This is a tricky subject. It has largely to do with semantics. Different people from different backgrounds and experience will give different takes on this. All I can relate is how I look at such things. And keeping in mind that each person needs to define these things for her/himSELF, let me presume to work out the details of my own belief system and then you – the reader – can incorporate whatever you find useful into yours.
God is a great God because he is the highest of the Creators, possessing so much power—infinite power. Yet, he desires nothing more than giving as much of it away to his creatures. The more he gives, the happier he is (as such a thing might be interpreted by us). The first and most critical of all gifts from God is free will. For humans, free will completes their relative liberty as independent beings and dignifies the HUMAN will in the process. Humans are Mortals—they have survival (after death) potential. And it is God's will that the Mortal will should trump all other direction for that being, even if it is temporarily destructive to that Mortal's associates. To God it is more important to let one human be free than to limit the choices of all humans by limiting the choices of even ONE of them. There is an old Negro spiritual that says, “If one of us is in chains, none of us are free.” Humans keep themselves in chains, where God wants nothing more that to see them ALL free.
It is because of all of this that the 'self' comes into consideration. The mind of the animal-human Mortal is an arena of sorts. It is the place where spirit can connect with the material brain, where both function, and both are mutually contactable to each other.
Here is where things need teasing out. I will offer one interpretation out of many for the meaning of certain words as I understand them. Again it will be up to you to integrate them in a way that fits what you believe. These are mostly based upon my study of the Urantia Book.
God, as Father (or Original Parent) is a personality and shares all of his personal power with the Eternal Son (the Second Parent/Son) and the Infinite Spirit. In fact the Father is the bestower of all personality to all beings from the Eternal Son to the lowly Mortal. All personality is linked through the Father's personality “circuit”.
Now we divide “personality”into animal (material) and human (trans-material). Animal personality is only functional between the two ends of that animal's existence; birth and death. Human personality, when integrated with the developing soul, elevates that creature's IDENTITY to a potentially eternal status. It is this personality status that materially and spiritually separates animal from animal-human. It is my belief that the choice of one animal species (our form of a hominid – the first human) to turn its attention inward, away from large, on-rushing predators, etc., and was somehow able to believe in something more than it could see or hear in the “outside” world. Animals, even advanced animals are locked into individual self-preservation. But humans have chosen to preserve their species; though they sure have a funny way of showing it sometimes... And, fortunately or unfortunately, that decision has now put all the other species on our planet in human hands as well.
The mothers of the mammalian orders come the closest to being selfless animals, but their instinct to pass on their genes still can either lead to protecting their young ones even to the death OR let their young die in order that they (the mothers) be able produce future young again. To look beyond genetic desires (through primitive worship) makes an animal more than just an animal. Worship is the high water mark that humans reached as animals, even as their animal cousins were not able to achieve such a thing. According to the Urantia Book this desire to worship qualifies an animal to receive a Thought Adjuster (an entity WITHOUT a personality) and from then on that animal (and each of its descendants) is considered human.
So it is with the assistance of the Thought Adjuster and its embryonic soul-counterpart that the human “personality” survives death. The Thought Adjuster as a spirit strongly desires to become personal. The personality of the human strongly desires to become spiritual, and to thence live forever. Yet...then...what is the “self,” what is the “soul” and what is the “identity”? How do these three different terms find a way to fit coherently into one theory?
Well, here's one idea...
All material creatures have separate identities. No two material creatures are ever the same. This is an extraordinary statement, especially when one considers just how many material creatures there are—every paramecium, every bacterium included. There are more bacterial cells in the human body than there are human cells. Of course a bacterium does not experience self-awareness. But it is STILL unique. Every mammal has some sense of self though, even if it is in a most rudimentary, unconscious and/or nearly-unidentifiable form, as we humans might understand such a thing. Yet, honestly, even the great majority of mammals probably don't actually view themselves as “selfs,” because the capability of their material brains is so limited by the constant and unrelenting processing of dealing with exterior stimuli.
A mouse (for example) is so concerned with material survival that its very sense of identity is never self-realized. However, as one moves up the evolutionary phylogeny (through the higher taxonomic grouping of mammals), one finds animals that have periods of leisure. The great apes, in particular, show an enormous amount of self-identity, due to hundreds of thousands of years of “ape culture,” by being so familiar with their forest life routine, and coupled with their incredible ability (through a relatively high intelligence) to adapt to many varied situations. The lack of adaptability was the death-blow to the much less intelligent dinosaurs. And mammals in between these species (the mouse and the ape) are capable of self-identity but only marginally develop or appreciate any such sense. Cats, for instance, will sometimes realize that their image in a mirror IS them (their self), while others just don't get it and persist in treating the image as another cat.
Naturally, humans have developed a very great tool for understand themselves and each other: spoken language. Nothing has expanded the advancement of human culture so profoundly. Human culture is now SO foreign to mouse, cat or ape culture as to be almost entirely synthetic. Not only does it allow us to examine each other, but also to ask questions about ourselves as individuals, independent of all “lower” creatures. We have gone from being reflective animals to becoming reflecting animals. With our languages, ingenuity (very large brain) and ability to cooperate, we have significantly left our species' childhood as “animal,” becoming truly human. So it may be said that “identity” is common to the mammalian brain. Humans are able to hold on to that identity enough for each to develop a rich sense of self during their material lives.
Even when humans die (presuming that they choose to live on after material death) they retain the mammalian identity, as the human self. But the “soul” becomes the new vehicle for the identity, as self. Most importantly, the personality and the self become one. Thus the existential goal of material life, if not achieved during life in the flesh, is achieved at material death; true self-hood. Similarly once the self and personality have been combined with the liberated soul, the next personal development is for this personality-soul to combine with the Thought Adjuster spirit—as one being. Interestingly, according to the Urantia Book, this soul-spirit “translation” can even occur before material death!
The continuation of the personality to animate a soul (where it had once animated a human body) IS the evolutionary process of that person's identity becoming eternal (where once it was only temporal).
Largely, I have discussed what things look like on the outside of the person. The other side of this coin is the perception that the self (itself) has for inner realities. What does the self see about its own aspects?
When the self looks (hears, tastes, smells, touches...and intuits) the “outside” world as separate from it, it usually remains aloof from that outside world. It has been an evolutionary benefit for humans to demand this separation. Western people have perhaps taken this a bit too far by associating all so-called “developed” society with man-made things—not natural ones. As we develop into a species capable of designing tools that will take care of nearly all of our material needs, we MUST concomitantly become integrated again with the natural world (e.g. our planet) or it is likely that we will utterly destroy it, washing that destruction down with our own extinction as the self-appointed “care-taker” species of our world.
All of our “selfs” are at a historic pivot point that we have to make the correct decisions about, in order to get past. In my view, this transition from material origin to super-material destiny demands that each human self (identity) accept the notion of her/his increasing power over the material world, WHILE also insisting that all human personality be linked more closely, through the Father's circuit, in a sort of over-mind. In other words, self may be independent from other selfs, but through willful intention may submit to the ideals of self-denial in order to be more like the Father (remember that he has so much but gives as much as he possibly can to others).
The Father is SO giving that he let's his very personal aspects be shared equally with two other members. This is something that humans simply cannot do, and can understand even less. He allows the Eternal Son to represent ALL spirit. He gives the Infinite Spirit the power to represent ALL mind. In this way one “God” can function as a Trinity. It allows the Father's thought to be spoken by word of the Eternal Son and acted upon by the Infinite Spirit; thought, word and act.
In this same way, creatures may strive to give as much of themselves to others, whenever they are able. Another term for this giving is: LOVE. In the strictest and simplest sense, to give without the desire to receive IS to love. Because God gives the most, he is the example for all beings of how to give; how to love. God – though being the personality-center of gravity for all personalities – is the eternal and infinite example of selflessness for them too. The human self can find the “peace that passes all understanding” by following God's example, even in the material life.
Each of us - as human beings - should enjoy the fact that we are privileged enough to have be given a personality. We can recognize it and overlay it upon our animal selfs! Then we can give back to God by following his example of self-denial, giving and loving. This is the recipe for eternal soul development and personality survival. There is no greater reward for the self than to achieve a state of voluntary selflessness, and there is no way for human culture to survive if the majority of the species is unable to understand the need for self-denial. THIS is our biggest barrier to individual happiness and world-wide peace in the 21st Century. The situation is completely in our own hands.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Urantia and the Transition of the Fifth Epochal Revelation
This year is turning out to be the pivot point among well-informed Urantia Book (UB) readers. Most of the discussion forums are unable to deal with the change that must come to pass, in order for the UB to remain a useful source for conceptual cosmic information.
Yet, the Fifth Epochal Revelation (FER), in my opinion, is MORE than the just the static text of the UB. Even UB Text Fundamentalists (UBTF) admit that the human component (discussions and study groups, conferences and conclaves) are necessary to determine the dynamic nature of the textual concepts, even if the text itself is steadily becoming less relevant to our world situation. The unstoppable transition from the "sacred book" mentality to the "living truth" mentality has been well underway for perhaps ten years now, and is increasing exponentially.
I have likened this transition to a coming Civil War in our UB community... But I would be much happier to call it what it is: The Great Transition. It occurred to me that all of this was planned ahead of time by the Revelators. Why do I think this?
It is simple: Mathematics is the most logical of the predictive methods that humans (for no more than about the last 8,000 years) can use. How much more-so, would the Revelators - who hail from a civilization, theoretically TRILLIONS of earth years old - know all the potential outcomes of a revelation given to our world at this primitive stage? It is very reasonable to assume that much of he recent history of our world was estimated to occur just as it did by the celestial overseers. It is also worth mentioning that there was probably a large amount of celestial intervention in our 20th. Century history. Anecdotal accounts that the "celestials declared war on Communism," points to the possibility that such things were and are possible.
Upon visiting UBRON.org lately - the biggest and most influential of the UB online discussion forums - it has become almost painfully apparent that even with the introduction of the new human parallels to the UB text that Matthew Block has presented and entered into the Library there, along with the obvious math, science and history errors being discovered in the UB, the most frequent "posters" cannot seem to leave their EXACT TEXT interpretations aside. One gets the feeling that they believe they would be "sinning" or being "unfaithful" to the BOOK itself, by questioning the UB's origins and scrutinizing (objectively) the content that has come under dispute.
Meanwhile the UB has always plainly stated that its own information on science and history will "stand in need of revision" [my bold]...
...and it is also filled with comments about how truth needs room to grow in the human mind, NOT through "formulas, codes, creeds, or intellectual patterns of human conduct" [my bold]...
It is not unreasonable to state here and now that any BOOK that purports to offer "new truths" (like the UB) is wrestling with the fact that it has to "imprison" those truths. This puts an expiration date on books...even the UB. The work of Matthew Block only reinforces this in his presentation that large sections said to be of "celestial authorship" have instead been shown to be of human origin.
As I have said in past posts, I myself dealt with the doubt and insecurity I felt when first reading Martin Gardner's book, Urantia The Great Cult Mystery, in which he blithely attempted to tear the revelation apart, because of the errors, uncited human source material, UB community reliance upon its shaky apocryphal base and history. While I didn't appreciate Gardner's tone or enthusiasm for trying to destroy the belief systems of thousands of people, I DID appreciate how much work he did regarding the origin and history of the UB. His book still stands as the most detailed source for learning about how the UB came to be.
Another very well-researched and well-written history of the UB is Larry Mullins' more friendly, and surprisingly objective, book A History of the Urantia Papers. Despite it being a bit less professionally produced as compared to Gardner's book, Mullins' history is just as well-researched. Unlike the UBTF people, Mullins' bias is kept largely in check as he is willing to report (without comment) even the unfavorable aspects of the characters and situations that led to the UB's writing and editing from ca. 1909-1950's and eventual publication in 1955. It is nice to see this book in print again. And it is worth the $20 or so to pick up or order a copy.
These two books by Gardner and Mullins, respectively, give the biased but most objectively critical view AND biased but accurate view of the over-all creation of the Urantia Book and the activities of its 20th. Century organizations and relevant personalities (including the Revelators).
The other aspect that makes these two books so well-suited to be read one after the other is that both authors appreciate detail, clear citation of sources, large comprehensive appendices and relative even-handedness for accuracy; not letting their biases jeopardize the value of their research. For instance, Gardner - who let's it be known early on that he thinks the UB is a fraud - simply cannot help commenting in a positive way about the shear magnitude and quality of the writing of the UB. It is possible when reading Gardner's book to get the real feeling that he isn't all that sure of his own stance. I say this because he often re-assured for me (I read his book before Mullins') many of the more "supernatural" events in the weaving together of the circumstances, human-sourced material and major management of the Contact Commission (who received information directly somehow from the Revelators) and early Forum (who edited the material and sent it back to the Revelators) seemed to have no rational scientific explanation. Even Gardner would not seriously propose one of his own. In response to such mysterious events, he would only say that he believed that Sadler's family must have "somehow" plagiarized and completely fabricated the entire scheme. Incidentally, this is also Matthew Block's current theory. The differences between Martin Gardner and Matthew Block (who, in full disclosure, is a friend of mine) are many though, not the least of which is Matthew's admission that he could be wrong.
In contradistinction to Gardner, is Mullins' more "officially" (and organizationally) sanctioned, A History of the Urantia Papers, and his own biases. As I said above, Mullins treats even the most unflattering legends and facts of the UB project with a strong even-handedness. The reason for this might be more complicated than the simple assumption that Mullins is a supporter of the UB in other contexts and in his Secondary Source writing. In fact, Mullins book seemed to be the best the UB community could muster as a response to Gardner's sweeping attacks upon the their very reason for being. And it was an excellent, though not wholly-complete, response.
When I say "not complete" I mean, more specifically, "not unified." Notice how the title of Mullins' book uses "The Urantia Papers" and NOT "The Urantia Book." It is likely that this is a relic of the 1980's dispute between the Urantia Foundation (original publisher of the UB) and Urantia Book Fellowship (once, the "Urantia Brotherhood," when still associated with the Urantia Foundation). Mullins was associated with the Fellowship side (as opposed to the Foundation side) of this dispute. The sting of the separation between this two organizations was still evident, with the mopping up of the messy lawsuits including those regarding the Urantia Foundation's loss of the exclusive copyright for actually printing and publishing the UB. Ten years ago - when Mullins first published his history - the name, "Urantia Book" was still a Foundation-related title. Though the UB had been published under that title by Uversa Press (a Fellowship-related effort), there were still the potential of not using the title in the future. Many people still refuse to call the book "Urantia Book" and instead prefer the title, "The Urantia Papers." And so Mullins' title seems to swim against the tide that he himself is now swept up in. In other words, he is part of the re-unification of the Foundation with the Fellowship; both organizations now agreeing to use "Urantia BOOK." I'm glad his history has not changed its title.
In discussing Mullins and what I call, the "Great Urantia Book Rebellion" of the 1980's, we come full circle to the current problem that is facing the Urantia Book reading community. We are in the post-organizational phase of the FER. This became the case upon the divorce of the two organizations mentioned above. As soon as confidence was lost in the Urantia Foundation (specifically) the FER was cut away from any authority UB readers might have given any organization. This was a necessary step once the failure of the Foundation to hold on to the copyright of the UB text became a reality.
Some UBTF (Urantia Book Text Fundamentalist) people still argue for the leadership role of the Foundation; that it has some kind of "Revelatory Authority" still to lead the movement. In my view this is ridiculous, futile and retards the entire FER. What is needed now is only ONE group: The Urantia Book Readership. This is the name I propose for all people who read the UB, irrespective of (1) organizational loyalties, (2) hidden agendas and (3) attempts to make the UB the centerpiece for a cult or religion. Any or all of these three things are destined to miserable failure. It wouldn't have to be "miserable" if readers of the UB were to honestly reassess this situation: How can science errors, history errors, math errors, factionalized organizations, cults and religions be used to justify the reading of a book that both prepares us for all of these shortcomings AND discourages their defense? It simply will not work.
The much more unsettling perspectives of the fundamentalist-ideologues who believe that every word of the UB is still a dynamic and revelatory truth, beyond questioning, tell the scarier story of the unbalancing of intelligent human minds.
I had a girlfriend once who was an archaeologist AND a Christian fundamentalist, Bible-text believer. She studied the bones of animals that were alive on this world thousands and sometimes millions of years before she herself believed the earth was created. I asked if she saw any contradiction in this. How do things that are not (specifically and literally) mentioned in the Bible come into being? At first she resorted to the potential inaccuracies of radio carbon dating, then proposed the idea that perhaps these animals never did live, and their bones were left for us by God to test our faith!
It is this mushy-headed and absurdly erroneous stance that UBTF people use for the same kind of issues. In fact, at UBRON there was recently discussed the discrepancy between the UB's date for life implantation...
...and the current non-UB scientifically determined and tested dating of ~ 3.9 billion years ago. But, sure enough, the UBTF people are also willing to attempt to twist and bend the theories of current science to suit their agenda which aggressively asserts that "science is still catching up to the UB."
And so Chris Halvorson (official UB "science verifier" at UBtheNews.com) provided the paper that could explain why current science was unable to "correctly" date the emergence of life on earth. At the core of Halvorson's argument is the following...
One doesn't need a PhD in anything to see that Halvorson only uses UB science to argue against non-UB science. That is what in Banking we used to call a "washout." You can't use your only source to justify ITSELF! No one would EVER take that seriously. Halvorson and his partner Halbert Katzen - who manages the UBtheNews website and lectures extensively about how current science is "catching up to the UB" constitute examples of the ultimate need to "prove" the science and history of the UB. Unfortunately, Halvorson doesn't seem to be helping much as radioactive decay dating is concerned, since the only "catching up" that is done involves him defending the UB WITH the UB, NOT by using non-UB science's "correction" of itself, and supposedly new "agreement" with the UB. The evidence is still OVERWHELMINGLY on the side of non-UB science, wherever and whenever the UB science comes into conflict with it.
These very well-educated and credentialed people who have committed themselves to bending the truth to fit the UB, have completely forgotten one of research's most important rules...
Naturally, this is just one of many such twistings, turnings and spinnings in the UBTF sphere; one of desperate clinging to the dissolution of their sand castle as the waves continue to roll in over it. But I want to move beyond all of this. I have come to peace with the aging of the UB and the transition of the FER into its new, social, post-organizational, post-textual role. It is obvious to me now that the UB cannot be relied upon to convince science or history of anything, nor was it ever the book's role to do so. The UBTF people insist it must do this, but it is not a function of the FER in any way, and nowhere in the UB is its own "verification" required. The UB stands on its own!
Epochal Revelation is only complete when celestial PERSONALITY is involved and contactable to the inhabitants of a world. Though the UB is a literary work of amazing scale, in Epochal Revelatory terms it is only a stop-gap measure to bridge the Fourth Epochal Revelation (the life of Jesus/Michael) to the completion of the Fifth Epochal Revelation: the visitation of a New Son.
If those of us who are more progressive and open-minded about the role of the UB can fulfill our destiny, we will bring a large number of our UB-reading friends over to the notion that preparation for this New Son is more important than promoting the UB. Obviously anyone who has passed through the text fundamentalist stage, then the skeptical phase, and has come to rest in the progressive nook already understands the basics of the cosmic philosophy that is revealed by the UB...even if we don't elevate the TEXT as a sacred one. I ask other people who are well-read in the UB, yet also open-minded to consider the possibility that the UB's text is giving way to a new aspect of the FER, and to join us in preparation of the final phase of the revelation.
I welcome comments for and against what I have written here. But I warn readers that I will not be pulled into a debate, as some readers have recently insisted upon. Instead I'm "looking for the others" who believe what I do, namely, that the UB is our textbook as teachers, teaching the philosophy of our Local Universe and Superuniverse to the world-stage actors (students) who shall greet the next phase whether it be a New Son or some unknown (but shortly arriving) aspect of the FER.
My goal will also be to unify The Urantia Book Readership as one group in the next couple years; with its only membership stipulation being the reading of the UB. That's it. Ideology must be left completely out. The UB is a work made for interpretation. And as long as the text fundamentalists insist on an exclusively literal interpretation for the UB (as the Bible text fundamentalists have done - because the two are often quite related), the freedom of other readers to express themselves stands in dispute. As we have seen at UBRON (and is always the case at the more heavily moderated (essentially, censored) Truthbook.org and UAI Forums.
One only need view the example (in my last post) of how one UBTF person abused his one and only opportunity to oppose me and all I say - by ignorantly threatening me - to clearly see that the fanatical point has been passed now with these folks. Even another guy who initially supported my last post here, ended up being just another text fundamentalist-nightmare of ignorance posing as learned scholar...for he too, ended up being unable to accept the idea that the UB has intentional "errors."
I am moving into a new domain with all of this. The time to debate is long over for me at least. For the fanatic ideologue, so called "debate" has become a series of circular and embellished arguments, where blindness is key, made by people who are incapable of thinking for themselves any more. They are utterly and permanently lost in self-deception. You chose the cliche: They painted themselves into a corner? They put all their eggs in one basket? No matter how we look at it, it is only PRIDE now that prevents the baptism of the DYNAMIC truth, as it replaces the static text of an aging but once-and-still-very useful manual (the UB). And NOTHING is harder to overcome than human ego-pride.
What each of us needs to do is ask ourselves: What is more important?
Yet, the Fifth Epochal Revelation (FER), in my opinion, is MORE than the just the static text of the UB. Even UB Text Fundamentalists (UBTF) admit that the human component (discussions and study groups, conferences and conclaves) are necessary to determine the dynamic nature of the textual concepts, even if the text itself is steadily becoming less relevant to our world situation. The unstoppable transition from the "sacred book" mentality to the "living truth" mentality has been well underway for perhaps ten years now, and is increasing exponentially.
I have likened this transition to a coming Civil War in our UB community... But I would be much happier to call it what it is: The Great Transition. It occurred to me that all of this was planned ahead of time by the Revelators. Why do I think this?
It is simple: Mathematics is the most logical of the predictive methods that humans (for no more than about the last 8,000 years) can use. How much more-so, would the Revelators - who hail from a civilization, theoretically TRILLIONS of earth years old - know all the potential outcomes of a revelation given to our world at this primitive stage? It is very reasonable to assume that much of he recent history of our world was estimated to occur just as it did by the celestial overseers. It is also worth mentioning that there was probably a large amount of celestial intervention in our 20th. Century history. Anecdotal accounts that the "celestials declared war on Communism," points to the possibility that such things were and are possible.
Upon visiting UBRON.org lately - the biggest and most influential of the UB online discussion forums - it has become almost painfully apparent that even with the introduction of the new human parallels to the UB text that Matthew Block has presented and entered into the Library there, along with the obvious math, science and history errors being discovered in the UB, the most frequent "posters" cannot seem to leave their EXACT TEXT interpretations aside. One gets the feeling that they believe they would be "sinning" or being "unfaithful" to the BOOK itself, by questioning the UB's origins and scrutinizing (objectively) the content that has come under dispute.
Meanwhile the UB has always plainly stated that its own information on science and history will "stand in need of revision" [my bold]...
The Urantia Book
101.4.2 We full well know that, while the historic facts and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records. Let it be made clear that revelations are not necessarily inspired. The cosmology of these revelations is not inspired. It is limited by our permission for the co-ordination and sorting of present-day knowledge. While divine or spiritual insight is a gift, human wisdom must evolve.
...and it is also filled with comments about how truth needs room to grow in the human mind, NOT through "formulas, codes, creeds, or intellectual patterns of human conduct" [my bold]...
The Urantia Book
180.5.2 Divine truth is a spirit-discerned and living reality. truth exists only on high spiritual levels of the realization of divinity and the consciousness of communion with God. You can know the truth, and you can live the truth; you can experience the growth of truth in the soul and enjoy the liberty of its enlightenment in the mind, but you cannot imprison truth in formulas, codes, creeds, or intellectual patterns of human conduct. When you undertake the human formulation of divine truth, it speedily dies. The post-mortem salvage of imprisoned truth, even at best, can eventuate only in the realization of a peculiar form of intellectualized glorified wisdom. Static truth is dead truth, and only dead truth can be held as a theory. Living truth is dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential existence in the human mind.
It is not unreasonable to state here and now that any BOOK that purports to offer "new truths" (like the UB) is wrestling with the fact that it has to "imprison" those truths. This puts an expiration date on books...even the UB. The work of Matthew Block only reinforces this in his presentation that large sections said to be of "celestial authorship" have instead been shown to be of human origin.
As I have said in past posts, I myself dealt with the doubt and insecurity I felt when first reading Martin Gardner's book, Urantia The Great Cult Mystery, in which he blithely attempted to tear the revelation apart, because of the errors, uncited human source material, UB community reliance upon its shaky apocryphal base and history. While I didn't appreciate Gardner's tone or enthusiasm for trying to destroy the belief systems of thousands of people, I DID appreciate how much work he did regarding the origin and history of the UB. His book still stands as the most detailed source for learning about how the UB came to be.
Another very well-researched and well-written history of the UB is Larry Mullins' more friendly, and surprisingly objective, book A History of the Urantia Papers. Despite it being a bit less professionally produced as compared to Gardner's book, Mullins' history is just as well-researched. Unlike the UBTF people, Mullins' bias is kept largely in check as he is willing to report (without comment) even the unfavorable aspects of the characters and situations that led to the UB's writing and editing from ca. 1909-1950's and eventual publication in 1955. It is nice to see this book in print again. And it is worth the $20 or so to pick up or order a copy.
These two books by Gardner and Mullins, respectively, give the biased but most objectively critical view AND biased but accurate view of the over-all creation of the Urantia Book and the activities of its 20th. Century organizations and relevant personalities (including the Revelators).
The other aspect that makes these two books so well-suited to be read one after the other is that both authors appreciate detail, clear citation of sources, large comprehensive appendices and relative even-handedness for accuracy; not letting their biases jeopardize the value of their research. For instance, Gardner - who let's it be known early on that he thinks the UB is a fraud - simply cannot help commenting in a positive way about the shear magnitude and quality of the writing of the UB. It is possible when reading Gardner's book to get the real feeling that he isn't all that sure of his own stance. I say this because he often re-assured for me (I read his book before Mullins') many of the more "supernatural" events in the weaving together of the circumstances, human-sourced material and major management of the Contact Commission (who received information directly somehow from the Revelators) and early Forum (who edited the material and sent it back to the Revelators) seemed to have no rational scientific explanation. Even Gardner would not seriously propose one of his own. In response to such mysterious events, he would only say that he believed that Sadler's family must have "somehow" plagiarized and completely fabricated the entire scheme. Incidentally, this is also Matthew Block's current theory. The differences between Martin Gardner and Matthew Block (who, in full disclosure, is a friend of mine) are many though, not the least of which is Matthew's admission that he could be wrong.
In contradistinction to Gardner, is Mullins' more "officially" (and organizationally) sanctioned, A History of the Urantia Papers, and his own biases. As I said above, Mullins treats even the most unflattering legends and facts of the UB project with a strong even-handedness. The reason for this might be more complicated than the simple assumption that Mullins is a supporter of the UB in other contexts and in his Secondary Source writing. In fact, Mullins book seemed to be the best the UB community could muster as a response to Gardner's sweeping attacks upon the their very reason for being. And it was an excellent, though not wholly-complete, response.
When I say "not complete" I mean, more specifically, "not unified." Notice how the title of Mullins' book uses "The Urantia Papers" and NOT "The Urantia Book." It is likely that this is a relic of the 1980's dispute between the Urantia Foundation (original publisher of the UB) and Urantia Book Fellowship (once, the "Urantia Brotherhood," when still associated with the Urantia Foundation). Mullins was associated with the Fellowship side (as opposed to the Foundation side) of this dispute. The sting of the separation between this two organizations was still evident, with the mopping up of the messy lawsuits including those regarding the Urantia Foundation's loss of the exclusive copyright for actually printing and publishing the UB. Ten years ago - when Mullins first published his history - the name, "Urantia Book" was still a Foundation-related title. Though the UB had been published under that title by Uversa Press (a Fellowship-related effort), there were still the potential of not using the title in the future. Many people still refuse to call the book "Urantia Book" and instead prefer the title, "The Urantia Papers." And so Mullins' title seems to swim against the tide that he himself is now swept up in. In other words, he is part of the re-unification of the Foundation with the Fellowship; both organizations now agreeing to use "Urantia BOOK." I'm glad his history has not changed its title.
In discussing Mullins and what I call, the "Great Urantia Book Rebellion" of the 1980's, we come full circle to the current problem that is facing the Urantia Book reading community. We are in the post-organizational phase of the FER. This became the case upon the divorce of the two organizations mentioned above. As soon as confidence was lost in the Urantia Foundation (specifically) the FER was cut away from any authority UB readers might have given any organization. This was a necessary step once the failure of the Foundation to hold on to the copyright of the UB text became a reality.
Some UBTF (Urantia Book Text Fundamentalist) people still argue for the leadership role of the Foundation; that it has some kind of "Revelatory Authority" still to lead the movement. In my view this is ridiculous, futile and retards the entire FER. What is needed now is only ONE group: The Urantia Book Readership. This is the name I propose for all people who read the UB, irrespective of (1) organizational loyalties, (2) hidden agendas and (3) attempts to make the UB the centerpiece for a cult or religion. Any or all of these three things are destined to miserable failure. It wouldn't have to be "miserable" if readers of the UB were to honestly reassess this situation: How can science errors, history errors, math errors, factionalized organizations, cults and religions be used to justify the reading of a book that both prepares us for all of these shortcomings AND discourages their defense? It simply will not work.
The much more unsettling perspectives of the fundamentalist-ideologues who believe that every word of the UB is still a dynamic and revelatory truth, beyond questioning, tell the scarier story of the unbalancing of intelligent human minds.
I had a girlfriend once who was an archaeologist AND a Christian fundamentalist, Bible-text believer. She studied the bones of animals that were alive on this world thousands and sometimes millions of years before she herself believed the earth was created. I asked if she saw any contradiction in this. How do things that are not (specifically and literally) mentioned in the Bible come into being? At first she resorted to the potential inaccuracies of radio carbon dating, then proposed the idea that perhaps these animals never did live, and their bones were left for us by God to test our faith!
It is this mushy-headed and absurdly erroneous stance that UBTF people use for the same kind of issues. In fact, at UBRON there was recently discussed the discrepancy between the UB's date for life implantation...
The Urantia Book
58.4.2 550,000,000 years ago the Life Carrier corps returned to Urantia. In co-operation with spiritual powers and superphysical forces we organized and initiated the original life patterns of this world and planted them in the hospitable waters of the realm. All planetary life (aside from extraplanetary personalities) down to the days of Caligastia, the Planetary Prince, had its origin in our three original, identical, and simultaneous marine-life implantations. These three life implantations have been designated as: the central or Eurasian-African, the eastern or Australasian, and the western, embracing Greenland and the Americas.
...and the current non-UB scientifically determined and tested dating of ~ 3.9 billion years ago. But, sure enough, the UBTF people are also willing to attempt to twist and bend the theories of current science to suit their agenda which aggressively asserts that "science is still catching up to the UB."
And so Chris Halvorson (official UB "science verifier" at UBtheNews.com) provided the paper that could explain why current science was unable to "correctly" date the emergence of life on earth. At the core of Halvorson's argument is the following...
From Chris Halvorson's five page paper, The Origin of Life
Page 3
The usefulness of natural radioactive decay as an accurate dating method hinges on the common assumption that the rate of decay is constant over time. That assumption is incorrect. Radioactivity is a reflection of the existence of the subelectronic domain of physical reality (42:4.12); it is affected by the environment, which is a function of both space and time. An atom is not an isolated physical system; there is no vacuum (42:4.6). Radioactivity is proportional to subelectronic activity (42:4.5,7). Hence, both mutation and radiometric dating are indirectly affected by the spatial environment.
The Master Physical Controllers, specifically, the energy transformers (29:4.15–18), have regulated radioactivity (42:4.10) over the span of geologic time, according to the evolution plan of the Life Carriers. In the past, the rates of radioactive decay were greater than the present rates. Therefore, radiometric dates, which are determined by assessing the degree of decay, overestimate the crystallization age of a mineral in a rock, especially if the mineral was formed in the remote past. For the oldest rocks on the surface of the earth, the radiometric dates are about four times greater than the actual dates. The oldest rocks that have been discovered so far are the Acasta Gneisses in northwestern Canada near Great Slave Lake, with a radiometric age of 4.03 billion years. Mineral grains of zircon in sedimentary rocks in west-central Australia have a radiometric age of 4.4 billion years. The oldest dated moon rocks have an age of 4.5 billion years. (The moon reached its present size just prior to the earth.) The oldest lead deposits are dated at 4.54 billion years,and the oldest meteorites at 4.58 billion years. These oldest radiometric dates correspond to actual dates from 1.01 to 1.15 billion years ago, which agrees with the statement in The Urantia Book: “Urantia is more than one billion years old on its surface” (57:7.3).
One doesn't need a PhD in anything to see that Halvorson only uses UB science to argue against non-UB science. That is what in Banking we used to call a "washout." You can't use your only source to justify ITSELF! No one would EVER take that seriously. Halvorson and his partner Halbert Katzen - who manages the UBtheNews website and lectures extensively about how current science is "catching up to the UB" constitute examples of the ultimate need to "prove" the science and history of the UB. Unfortunately, Halvorson doesn't seem to be helping much as radioactive decay dating is concerned, since the only "catching up" that is done involves him defending the UB WITH the UB, NOT by using non-UB science's "correction" of itself, and supposedly new "agreement" with the UB. The evidence is still OVERWHELMINGLY on the side of non-UB science, wherever and whenever the UB science comes into conflict with it.
These very well-educated and credentialed people who have committed themselves to bending the truth to fit the UB, have completely forgotten one of research's most important rules...
Occam's Razor - The meta-theoretical principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest solution is usually the correct one.
Naturally, this is just one of many such twistings, turnings and spinnings in the UBTF sphere; one of desperate clinging to the dissolution of their sand castle as the waves continue to roll in over it. But I want to move beyond all of this. I have come to peace with the aging of the UB and the transition of the FER into its new, social, post-organizational, post-textual role. It is obvious to me now that the UB cannot be relied upon to convince science or history of anything, nor was it ever the book's role to do so. The UBTF people insist it must do this, but it is not a function of the FER in any way, and nowhere in the UB is its own "verification" required. The UB stands on its own!
Epochal Revelation is only complete when celestial PERSONALITY is involved and contactable to the inhabitants of a world. Though the UB is a literary work of amazing scale, in Epochal Revelatory terms it is only a stop-gap measure to bridge the Fourth Epochal Revelation (the life of Jesus/Michael) to the completion of the Fifth Epochal Revelation: the visitation of a New Son.
If those of us who are more progressive and open-minded about the role of the UB can fulfill our destiny, we will bring a large number of our UB-reading friends over to the notion that preparation for this New Son is more important than promoting the UB. Obviously anyone who has passed through the text fundamentalist stage, then the skeptical phase, and has come to rest in the progressive nook already understands the basics of the cosmic philosophy that is revealed by the UB...even if we don't elevate the TEXT as a sacred one. I ask other people who are well-read in the UB, yet also open-minded to consider the possibility that the UB's text is giving way to a new aspect of the FER, and to join us in preparation of the final phase of the revelation.
I welcome comments for and against what I have written here. But I warn readers that I will not be pulled into a debate, as some readers have recently insisted upon. Instead I'm "looking for the others" who believe what I do, namely, that the UB is our textbook as teachers, teaching the philosophy of our Local Universe and Superuniverse to the world-stage actors (students) who shall greet the next phase whether it be a New Son or some unknown (but shortly arriving) aspect of the FER.
My goal will also be to unify The Urantia Book Readership as one group in the next couple years; with its only membership stipulation being the reading of the UB. That's it. Ideology must be left completely out. The UB is a work made for interpretation. And as long as the text fundamentalists insist on an exclusively literal interpretation for the UB (as the Bible text fundamentalists have done - because the two are often quite related), the freedom of other readers to express themselves stands in dispute. As we have seen at UBRON (and is always the case at the more heavily moderated (essentially, censored) Truthbook.org and UAI Forums.
One only need view the example (in my last post) of how one UBTF person abused his one and only opportunity to oppose me and all I say - by ignorantly threatening me - to clearly see that the fanatical point has been passed now with these folks. Even another guy who initially supported my last post here, ended up being just another text fundamentalist-nightmare of ignorance posing as learned scholar...for he too, ended up being unable to accept the idea that the UB has intentional "errors."
I am moving into a new domain with all of this. The time to debate is long over for me at least. For the fanatic ideologue, so called "debate" has become a series of circular and embellished arguments, where blindness is key, made by people who are incapable of thinking for themselves any more. They are utterly and permanently lost in self-deception. You chose the cliche: They painted themselves into a corner? They put all their eggs in one basket? No matter how we look at it, it is only PRIDE now that prevents the baptism of the DYNAMIC truth, as it replaces the static text of an aging but once-and-still-very useful manual (the UB). And NOTHING is harder to overcome than human ego-pride.
What each of us needs to do is ask ourselves: What is more important?
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