Un Sun Moon Speaks

"With the fullness of time, God has sent His messenger to resolve the fundamental questions of life and the universe. His name is Un Sun Moon." (This is what some of his followers believe. Un Sun Moon would never make grandiose claims about himself, because he leads by example. He believes that actions speak much louder than titles or boasts.)

[unsunmoon-blog]

Mistakes in our holy book? [Part 2]

DISCUSSING ONTOLOGICAL IDEAS A talk by Un Sun Moon

Correction 1: Planetary orbits as spherical

In Chapter 1, The Principles of Creation, the section on the mode of existence of the four-position foundation talks primarily about elliptical motion, and secondarily about spherical motion. The main point of the discussion of spherical motion is the fact that the relationship between subject and object is not rigid. There's a lot of flexibility and variety within a single relationship. The Principles mentions that because the angle of revolution between subject and object is constantly changing, the elliptical movement becomes a spherical movement. The text also explains that when the elliptical movement of the subject partner and the object partner on a single plane becomes a spherical movement in a three-dimensional orbit, the dynamism and creativity of the universe unfolds; and that variations in each orbit's distance, shape, state, direction, angle, force, and velocity are manifest as the beauty of creation in its infinite variety. This is all very true. Love - and relationships of all kinds based on goodness - should be full, pleasing, rich, and three-dimensional, not flat, stifling, oppressive, or monotonous. A two-dimensional relationship has to develop and be transformed into a three-dimensional one.

So it was unfortunate that in the original Korean Principles book we were using the example of the solar system - and almost made the same mistake again in the English version - to illustrate this transformation of relationship. The text originally offered, as the first example of this principle of spherical motion, the solar system, making the plainly inaccurate claim that the planets revolved around the sun at varying angles that created a spherical pattern. In reality, the set of combined paths of the planets as they orbit the sun is literally as flat as a pancake! In recent years, it would be very easy for even a child to check this on the Internet, but the more time-consuming method in the 70s of asking some knowledgeable person was well worth it. How would it look to claim to have a new revelation from God that had some basic scientific facts wrong?

[unsunmoon-blog]

Mistakes in our holy book? [Part 1]

DISCUSSING ONTOLOGICAL IDEAS A talk by Un Sun Moon

Mistakes in our holy book?

You may not know this, but when we originally published Principles of Life (at that time named Divine Principles) in English in 1975, it was very possible that several mistakes could have been included. Some of the people involved in the project wanted to get it finished early in order to please me, but I suggested they take their time and look not only at translation issues but also check the content itself. In the early days in Korea we were sincere and did our best given the situation, but I knew that there might be inadequacies in the text we'd overlooked. I told the the translation team that I would rather have a product of high quality than act as though we were in some kind of emergency.

As it turned out there were some mistakes, and a couple of them were not a matter of interpretation, but just plain wrong, conflicting with well-known scientific facts. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been to publish those things? It was bad enough that we did so in the Korean version, Wolli Kangnon, almost a decade before that! I certainly am glad we made the corrections before presenting it to the Western world, which can be more particular about weak links in an argument, given your well-developed philosophical history in the West. Some members tried to play down the significance of my mistakes by saying that they were not central parts of the teaching, but that's no excuse; I have to take responsibility. I blew it! You should admit it when you make a mistake, and not fool yourself into blaming others. [to be continued]