents, you know, come, come intervene in a loving way, but they correct them. So what we're also told is that this is a correcting time, a time of correction of the errors of the past, because the children have mismanaged the revelations to humankind, and they're having religious wars. I mean, God's sake, you know, yeah, well, we see them, yeah, right in front of us. And they're really acute. So if indeed, there is a loving parent in heaven, they want to, they want to be in dialog with their children who are squabbling, fighting and killing each other in Gaza, in Ukraine and and so they're on top of the moment. They are not, you know, sort of opted out. And you know, you gotta, you gotta, you know, destroy yourselves. And we're a different now. There no this is their planet. They are the creators.

Greg Voisen
So what I say? I would say I totally agree with that. Now, you know, you obviously, after all the years, it's been over 40 years that you've been studying this material, that about, right? Yeah, yes. So what are the key challenges faced by academics and scholars engaging with the Urantia Book, and how does this reasons and Revelation address these challenges? Because, you know, look, there's going to be people that don't believe a word we say today, and there's going to be certain people, because this show gets to a lot of people. I know it's, it's, it is more than a belief. It's a truth to somebody like yourself who has spent 40 years doing it, I always say it's the big T or the little T, right? And, and, and we know that. Beliefs can change, right? Somebody gets a belief, and then somebody can say something, and it can change. But when you have a truth, you're pretty focused on it. This is, this is very important to you, and I want to get that across. And I think from an academic standpoint and a scholarly standpoint, there's always then, okay, it's almost like science. How are you going to prove it?

Byron Belitsos
Yeah, that's, that's a valid question because, yeah, it's pretentious. Really, the Urantia Book, we call it Urantia revelation, also is pretentious. It's dating. This is an update of humankind from the celestials who oversee the planet. I mean, come on. I mean that, right, so, but the hardest part is to take it to scholars of religion,

Greg Voisen
exactly. Well, that must be fun for you. Those were fun debates that you have.

Byron Belitsos
I waited till I was, like, 68 years old to try it, right? You know, you know, my 20s, really, so I but, you know, it's, it's, it's justifiable, because, look, I mean, scholarship is like a wall. You got to climb right, and you can't go half up, way up the wall. You got to go to the top and over the other side to qualify to get your PhD, for example, right, right? And what does that mean? That means, you know, the literature in your field, you're not just a solo operator out there who thinks they've come up with something without peer review, right? So we got a lot of, you know, sort of crackpots, people that think they've got a revelation, but they, you know, as a publisher, I see them, they send their manuscripts to me, and I asked him, Well, have you what other books do you know of in the field? And they go, Well, I don't know of any other books in the field. And I'm like, Well, you haven't done your homework, because there's 1000 books in your in this field, and you think you're unique, but you don't even know what the other folks are saying. And these are your peers, right? So, but that's all that scholarship is. Scholarship says there's all these other experts, and we come together and we compare notes, and we we can scrutinize, because we're doing it full time. These guys are doing it full time, right? So I want to go to the people doing this full time and say, What do you think of this? So what happened was, in the last 20 years or more, scholars have been coming to the ranch book. So they wrote these essays and I collected them. That's what's already happening, but they do it in secret,

Greg Voisen
so I would assume it's a very challenging community to convince, but because you have all these scholarly papers already written, it's becoming easier to climb that wall, right? I give you, I give my listeners, a little bit of an example here. This is it isn't off the wall, because there is a correlation here. So most of these physicians who are trained at Harvard and especially in orthopedics, oh, people aren't going to use stem cell and they're not going to use it. No, no, it's got to be surgery. You have to do a surgery on the knee. That's the only way you're going to fix it, right? So, get this, there had been so many people denying alternative treatments for so many years from and the way this doctor explained me the East Coast, but he said, if you're on the West Coast, in San Francisco, now, this was his analogy, there's all this alternative practice going on. People are taking adipose out, injecting in people's knees, they're getting fantastic results, yet it was always and I know this may sound weird, oh no, you have to have a shoulder replaced or knee replaced with this done now the whole community. Now listen to this after however many years this has been and so many scholarly papers written about the validity of these other alternative practices has now said they're all shifting. And now, when you go to an orthopedics office, now, this sounds a little weird to be on religion here, but if you go in, they're offering alternative treatments, not just, oh well, we're going to take your knee out. We're going to put a new, you know, knee in. No, we're going to try all these alternative treatments. In a sense, I the reason I related that the correlation is it sounds like it's almost the same, because you have these scholarly people that came out of Harvard or wherever, said, Look, this is the only way you can do it. But after however many years. It's been 30 years, they've now all decided, guess what? There is some proof in what those other people were saying in San Francisco.

Byron Belitsos
I think it's an excellent analogy, because there's many elements in paradigm change, as you know, right? Yeah, so it's not just the. Intellectual, cognitive part of it, it's also that there's a group thing, and so people kind of unite around this is how we do it. And here's the evidence, right? Because in science, you got to show the evidence, right? But the only they only point you to the certain journals they don't want you to the alternative medicine journals of which they're very sophisticated. Now they don't even read that stuff. So why don't they? Well, that's, that's a corruption element. I mean, you're going to have to admit because the entire field has validity, because these are other people with PhDs and MDs that have done their home they're just in a different school of thought. So that's the same, and religion's even worse, right? Oh, so

Greg Voisen
definitely, we've had a lot of people come on here and and it's been a, I hate to say a battle, but kind of an uphill battle. But if you, if you're out there in it long enough you, you you see both sides, and you have to find a middle. And now one of these, you talk about the essays that you've from the rancho book as a compensatory gift to mankind. Could you elaborate on this concept and its relevance today? Because look, if the listeners go out and pick up your book, they're obviously going to if there haven't been exposed to this at all. The good thing about it is this book is for literally anybody who has never been exposed to this content before. I'm just going to say content, this philosophy, this spiritual philosophy, you can pick this book up, right? And if you really want to learn something new, you can learn it all in this pretty much in this book, right? That's what you wrote it for.

Byron Belitsos
Yeah, we I edited it. Of course, I didn't write it because they're a collection of essays, but I edited this because we need an introduction that is fairly advanced, but it's still an introduction. So it's not just like a popular introduction, it's an introduction that has depth of scholarly work, but it's excerpts. It's not like a huge, difficult book. So these, I chose these, and we edited these down so that you anybody could read. And so what we're attempting to do here is to show that the scholars that have looked at this have been, have have been a bridge from the past, right? These are people that you know. For one of the main scholars is a renowned, world renowned scholar on the Bible, but he's really a Urantia guy, so he he knows Paul, right? Apostle Paul as well as anyone in the world. So he wrote an essay on Paul for us that bridges from what Paul said in the Bible to what Paul would have said today. Right? So interesting, right? So there,

Greg Voisen
there is a, yeah, there is Byron, a your ranch, a foundation. For my listeners that are out there, you can obviously go to your website, you can get this book, but there's also your Rancho foundation. Now, this book explores really kind of a variety of spiritual themes, meaning their ranch book, right? Not your book. Your book basically has taken all this scholarly wisdom and taken excerpts from it and literally put those essays in there. But it's, it's really what I'm getting at is it kind of explores the nature of God as a loving, omnipotent being, right? It explores the concept of Trinity, the detailed cosmology explaining the structure of the universe and the role of celestial beings, the purpose of destiny and human life, and an expanded narrative of Jesus Christ's life differing from traditional Christian accounts. That be correct is that basically some of it

Byron Belitsos
differing but bridging, right? So it's not sort of like what a lot of new age is like, we're reinventing all the wheels, all this stuff in the past. It's wrong, it's sexist, it's racist, or whatever it's we're not It's not like that. It's not like pushing off against the past and say there's nothing. There's no wisdom coming down to us. We got to start over again right now. We're we're updating what you know the way Jesus, you know, for example, a sermon on the mount. When Jesus gave this right? It's a very big deal, and it's at the center of the New Testament, is what he said there. Well, the ranch book tell gives you the Sermon on the Mount pretty much the way it's in the Bible, but gives you the context for it, and tells you why he said these things. And it turns out that the Sermon on the Mount was not presented to the masses in the Bible, as it says in the Bible, it was presented to the apostles. It's the instruction for apostles who are direct disciples of Jesus. It is not necessary instruction for the whole world because it's almost impossible to carry out the. Attitudes, you know the teaching, unless you're like a monastic, you almost have a redundant to do it. So there's a confusion that you get in the record of the Bible, still the servant on the mount is good for everybody to read. Don't get me wrong, it's really great. But this, this is, this reshapes your perception of what Jesus was doing. And so we deserve to know that this is instructions to his apostles and disciples. So if you were devoted, this is your, your, your, your, your guide book is the Sermon on the Mount. But

Greg Voisen
so how does, how does the ratchet book reinterpret the life and teachings of Jesus, and what impact does this have on the traditional Christian belief? Because, look, there's a gazillion bazillion Christians out there, right? This isn't an attack of the Bible. This is what you're saying. Is kind of like a reboot, an update, right? Because it's been a long time since we revisited. You know, if it's my mother and father revisit, so it but for all those people that are out there, I mean, you've got quite a following already from the Urantia teachings, so obviously it's resonating, because looks, you know, you think about this as history has evolved. Times change, as times change, everything needs to be updated, right? And, and, I mean, so why? I guess, the question might be is, how did it came come up with the name Urantia? Oh,

Byron Belitsos
yeah, we should fill that in. So that is, you know, part of this revelation to the planet is, here's the name of your planet.

Greg Voisen
Oh, okay, that's

Byron Belitsos
a good ear. Up here the heavenly realms, we have a name. We don't call it Earth. It has a name. And Urantia is the name of the planet, okay? And it's means we identify, just like you have your name, your planets. Well, there, how many planets are there out there, or the universe? Is it just one that's inhabited, right? So, so this is right, so, but we didn't know that. In the 1920s and 30s, when the Urantia Book was coming through. We didn't know that. We didn't even know there were galaxies, barely galaxies, right? So this thing is telling you there are millions of galaxies and billions of inhabited worlds, and each one has a name. And so your ranch is a name on your planet.

Greg Voisen
So in in your view, Byron, how does the Urantia Book portray, the portray the cosmic evolution and the concept of what's called the Grand universe, because you're talking about it right now, the grand universe expand our understanding of spirituality. So how is that going to expand the our understanding like you just said, Hey, we didn't know all these other planets existed. We didn't know if they were inhabited or not inhabited the so and there was nothing going on out there about aliens at that point. Now, there's a, you know, a big focus on, are there aliens, and where are they coming from? And, you know, we got a zillion TV shows now about aliens So, and I don't dispel that they aren't here. They are

Byron Belitsos
they're here. And your edge book is very helpful for that, because the Bible came through in a period when they didn't even know that the Earth goes around the sun, okay, if they thought it was flat, you know, cosmology, you know, to build an advanced planetary civilization, you're going to build it on that. And just think about the other scriptures. They're all archaic. I mean, so the world needs an update on this stuff. Because if religion thinks, oh no, you know, God created the world in, you know, 6000 you know, in six, six days, and, and, and that's at that's the end of the story, then you got all this advanced science that everybody's going to be very confused. And that's why people are giving up on religion, because they know the religion is way out of date. It's, it's, it's, so you need an update in order to correct people's perception of their universe and the

Greg Voisen
right well and and the way that they've been practicing their religious beliefs is so radical in a sense, that it has created all of This much unrest, right? So the differences between but you explore this problem of evil in relation to the Urantia teachings. This is an interesting one, because how does this work address the complexities of sin and equity and spiritual growth? Now one that probably needed updating. Well. Three of those needed up dating, but it but basically explain that to us. Because I think from people listening today, that would be a big one, right? It really would be.

Byron Belitsos
That's really one of the biggest ones. I sent you my brand new book on that, by the way, and so I spent years on this issue of evil. So that's another big problem with the Bible. Okay? So, so Paul right, created a doctrine of sin, that side of Jesus's teaching. Actually, it's Paul's idea, all right, Chad invented an original sin, and it's actually a compelling doctrine, but it's not really quite right. It's our It's ancient and archaic. So they're born in sin. I mean that that is actually not what Jesus was saying, even in if you read the New Testament, New Testament business, Jesus doesn't say you're born in sin and you have to fear God. You know that's not what Jesus that's what Paul is saying, right? So, so we need an update on that, so we need a correction of Paul. So there, so, yeah, there's this problem of sin, but there's, there's a God, a loving God that forgives you and and not only that, God is not this absolute substance that just sits out there in the middle of the universe and judges people. God is evolving, right? It's not something they didn't even know that there was such a thing as evolution until, like, the 15th century.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, but if most people would say that are spiritual, they're listening, are going to say spirit is in everything. Spirit is another word for God, right? So you know, when you look at teachings like people ask me, you know, from an Eastern philosophy, self realization, fellowship, which is where I've kind of landed, right? You could everybody could question the teachings of Eastern philosophy. You can question Christianity, Judaism, any of them. So this one, this book in particular, takes one of the most important books of all these, which is the Bible, right? And the New Testament. And it says, Hey, looks. It needed a reboot. Here's the reboot. So you must be taking arrows from a lot of people, all

Byron Belitsos
right, okay, but it's, but it's a lot, lots at stake, and it's worth it. For example, as I was saying, people didn't know there was evolution. You know, the Catholic Church didn't think there was evolution until, like, No, I

Greg Voisen
know 1950 Right, right, right. How can

Byron Belitsos
you have a world teaching that doesn't believe in evolution in 2024 you just can't do it even like take Hinduism. You know Yogananda is, you know tradition. You know Hinduism didn't believe in evolution until Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo was the only one really in that tradition who, at the same time as the ranch books. I know deity is evolving. Deity is absolute, but also evolving. That's not hard to get your mind around, but you're not going to be able to get anywhere if you say there is no evolution.

Greg Voisen
So when you're just talking about born in sin. So let's go back to that, you know, and and Paul and I, and I want to finish up with that, because I know, let's first give you to give you the the the the time to finish that explain, if you would, because you're going to reboot. You're going to give everybody a new understanding of sin. What Is that

Byron Belitsos
so? So this will take a minute or two, so let's try to dive in, right? Yeah, the book is also a correction. Again. This is the correcting time. We're correcting the the Miss, the misapprehensions that our civilization has as a whole, and a big part of it is Christianity. It's the world's biggest religion. So thing about sin, so how sin came into the world? So the archaic Bible, you know, has very important truths, but they're mythic in their framing. And this is what Ken Wilber teaches us, right? It's a mythic framing. We're not in the mythic era anymore. It's not the Middle Ages scientific error. So we need a scientific framing for this. So then we need a historical framing, right? So the historical framing, the ranch book has this huge revelation about Lucifer and the Lucifer rebellion, and when, if and when you interview Donna D'Angelo, she's very good on this subject. So the wretched book is giving you your history as well, unknown history that there was a fall of the angels, and that's in the Bible, but it's like a few lines in the Bible. Write your book gives you 100 pages about what happened to our planet. Why does our planet a place where you have. Of Hiroshima being blown up by atomic bomb. Does that happen in all inhabited planets? Do they blow up whole cities? No, it's be we're an exceptional planet, because we are one of these rare planets where the angels went to the dark side.

Greg Voisen
Okay, keep going. That happens

Byron Belitsos
with your angels? That's a very rare and very disastrous condition. So that's right, Paul gets this idea of original sin. Remember that Adam fell into sin, and because of Adam's sin, we are all biologically related to him. We're born in sin. You know, it's a symbolic way to understand why things were so dark and evil during the Roman times. I mean, it was so brutal, they would crucify hundreds of people at the same time, you know, they would and so how do you explain this kind of crime? So it was a pretty good explanation for the time, but now we need modern explanations. So part of the ranch book is to say you have a history where there's darkness, but then there's redemption, through the prophets, through Christ as the supreme teacher, also in Buddha and others in the east. We're here to straighten this out. This is an off planet problem. It was the source from off planet beings. So now is the correcting time, when you're ready. We now have a foundational text. You ranch a book, and we're going to, and we're going to, we're going to explain to you why you had the Holocaust, why you had all these wars that are destructive. That's because at the seat of this is something Paul calls original sin. But we're telling you that it is a kind of a collapse of the angelic host of your planet. That's that's a complicated thing to explain. Okay, yeah, but yeah, more than that. The other part of this is the the theological part, which is that deity is not just this absolute thing that just sits there. Deity is evolving with you. Is walking with us. The mistakes that we make are incorporated into a lot of the heart of deity. That's because of love. It's like your parents. Your parents know your life history better than you well. Dee, dee knows your life history better than you do, so all of these errors and all these the evil things that you do, admittedly, are in the divine heart and absorbed in it, but are part of the evolution. So that's how we can explain evil and sin, is that we're evolving and making mistakes, but we're able to heal and redeem ourselves. That's a different idea than than what the Church teaches. Yeah,

Greg Voisen
that's a good explanation. Actually, it was great. I'm an off the wall question, you know, I think I've, I've I've heard and I haven't Googled this, but there's obviously a decline in, uh, let's just call it people heading toward Christianity or heading toward any of these religions. Mean religion, but people are looking for a spiritual path. Obviously, they're seeking out people like you and Ken Wilber and all kinds of other people to give them a better explanation. Now, there's people that are atheist, right? They have no belief in God at all, right? Agnostic, you know. But the point would be is, Do you believe this might be a text for somebody like that who is literally like saying, Hey, I don't believe anything you guys have, but I would like to know what the scholars potentially because you're saying, Hey, here's some scholarly wisdom as you've climbed up this wall, as you said, to prove this over the last 40 plus years, right? And that's just you. That's not everything else that's been going on with the Urantia foundation. So one of the places that they want to go is to your website, which we're going to put a link. But they also could go to Urantia foundation. We'll put a link to that as well. If they want to really take a deeper dive. Would that be appropriate?

Byron Belitsos
Your redshirt.org is, is making organization? Yeah. And, okay, really, quite, quite amazing stuff, but, yeah, but the you know, so what to the original question, I think was more about,

Greg Voisen
well, we were talking about non religious right, yes, exactly,

Byron Belitsos
yeah, yeah. So, so the way I see it is two. There are two parts to that. One part of the science. Smart people went to college, for example, they studied science, right? So then somebody says, Well, you got to read the Bible. But the Bible has no science. It's completely out of date. Cosmologically. I really were like, kind of crazy, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, a smart person is going to say, look, is he going to build my religion on something like that? That has, that's, has. They didn't even know the earth, one around the sun. They didn't even know there was biological evolution that that can't fly. That's one and two is that the the rigidity of the theology of that period is just from that time and back then, they didn't have the expensive view of of things. So why would they? Why would they embrace something that is so rigid and so narrow, even though it's got some great truths in it? Why would this one intelligent young kid in college, you know, want to do that, unless it was just something forced on them. So that was,

Greg Voisen
like, it's like any religion. I mean, I was speaking with a lady the other day that lives in Utah about Mormonism, you know, and it's just when you when you look at how the teachings go from generation to generation to generation, because that's the way the kids were brought up right now, I have nothing evil to say about Mormonism. I'm basically just saying it's another religion that's out there that can't be explained. Many things can't be explained, and so you're at least trying to explain, right in a scholarly way and prove, and I think that's important, especially in today's age where we do rely a lot on science, versus just, oh, a lot of people say, woo, woo, right. That's like, Where's the proof? So let me ask you this, what do you hope readers will take away from your book, reasons and revelation in terms of their personal spiritual journeys? And that's where I was going with this. You know, we have people out there at the far spectrum who are going to listen to my podcast and they're going to go to it, or you're going to have people that are really deep Christians in the middle of the road, and then you're going to have people that are really into just some very, very far kind of, hey, even the Urantia isn't enough. We need we need more, right? It's and from an explanatory standpoint. So what would you want? How would you want people to take pick up your book and say, hey, if I read this, it's going to give me a new perspective. What new perspective Do you believe they're going to get from your book?

Byron Belitsos
It's a global but it's galactic, really cosmic. It's a cosmic perspective. So for example, we have this thing called Christian nationalism right now. It's a very big movement. It's, you know, everything's about our nation, and we gotta, you know, we gotta be good patriots. And the Bible is connected to that, yeah. And there's a political movement around that, okay, so this is a big error. This is a, you know, very big implications, yeah. And so it really, what we need is global Christianity, global Buddhism, global, you know, rather than national. So what happened in India recently, Craig, they're getting into a nationalist version of Hinduism, right? That's guy took over the country, and they're beginning to to even blow up mosques they're discriminating against because it became nationalist. We can't have that in the modern age. We will dissolve into warfare unless there's a global view. But a better way to get the global view is look at it from the standpoint of the galaxy, looking down on. This is just one planet. It has a lot of problems, but up here in the galaxy, we know you and we love you, and we're trying to reach you. That's why we're sending extraterrestrials. That's why we're sending the Course in Miracles. We're sending all these things to update you and upgrade you from archaic scriptures, which are very good. Don't forget, there's a tradition of Christianity That's brilliant, Full of Wisdom. But it's now time to come into the post modern and as Ken would say, the integral age, whereas is it, cosmology has to be integrated with your spirituality, otherwise, you just fall into these ancient patterns which work. That's why we have this huge war in Gaza between, you know, Jews and Muslims.

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, there's a spiritual leader on this planet right now that is as best for as long as I can remember, and his name is the Dalai Lama, that the only thing that's going to actually resolve all of our conflicts is going to be compassion. You know, I have a nonprofit called compassionate communications, right? That's partially why I do this show and and it is that, you know, you have to. Have compassion for your fellow soul to actually see their point of view. I didn't say empathy, I said compassion. So there's a big difference in my estimation between the two, and I believe his simple statement is really very true, because all this divisiveness that we have is a result of us standing in an ego that says we're right, you're wrong, right, and getting through that now, I mean, you and I could probably have a conversation for an hour, but we don't have that much time about how that all works. But what I would like you to address and kind of wrapping things up for this interview, is your personal advice that you could sim give someone regarding the Urantia Book and your book, reason and revelation, who might be kind of daunted by its complexity, right? We're talking about a lot of complex things here, and how does this your book, reason and Revelation serve as a guide to make it simple for everybody's been listening to us for the last 40 minutes or so. It's like, okay, I get it. This is a whole new reboot. We know where it came from. We get that all these scholars have written papers, and it's now more and more proof that what they're talking about is real and can be more proven. What would you tell them about getting through all of this complexity and challenge?

Byron Belitsos
We give them those kind of the simple gospel as updated in the rancho book, that Jesus was not a Christian. Okay, that's Jesus. Was a universal human sent to us from higher realms, and that Christianity has wisdom, but now we need a global view of this person. He's not a Christian. He's a global teacher, and his teaching is not that I resurrected. I was crucified or resurrected, and my blood redeemed you. That is a human teaching. The real teaching is, God is your Father and Mother loves you, and because he's creator, she's creator of all humans, you are to become unified as one human family. That's what his teaching actually is. It actually is there in the New Testament, but it's covered up by these human doctrines. So we're going to come back to this thing. It's a universal teaching. It's pretty much the same teaching as Buddhism, except that it's a loving father and mother. Buddhism doesn't really have that exactly, but, right? But that if this is true, if there is this omnipresent, all loving Father, Mother, what are the implications for peace on on the planet? Well, you are an agent of peace. Well, how do you become one? It's by opening to this presence. And by the way, I didn't get across that the interior life is changed by the Urantia Book because of its teaching that there's a presence of like a fragment of God in each person. Okay, yeah, but really the teaching of Buddhism, right? The Buddha natures within each person. So, but open to that an egocentric person cannot open to its influence because its influence is very gentle. So this is the God The Gospel is, I'm within you, I'm around you, and I love you, and you're all brethren and sisters and brothers in one big planet. And stop the wars, stop the division, because you're one one humanity, and soon you're being you'll be encountering other planets. I mean, you already are encountering other other worlds and extraterrestrials, and that you will have to learn to be diplomats to the galaxy. And, well, I

Greg Voisen
think, I think many of these wars that you mentioned earlier, the Ukrainian war, the war at Gaza and Israel, the fighting that goes on is again driven around, I'm just going to say, in many cases, it's a retribution for something that somebody believes should happen as a result of something that happened to them. Now, it I see this happen in courtrooms where somebody killed another person. Now we're getting to the essence and the piece, the people where the family, where it happened, they forgave. We haven't even talked about forgiveness, but I'm going to say something here. You know, in reality, for people to actually make this shift, there's got to be a lot of forgiveness that goes on, and that is a really challenging place for people to get. Right? Because they're, I'm just going to say their humanness and their ego gets in the way of them forgiving. They're like, No, it's retribution. I'm going to go tact all those people in Palestine, because they killed our people over here. And we whatever you want to go on, it's, it's always the same story, right? By right?

Byron Belitsos
Paul, it's a story of ego, but, yeah, but, but that's the psychology of but there's another part of that ego also is supported by an incorrect cosmology and by an incorrect idea of history, and by by archaic scriptures, for example, the Old Testament that says these, this particular people should, should own this land in Israel that was given to them by God 4000 years ago. That is archaic, mythic concept that they are basing this thing on. So we need a correction. And you read your book, there's so many pieces it takes on that issue too. What was Judaism and how, how it went off the rails, so to speak.

Greg Voisen
Well, I'm going to encourage the listeners seriously. You gave us the website, and I'm going to repeat it again. It's rodaninstitute.org, for all of you who've been listening, this is where the research education and ministries are fostering the religion of the future. And I think that if somebody has an open mind and really just wants to explore, go there and leave your information right. Get this book. It's not expensive. We're going to put a link to it on Amazon, reason and Revelation, and reach out to Byron. He's available, right? He'll, he'll answer his email, or somebody will, but, but definitely, if you have an interest in this, then definitely make a connection with Byron. We'll put the information there. So you do, when you put the information in at Rodin Institute, it's probably going to go to Byron anyway.

Byron Belitsos
Yeah, it's going to go to me. And this is non-commercial. If you want get a PDF for free, I'll just email it to it's not this, not we're on a mission to correct these things that are causing a collapse of our civilization.

Greg Voisen
Well, the essays are in here. They they just buy this book. You're going to get a big dose. And then, if you want more, and you want to follow it right, reach out to Byron or an institute.org Yeah, reach out to him and and check him out. Check out his other books too, because they're all there. We were speaking about one that you mentioned. That was just one right here, truths about evil, sin and the demonic. There's another one. So you know these two books, your thumbs up. And so, from an Eastern philosophy to a man who's teaching people about how to reboot their own beliefs. Namaste to you, my friend, the guy he says they've gotten you. So you enjoy the rest of your morning, and thanks so much for being on Inside Personal Growth.

Byron Belitsos
Thank you. Thumbs up for you, Greg. You've been doing this a long time, and you found me out of the blue. I very much appreciate.

Greg Voisen
Oh and I appreciate you. We don't talk enough. We should talk a lot more, and I'm going to get into this myself and really take a deep dive. So thank you so much for this.

Byron Belitsos
Thank you, my friend. Be well. God bless you.

Greg Voisen
God bless you.