The Urantia Book – fact or fiction?

[Easyrider]

The Urantia Book – fact or fiction?

Your world, Urantia, [Earth] is one of many similar inhabited planets which comprise the local universe of Nebadon. This universe, together with similar creations, makes up the superuniverse of Orvonton, from whose capital, Uversa, our commission hails. Divine Counselor - The URANTIA Book, Page 1

There are conflicting stories ["various histories"] regarding the origin of the Urantia Papers. According to long-time faithful, Ernest Moyer (author of a book on the group's beginnings entitled THE BIRTH OF A DIVINE REVELATION--The Mechanical Origin of the Urantia Papers), information similar to that found in the Urantia Book was communicated by various "spirit beings" using a male individual ("contact person") while that person slept (a.k.a. Sleeping Subject "SS"). This communication was but a preparatory exercise. Beginning 1905-11 and over a 20+ year period, divine "revelations" were hand-recorded by a Dr. William S. Sadler, a noted Chicago physician and psychiatrist.

Interestingly, while (founder) Sadler was later willing to discuss in detail the transmission of The URANTIA Book, he refused to reveal two crucial facts: 1) the name of the individual who was used by the revelators as the channel between the revelators and the Contact Commission, and 2) the specific way in which the papers that formed The URANTIA Book appeared.10

http://www.watchman.org/profile/urantiapro.htm

The Urantia Book – fact or fiction?

[harvey1]

I have started reading the UB any number of times but it is VERY large & I am a bear of little brain & so, sadly, it has not yet happened but then I have not read OAHSPE yet either.

Why...??

[Colter]

So you think it unreasonable for me to insist that before debateing the content of the UB that one needs to know what it actually says????? You say that that dosn't make any sense?????

There's a theory that was published a few years ago that stated the universe created itself. Now, do you think we need to understand the physics of this paper to comment on this possibility? If you do, then why be religious since you don't need God to exist in order to make the universe. If you don't, then why is it valid to discuss concepts without having read the paper?

OK, errrrm, Harvey, how about read just one of the 196 papers which make up the UB then lets talk about it. I would like to here your imput.

Lets start with the forward http://www.urantia.org/papers/foreword.html


Colter

[McCulloch]

OK, errrrm, Harvey, how about read just one of the 196 papers which make up the UB then lets talk about it. I would like to here [hear] your imput.

Lets [Let's] start with the forward http://www.urantia.org/papers/foreword.html

OK, I don't know about Harvey, but how about you read the Book of Aph, Son of Jehovih from OAHSPE and tell us what you think. Then I'll read the forward to the Urantia books and let you know what you think.

Maybe a little further along, we can all read the Book of Mormon, the Avesta, the Bhagavad Gita, Tantra and Kama Sutra , the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Zhuan Falun, Tattvartha Sutra, the Arzhang, the Mozi, the Holy Piby, Isis Unveiled and the Eddas.

[kiwimac]

OK, errrrm, Harvey, how about read just one of the 196 papers which make up the UB then lets talk about it. I would like to here [hear] your imput.

Lets [Let's] start with the forward http://www.urantia.org/papers/foreword.html

OK, I don't know about Harvey, but how about you read the Book of Aph, Son of Jehovih from OAHSPE and tell us what you think. Then I'll read the forward to the Urantia books and let you know what you think.

Maybe a little further along, we can all read the Book of Mormon, the Avesta, the Bhagavad Gita, Tantra and Kama Sutra , the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Zhuan Falun, Tattvartha Sutra, the Arzhang, the Mozi, the Holy Piby, Isis Unveiled and the Eddas.

Don't know about Harvey but I have read most of those. I majored in Comparative religion. Frankly, I find the topic endlessly fascinating.

Kiwimac

[Rob]

I would be glad to debate UB content with you but I only ask that you actually read the book first.

That doesn't make any sense to me. If we are asked to debate the exegesis of a text, then I agree that it is vitally important to read and study the text. However, if the debate is about whether the concepts offered in the text are coherent with Christian thought, then all that one needs to know is the purported concepts of the text.

I personally agree with Harvey that one does not need to read the Urantia Book to discuss concepts contained therein, with but one qualification. We need to know that the purported concepts are fair, accurate, and truthful representations of the concepts contained in the Urantia Book (or any other source in question), and the only way I know how to do this is to go to the source of the purported concepts?

For example, should we accept the representations of Jason Barker as being accurate without verifying whether or not his claims are fair, accurate, and truthful representations of the concepts contained in the Urantia Book? As someone who has been reading the Urantia Book for 30+ years, I can honestly tell you there are some key purported concepts he fallaciously claims above. But then, one would never know this if they had not investigated the truth of these claims for themselves.

I will make just a couple comments to illustrate my point.

Barker states:

Jesus Christ: The Eternal Son, along with the Universal Father, created all the "only-begotten" Creator Sons who, as part of the Order of Michael, are responsible for the creation of humanity. Before incarnating on this planet as Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus was Michael of Nebadon .... Jesus was not the Eternal Son, but rather he possessed "additional power and authority, for he not only personifies the Eternal Son but also fully represents and actually embodies the personality presence of the Universal Father."

The full quotation from the Urantia Book states:

Our Creator Son is not the Eternal Son, the existential Paradise associate of the Universal Father and the Infinite Spirit. Michael of Nebadon is not a member of the Paradise Trinity. Nevertheless our Master Son possesses in his realm all of the divine attributes and powers that the Eternal Son himself would manifest were he actually to be present ... and functioning .... Michael [Jesus Christ] possesses even additional power and authority, for he not only personifies the Eternal Son but also fully represents and actually embodies the personality presence of the Universal Father to and in this local universe. He even represents the Father-Son. These relationships constitute a Creator Son the most powerful, versatile, and influential of all divine beings who are capable of direct administration of evolutionary universes and of personality contact with immature creature beings. (366.3)

Despite the fact that the quotation Barker uses from the Urantia Book clearly states that Jesus "fully represents and actually embodies the personality presence of the Universal Father," he goes on to make the fallacious claim that one of the purported concepts of the Urantia Book is that Jesus is "merely an example of God," which requires that he ignore two points which he made himself: 1) Jesus is our Creator, which he acknowledges the Urantia Book teaches, stating Jesus is "responsible for the creation of humanity" and 2) Jesus "fully represents and actually embodies the personality presence of the Universal Father."

Jesus is not merely an example of God, but rather is the one in whom the Godhead fully dwells.

It is true that the Urantia Book does not teach that Jesus was the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, the Eternal Son, but that he was the incarnation of a Creator Son, the Creator of "ten million inhabited worlds" (79.6), evolutionary planets similar to our own, inhabited by evolutionary creatures capable of recognizing the divine affection, accepting the free gift of grace and salvation in sonship and daughtership with God, by faith finding the living God. That certainly gives new meaning to the phrase "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." (John 10: 16) And to the statement "God created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited." (Isaiah 45:18)

When a Son of the Eternal Son appeared on Urantia, those who fraternized with this divine being in human form alluded to him as "He who was from the beginning, whom we have heard, whom we have seen with our eyes, whom we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, even the Word of life." [1 John 1:1-3] And this bestowal Son came forth from the Father just as truly as did the Original Son, as is suggested in one of his earthly prayers: "And now, O my Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before this world was." [John 17:5] (74.3)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)

The myriads of planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by many different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return. The universe of universes is the work of God and the dwelling place of his diverse creatures. "God created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited." (21.2)

The Urantia Book teaches that Jesus, the incarnated Christ Michael is not only the Creator of "ten million inhabited worlds," but of the vast hosts of celestial beings, "Michael and his angels" (Revelation 12:7), who are also his chilren and who assist him in the administration of his self-created universe as "ministers" of mercy to the mortal races of the inhabited evolutionary worlds of time and space. And since "The fact of creatorship implies the fullness of sovereignty," (237.5) it is only logical that all "angels and authorities and powers ... [are] subject unto him." (1 Peter 3:22) According to the Urantia Book, It is literally true when the scriptures state:

Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in [or by] him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)

God is everywhere present; the Universal Father rules the circle of eternity. But he rules in the local universes in the persons of his Paradise Creator Sons, even as he bestows life through these Sons. "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Sons." [1 John 5:11] These Creator Sons of God are the personal expression of himself in the sectors of time and to the children of the whirling planets of the evolving universes of space. (44.1)

The highly personalized Sons of God are clearly discernible by the lower orders of created intelligences, and so do they compensate for the invisibility of the infinite and therefore less discernible Father. The Paradise Creator Sons of the Universal Father are a revelation of an otherwise invisible being, invisible because of the absoluteness and infinity inherent in the circle of eternity and in the personalities of the Paradise Deities. (44.2)

The Universal Father is not invisible because he is hiding himself away from the lowly creatures of materialistic handicaps and limited spiritual endowments. The situation rather is: "You cannot see my face, for no mortal can see me and live." No material man could behold the spirit God and preserve his mortal existence. The glory and the spiritual brilliance of the divine personality presence is impossible of approach by the lower groups of spirit beings or by any order of material personalities. The spiritual luminosity of the Father's personal presence is a "light which no mortal man can approach; which no material creature has seen or can see." But it is not necessary to see God with the eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the faith-vision of the spiritualized mind. (25.3)

God is not hiding from any of his creatures. He is unapproachable to so many orders of beings only because he "dwells in a light which no material creature can approach." The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond the grasp of the unperfected mind of evolutionary mortals. He "measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, measures a universe with the span of his hand. It is he who sits on the circle of the earth, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain and spreads them out as a universe to dwell in." "Lift up your eyes on high and behold who has created all these things, who brings out their worlds by number and calls them all by their names"; and so it is true that "the invisible things of God are partially understood by the things which are made." Today, and as you are, you must discern the invisible Maker through his manifold and diverse creation, as well as through the revelation and ministration of his Sons [Jesus Christ] and their numerous subordinates. (27.5)

[T]he Paradise Creator Sons who are the fathers of the inhabited worlds and the sovereigns of the local universes. If the faith of the creature were perfect, he would assuredly know that when he had seen a Creator Son he had seen the Universal Father; in seeking for the Father, he would not ask nor expect to see other than the Son. Mortal man simply cannot see God until he achieves completed spirit transformation and actually attains Paradise. (28.2)

[T]he Universal Father is in every way divinely present in the Creator Sons. The Father and his Sons are one. These Paradise Sons of the order of Michael are perfect personalities, even the pattern for all local universe personality from that of the Bright and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature of progressing animal evolution. (28.3)

The Urantia Book clearly teaches that Jesus is the "one in whom the Godhead fully dwells." Jesus was and is,

[T]he fullness of the revelation of the eternal God to mortal man. (1425.5)

He came on earth the fullness of God to be manifest to man. (1426.1)

[T]his Universe Son is also the personification of the Universal Father. (366.4)

He is the Truth, the Life, and the Way:

The Creator Sons ... provide the mechanism whereby the mortal becomes immortal and the finite attains the embrace of the infinite. (12.2)

When Jesus heard Thomas, he answered: "Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man goes to the Father except through me. All who find the Father, first find me. If you know me, you know the way to the Father. And you do know me, for you have lived with me and you now see me." (1947.6)

The Master, during the course of this final prayer with his apostles, alluded to the fact that he had manifested the Father's name to the world. And that is truly what he did by the revelation of God through his perfected life in the flesh.... [W]hen Jesus had finished his earth life, this name of the Father had been so revealed that the Master, who was the Father incarnate, could truly say: (1956.3)

I am the bread of life.
I am the living water.
I am the light of the world.
I am the desire of all ages.
I am the open door to eternal salvation.
I am the reality of endless life.
I am the good shepherd.
I am the pathway of infinite perfection.
I am the resurrection and the life.
I am the secret of eternal survival.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
I am the infinite Father of my finite children.
I am the true vine; you are the branches.
I am the hope of all who know the living truth.
I am the living bridge from one world to another.
I am the living link between time and eternity.

Thus did Jesus enlarge the living revelation of the name of God to all generations. As divine love reveals the nature of God, eternal truth discloses his name in ever-enlarging proportions.

Barker states:

Humans will not be reincarnated many times, but instead live only once before facing judgment from God.

This is a grossly fallacious statement; the Urantia Book hardly teaches humans will be "reincarnated many times." As the quotes below make clear, the Urantia Book characterizes reincarnation as an "absurd doctrine," and a "stultifying" belief.

This idea of reincarnation originated in the observance of hereditary and trait resemblance of offspring to ancestors. The custom of naming children after grandparents and other ancestors was due to belief in reincarnation. Some later-day races believed that man died from three to seven times. This belief ... can be found among the otherwise absurd doctrines of [the] twentieth-century. (953.5)

If an animal ate human flesh, it became a fetish. In this way the dog came to be the sacred animal of the Parsees. If the fetish is an animal and the ghost is permanently resident therein, then fetishism may impinge on reincarnation. In many ways the savages envied the animals; they did not feel superior to them and were often named after their favorite beasts. (967.)

The undue concentration on self led certainly to a fear of the nonevolutionary perpetuation of self in an endless round of successive incarnations as man, beast, or weeds. And of all the contaminating beliefs which could have become fastened upon what may have been an emerging monotheism, none was so stultifying as this belief in transmigration--the doctrine of the reincarnation of souls--which came from the Dravidian Deccan. This belief in the weary and monotonous round of repeated transmigrations robbed struggling mortals of their long-cherished hope of finding that deliverance and spiritual advancement in death which had been a part of the earlier Vedic faith. (1029.1)

There was, throughout all these regions, a lingering belief in reincarnation. The older Jewish teachers, together with Plato, Philo, and many of the Essenes, tolerated the theory that men may reap in one incarnation what they have sown in a previous existence; thus in one life they were believed to be expiating the sins committed in preceding lives. The Master found it difficult to make men believe that their souls had not had previous existences. (1811.5)

The Urantia Book does teach that upon death we shall shed this mortal coil, our physical body which has served as the vehicle of our mortal personality existence and the temple of the indewlling spirit of God, and for those who "fought the good fight of faith," rise again on resurrection morning with new spiritual forms unto eternal life:

"But herein is the danger to all who would postpone their entrance into the kingdom while they continue to pursue the pleasures of immaturity and indulge the satisfactions of selfishness: Having refused to enter the kingdom as a spiritual experience, they may subsequently seek entrance thereto when the glory of the better way becomes revealed in the age to come. And when, therefore, those who spurned the kingdom when I came in the likeness of humanity seek to find an entrance when it is revealed in the likeness of divinity, then will I say to all such selfish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to prepare for this heavenly citizenship, but you refused all such proffers of mercy; you rejected all invitations to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have refused salvation, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would enter the kingdom for selfish glory. Salvation is not for those who are unwilling to pay the price of wholehearted dedication to doing my Father's will. When in spirit and soul you have turned your backs upon the Father's kingdom, it is useless in mind and body to stand before this door and knock, saying, `Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the kingdom.' Then will I declare that you are not of my fold. I will not receive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the reward of unselfish service in the kingdom on earth. And when you say, `Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?' then shall I again declare that you are spiritual strangers; that we were not fellow servants in the Father's ministry of mercy on earth; that I do not know you; and then shall the Judge of all the earth say to you: `Depart from us, all you who have taken delight in the works of iniquity.' (1829.1)

For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

The Urantia Book also teaches that as mortal beings we "live only once before facing judgment from God," contary to the attempt by Barker to imply otherise, as the above quote and the those following make clear:

The second advent of Michael on earth is an event of tremendous sentimental value to both midwayers and humans; but otherwise it is of no immediate moment to [angels] and of no more practical importance to human beings than the common event of natural death, which so suddenly precipitates mortal man into the immediate grasp of that succession of universe events which leads directly to the presence of this same Jesus, the sovereign ruler of our universe. The children of light are all destined to see him, and it is of no serious concern whether we go to him or whether he should chance first to come to us. Be you therefore ever ready to welcome him on earth as he stands ready to welcome you in heaven. We confidently look for his glorious appearing, even for repeated comings, but we are wholly ignorant as to how, when, or in what connection he is destined to appear. (1919.4)

The Urantia Book teaches that upon mortal death we enter the sleep of death, and will, if we have accepted Jesus' gospel of the free gift of eternal life through grace of sonship/daughtership with God and the desire to seek to do the will of the Father in heaven, and to actualize by the grace of living faith the commandment to "Be perfect [compassionate], therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect [compassionate]," (Matthew 5:48) be resurrected in new forms, a "spiritual body" not of flesh and blood. We are born evolutionary mortals with a "natural body," and we will be raised on resurrection morning with a "spiritual body," for it is true "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:44) We will first be resurrected on the worlds which Jesus has prepared for us; and after we have

And then we will begin our Paradise Journey to find the Universal Father on Paradise:

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2)

"When I have returned to live in you and work through you [Spirit of Truth, the Comforter], I can the better lead you on through this life and guide you through the many abodes in the future life in the heaven of heavens. Life in the Father's eternal creation is not an endless rest of idleness and selfish ease but rather a ceaseless progression in grace, truth, and glory. Each of the many, many stations in my Father's house is a stopping place, a life designed to prepare you for the next one ahead. And so will the children of light go on from glory to glory until they attain the divine estate wherein they are spiritually perfected even as the Father is perfect in all things." (1953.4)

Clearly, the Urantia Book does not teach reincarnation; it does teach the resurrection and judgment, and it does teach that we shall be raised with spiritual bodies, and shall be spiritually transformed "from glory to glory" until we pass through Jesus and so to speak, actually stand face to face with God on Paradise:

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

And finally, the last fallacious misprepresentation of the teachings of the Urantia Book is found in the following statement:

Furthermore, salvation does not come through anything that humans can do, but instead is given only through the unmerited grace of God.

The Urantia Book does not teach that salvation comes "through anything that humans do." This is another of Barkers ignorant misrepresentations of the teachings of the Urantia Book. The Urantia Book teaches that salvation is a free gift made available by the grace of God through living faith, and even the birth of that saving faith is itself a gift from God:

In all praying, remember that sonship is a gift. No child has aught to do with earning the status of son or daughter. The earth child comes into being by the will of its parents. Even so, the child of God comes into grace and the new life of the spirit by the will of the Father in heaven. Therefore must the kingdom of heaven--divine sonship--be received as by a little child. You earn righteousness--progressive character development--but you receive sonship by grace and through faith. (1621.2)

"Peace be upon you. You rejoice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead because you thereby know that you and your brethren shall also survive mortal death. But such survival is dependent on your having been previously born of the spirit of truth-seeking and God-finding. The bread of life and the water thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness--for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the kingdom. These great truths and these universe facts are all related to this gospel in that they are a part of the result of believing the good news and are embraced in the subsequent experience of those who, by faith, become, in deed and in truth, the everlasting sons of the eternal God. My Father sent me into the world to proclaim this salvation of sonship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this salvation of sonship. Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace. If professed believers bear not these fruits of the divine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are useless branches on the living vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Father requires of the children of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, therefore, you are not fruitful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your unfruitful branches. Increasingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you progress heavenward in the kingdom of God. You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood. And when you go abroad to tell all nations the good news of this gospel, I will go before you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you." (2054.3)

On the way to Judea Jesus was followed by a company of almost fifty of his friends and enemies. At their noon lunchtime, on Wednesday, he talked to his apostles and this group of followers on the "Terms of Salvation," and at the end of this lesson told the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (a tax collector). Said Jesus: "You see, then, that the Father gives salvation to the children of men, and this salvation is a free gift to all who have the faith to receive sonship in the divine family. There is nothing man can do to earn this salvation. Works of self-righteousness cannot buy the favor of God, and much praying in public will not atone for lack of living faith in the heart. Men you may deceive by your outward service, but God looks into your souls. What I am telling you is well illustrated by two men who went into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself: `O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unlearned, unjust, adulterers, or even like this publican. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven but smote his breast, saying, `God be merciful to me a sinner.' I tell you that the publican went home with God's approval rather than the Pharisee, for every one who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted." (1838.2)

Jesus was always trying to impress upon his apostles and disciples that they must acquire, by faith, a righteousness which would exceed the righteousness of slavish works which some of the scribes and Pharisees paraded so vaingloriously before the world. (1861.8)

Though Jesus taught that faith, simple childlike belief, is the key to the door of the kingdom, he also taught that, having entered the door, there are the progressive steps of righteousness which every believing child must ascend in order to grow up to the full stature of the robust sons of God. (1861.9)

It is in the consideration of the technique of receiving God's forgiveness that the attainment of the righteousness of the kingdom is revealed. Faith is the price you pay for entrance into the family of God; but forgiveness is the act of God which accepts your faith as the price of admission. And the reception of the forgiveness of God by a kingdom believer involves a definite and actual experience and consists in the following four steps, the kingdom steps of inner righteousness: (1861.10)

1. God's forgiveness is made actually available and is personally experienced by man just in so far as he forgives his fellows.

2. Man will not truly forgive his fellows unless he loves them as himself.

3. To thus love your neighbor as yourself is the highest ethics.

4. Moral conduct, true righteousness, becomes, then, the natural result of such love.

It therefore is evident that the true and inner religion of the kingdom unfailingly and increasingly tends to manifest itself in practical avenues of social service. Jesus taught a living religion that impelled its believers to engage in the doing of loving service. But Jesus did not put ethics in the place of religion. He taught religion as a cause and ethics as a result. (1862.5)

In summing up his final statement, Jesus said: "You cannot buy salvation; you cannot earn righteousness. Salvation is the gift of God, and righteousness is the natural fruit of the spirit-born life of sonship in the kingdom. You are not to be saved because you live a righteous life; rather is it that you live a righteous life because you have already been saved, have recognized sonship as the gift of God and service in the kingdom as the supreme delight of life on earth. When men believe this gospel, which is a revelation of the goodness of God, they will be led to voluntary repentance of all known sin. Realization of sonship is incompatible with the desire to sin. Kingdom believers hunger for righteousness and thirst for divine perfection." (1683.2)

"Salvation is by the regeneration of the spirit and not by the self-righteous deeds of the flesh. You are justified by faith and fellowshipped by grace, not by fear and the self-denial of the flesh, albeit the Father's children who have been born of the spirit are ever and always masters of the self and all that pertains to the desires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who follow in the way of this heavenly peace are destined to be sanctified to the eternal service of the ever-advancing sons of the eternal God. Henceforth, it is not a duty but rather your exalted privilege to cleanse yourselves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for perfection in the love of God. (1610.1)

Indeed, Jesus is the "author and finisher of our faith":

Some day a reformation in the Christian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadulterated religious teachings of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus. In the enthusiasm of Pentecost, Peter unintentionally inaugurated a new religion, the religion of the risen and glorified Christ. The Apostle Paul later on transformed this new gospel into Christianity, a religion embodying his own theologic views and portraying his own personal experience with the Jesus of the Damascus road. The gospel of the kingdom is founded on the personal religious experience of the Jesus of Galilee; Christianity is founded almost exclusively on the personal religious experience of the Apostle Paul. Almost the whole of the New Testament is devoted, not to the portrayal of the significant and inspiring religious life of Jesus, but to a discussion of Paul's religious experience and to a portrayal of his personal religious convictions. The only notable exceptions to this statement, aside from certain parts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are the Book of Hebrews and the Epistle of James. Even Peter, in his writing, only once reverted to the personal religious life of his Master. The New Testament is a superb Christian document, but it is only meagerly Jesusonian. (2091.10)

Barker is clearly ignorant of the concepts actually taught in the Urantia Book. Given this fact, what does it tell us about those who parrot him without giving the least consideration if what he claims are the concepts taught in the Urantia Book are the truth or not? Barker, at least with regard to his purported concepts he claims are taught in the Urantia Book, is in each and every case spreading falsehoods and lies. What does this tell us about him?

The spiritually blind individual who logically follows scientific dictation, social usage, and religious dogma stands in grave danger of sacrificing his moral freedom and losing his spiritual liberty. Such a soul is destined to become an intellectual parrot, a social automaton, and a slave to religious authority. (1458.1)

"In just a few hours the world will see me no more; but you will continue to know me in your hearts even until I send you this new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. As I have lived with you in person, then shall I live in you; I shall be one with your personal experience in the spirit kingdom. And when this has come to pass, you shall surely know that I am in the Father, and that, while your life is hid with the Father in me, I am also in you. I have loved the Father and have kept his word; you have loved me, and you will keep my word. As my Father has given me of his spirit, so will I give you of my spirit. And this Spirit of Truth which I will bestow upon you shall guide and comfort you and shall eventually lead you into all truth. (1948.3)

Thus it appears that the Spirit of Truth comes really to lead all believers into all truth, into the expanding knowledge of the experience of the living and growing spiritual consciousness of the reality of eternal and ascending sonship with God. (2061.5)

So, I personally agree with Harvey that one does not need to read the Urantia Book to discuss concepts contained therein, but one does need to know that the purported concepts are fair, accurate, and truthful representations of the concepts contained in the Urantia Book (or any other source in question), less one be found to be spreading half-truths, falsehoods, innuendo and lies under the guise of purported concepts.

Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible. (51.9)

Falsehood is not a matter of narration technique but something premeditated as a perversion of truth.... The shadow of a hair's turning, premeditated for an untrue purpose, the slightest twisting or perversion of that which is principle--these constitute falseness. (555.1)

[Colter]

Thanks Rob, that's what I'm talking about. Someone who knows what the UB actually says and can offer some informed analysis.

There is a telling irony among those who disagree with a book but don't know what it says.

McCuloch, the topic of this thread is the UB. I would be glad to discuss it with you or anyone who actually knows what it says. You do not have to read the whole thing, but I would ask that you know something about what it says. If not your wasting time.

Colter

[McCulloch]

Thanks Rob, that's what I'm talking about. Someone who knows what the UB actually says and can offer some informed analysis.

There is a telling irony among those who disagree with a book but don't know what it says.

McCuloch, the topic of this thread is the UB. I would be glad to discuss it with you or anyone who actually knows what it says. You do not have to read the whole thing, but I would ask that you know something about what it says. If not your wasting time.

Here is the paradox. According to UB readers, the Urantia Book contains profound wisdom and insight. It has been here for about a ½ century.
Yet no one that I know can cite a single reputable scholar who uses it as a source, although it is rumoured that some scholars are unwilling to have it known that they read the UB for fear of their acedemic reputation. There are no Chairs at universities dedicated to its study. As far as I can see, the few scholars who give it any attention dismiss it.
Apparently, it is its own only evidence.

[Rob]

There is a telling irony among those who disagree with a book but don't know what it says.

Here is the paradox. According to UB readers, the Urantia Book contains profound wisdom and insight. It has been here for about a ½ century.

Yet no one that I know can cite a single reputable scholar who uses it as a source, although it is rumoured that some scholars are unwilling to have it known that they read the UB for fear of their acedemic reputation. There are no Chairs at universities dedicated to its study. As far as I can see, the few scholars who give it any attention dismiss it.

Apparently, it is its own only evidence.

Evidence is hard to come by, it is largely circumstantial, and there is never enough of it.

--J. Hoover Makin

Indeed, McCulloch, life is full of paradoxes, some real, and some just apparent because of our limited and circumscribed viewpoint. Personally, I don't find the academic communities response to works such as the Urantia Book a paradox at all, but rather a normal response, and one that can be illustrated by the history of science alone.

Consider this fact; there was once a time in the US that one's academic career as a graduate student (as late as the late 1950s and early 1960s) would come to a screeching halt if one espoused continental drift, which was being openly ridiculed by some graduate level teachers and generally attacked thoughout the US academic community. One had to be an already established professor to risk espousing continental drift in any serious way. And this is a purely secular/scientific subject! This fact simply highlights the truth that academic positions and titles are every bit as political as politics itself, and in some cases at different times the truth has less to do with what is acceptable than what one must parrot as a graduate student to one's professors in the effort to also attain the title professor.

Here we have some fairly clear evidence of the influence of the 19th-century debate in a remark of R. D. Oldham at a discussion of Wegener’s theory in 1923:

I can remember that when I started as a geologist the idea was not unknown that a good deal of geological evidence was, at any rate, not inconsistent with the notion that the continents have not always occupied the positions on the surface of the globe which they do now. But I also can remember very well that in those days it was unsafe for anyone to advocate an idea of that sort.

The physicists, who before that had forced on us the notion of a fiery globe with a molten interior and thin crust on it, had gone round and insisted on a solid globe, and any notion of the shifting of continents was incompatible with that theory. Those ideas held the ground so strongly that it was more then any man who valued his reputation for scientific sanity ought to venture on to advocate anything like this theory that Wegener has nowadays been able to put forward. (Oldham 1923: 189)

-- Brush, Stephen G. (1996a) Nebulous Earth: The Origin of the Solar System and the Core of the Earth from Laplace to Jeffreys. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 174.

Now, when we fast forward, we find:

As the new Darwinian orthodox' swept through Europe, its most brilliant opponent, the aging embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer, remarked with bitter irony that every triumphant theory passes through three stages: first it is dismissed as untrue; then it is rejected as contrary to religion; finally, it is accepted as dogma and each scientist claims that he had long appreciated its truth. (Gould 1979: 160)

I first met the theory of continental drift when it labored under the inquisition of stage two. Kenneth Caster, the only major American paleontologist who dared to support it openly, came to lecture at my alma mater, Antioch College. We were scarcely known as a bastion of entrenched conservatism, but most of us dismissed his thoughts as just this side of sane. (Since I am now in von Baer's third stage, I have the distinct memory that Caster sowed substantial seeds of doubt in my own mind.) A few years later, as a graduate student at Columbia University, I remember the a priori derision of my distinguished stratigraphy professor toward a visiting Australian drifter. He nearly orchestrated the chorus of Bronx cheers from a sycophantic crowd of loyal students. (Again, from my vantage point in the third stage, I recall this episode as amusing, but distasteful.) As a tribute to my professor, I must record that he experienced a rapid conversion just two years later and spent his remaining years joyously redoing his life's work. (Gould 1979: 160)

Today, just ten years later, my own students would dismiss with even more derision anyone who denied the evident truth of continental drift--a prophetic madman is at least amusing ... (Gould 1979: 160-161)

-- Gould, Stephen Jay (1979) Ever Since Darwin. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Not much had changed between 1923 and Gould's days in graduate school. And the truth is, they have not changed much today either. So while you are correct regarding the academic establishments response to works such as the Urantia Book, I think this tells us more about the nature of the academic establishment than the value or validity of the content of the Urantia Book.

Here is another interesting paradox or irony. Biblical scholars through the methods of comparative and historical studies have reached a consensus that there is such a thing as an "original message" of Jesus versus the early followers teachings about him. Yet, while this may be true, Jesus well may have also made claims about himself that scholars are perhaps overerly zealous to reject, such that he did openly claim to be the divine Son of God. For example, some completely reject the gospel of John, through which we largely get the picture of Jesus as a divine being incarnate. Now, if it was true that he was really a Creator Son incarnate in flesh and blood, and one can at least entertain this as a hypothesis, than that would be the supreme cosmic paradox and irony, for those who were the learned and scholars of his day hung him in a cross, and today they simply deny his divinity.

The Father in heaven will not suffer a single child on earth to perish if that child has a desire to find the Father and truly longs to be like him. Our Father even loves the wicked and is always kind to the ungrateful. If more human beings could only know about the goodness of God, they would certainly be led to repent of their evil ways and forsake all known sin. All good things come down from the Father of light, in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of changing. The spirit of the true God is in man's heart. He intends that all men should be brothers. When men begin to feel after God, that is evidence that God has found them, and that they are in quest of knowledge about him. We live in God and God dwells in us. (1454.1)

The highest evidence of the reality and efficacy of religion consists in the fact of human experience; namely, that man, naturally fearful and suspicious, innately endowed with a strong instinct of self-preservation and craving survival after death, is willing fully to trust the deepest interests of his present and future to the keeping and direction of that power and person designated by his faith as God. That is the one central truth of all religion. As to what that power or person requires of man in return for this watchcare and final salvation, no two religions agree; in fact, they all more or less disagree. (1127.5)

That faith is concerned only with the grasp of ideal values is shown by the New Testament definition which declares that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. (1091.7)

Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a discovery of values. The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the exhibition of a human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the wholehearted worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience constitutes the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological beliefs. (1095.6)

The fact of religion consists wholly in the religious experience of rational and average human beings. And this is the only sense in which religion can ever be regarded as scientific or even psychological. The proof that revelation is revelation is this same fact of human experience: the fact that revelation does synthesize the apparently divergent sciences of nature and the theology of religion into a consistent and logical universe philosophy, a co-ordinated and unbroken explanation of both science and religion, thus creating a harmony of mind and satisfaction of spirit which answers in human experience those questionings of the mortal mind which craves to know how the Infinite works out his will and plans in matter, with minds, and on spirit. (1105.5)

Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the [Spirit of God] that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father. (24.6)

[Bro Dave]

The danger in this kind of discussion, is in attempting to make the UB black or white. Truth has been, and is now, available to us in many, many guises. The list of books in a previous post attest to this. Do all these “agree” with each other? No, they do not. In the process of education, it is not the answers that are most important, it is the better questions they inspire the student to ask that matters. What makes the Urantia Book unique in all this, is that it provides a sort of framework, within which everything came be understood. That, for me is huge! I can now honestly say I have at least a feeling for God, the Universe, and the purpose for existence, as well as where the future will lead. I no longer look down on other religions, but understand how they arrived at where they are, and that each contains an unique view of truth worth sharing.

I know of no other literary or religious work that does this, and does this so beautifully. It is why those who have discovered it, read and re-read it, some as many as 15 times, and they still are thrilled by new discoveries and new understandings on each reading. That’s a pretty substantial endorsement as far as I’m concerned.

One last comment; Reading the Forward is not for the faint of heart! It is not simply an introduction, as you might expect. It is more of a synopsis, a summation of the entire book, and can be a bit intimidating even to the superior intellect. If you come from a Christian background especially, you might be more comfortable starting with Part IV, “The Life of Jesus”. The down side of this, is you miss the framework Parts I, II, and III offer for his mission here. However, most agree, it is their favorite part of the book.

Take a chance, read it. You will be amazed…

I promise!

Bro Dave

[harvey1]

I just don't get it Dave. Why even take something as serious in the least when someone claims that ETIs contacted them without so much as a piece of evidence in support of the claim? Look at the style and context of the revelation, as QED pointed out, it strongly appears to be from the perspective of someone writing around(/shortly after) the time of Einstein's special relativity, but before his general relativity since those concepts are not mentioned. It's obviously prior to quantum theory since there's not a peep about duality (which I'm sure the author would have made a big deal of had they wrote the book after quantum theory became known).

I'm not saying that the UB lacks any great philosophical insights, but why not just try to identify the human person who said these great things (using a number of words to do so)? I think the Urantians would benefit greatly by doing so and people would probably then entertain the book as a book of human wisdom--perhaps even God inspired.