THE URANTIA BOOK
Overview
The Urantia Book is not a complete religion, like others described in
this WWW site. It does not have a clergy, a creed that one is required to
believe in, or rules of behaviour that one must follow. It is a book which
has spawned an organization, the Urantia Foundation, and a network of
spiritual study groups (some affiliated with the Urantia Brotherhood
Association, and others with the Fifth Epochal Fellowship). It is
also used by individuals of many religions, primarily Christian, as a
spiritual guide.
The book describes Urantia to be an ancient name for the planet earth.
It is a large book with over two thousand pages and almost 200 individual
essays that reveal information about:
- God,
- other supernatural beings,
- the history of earth and of the rest of the universe,
- the development of mankind,
- the history, message and purpose of Jesus Christ.
History
During the 1920's and 1930's, a Chicago psychiatrist, Dr. W.S. Sadler
(1875-1969) became very interested in an unusual case. Sadler had been
asked to examine a patient after the patient's wife noticed he was
talking in his sleep, and seemed to be speaking for various supermortal
personalities, called revelators. The name of this person has been
kept secret and the exact manner of communication is not clear. However, Dr.
Sadler insisted that this process did not involve spiritualism, channeling,
or automatic writing. The contact personality was entirely unconscious
(asleep) during the transmission, and had little or no interest in the
process when awake. The material that eventually became the Urantia
Book was received during the years 1934-35. Sadler organized a group of
interested persons, called the Forum, to review and discuss this
material. The Urantia Foundation, administered by a five member board, was
formed as a non-profit educational group in 1950.
The Urantia book was originally published in English, during 1955; it has
since been translated into Finnish, French and Spanish.
The Urantia Book contains four parts, composed of individual essays
contributed by celestial beings of various orders:
- Part I: The Central and Superuniverses
- Part II: The Local Universe
- Part III: The History of Urantia
- Part IV: The Life and Teachings of Jesus
There are many concepts in the book which are directly traceable to earlier
works by human authors, including scientists and early Seventh-Day
Adventists teachers. The celestial revelators explain that they are
required to make use of existing human concepts wherever possible.
There have been four other major events in the history of mankind, which
also contained important revelation from celestial beings. The life of
Jesus was the fourth. The Urantia book is regarded as the Fifth Epochal
Revelation.
Teachings of the Urantia Book
The book covers a multitude of subjects including theology, cosmology,
evolution, anthropology, and history. Consequently, it is difficult to
summarize its teachings. Here are a few selected concepts:
- The world is viewed as one of 10 million inhabited worlds in our local
universe called Nebadon.
- God the Universal Father is the ultimate source of all things, yet he is
also knowable as a loving personal being.
- The Universal Father can act in concert with other deity personalities
in a complex association of three trinities, The Trinity of Trinities.
- The book describes a form of theistic evolution which deviates from the
Bible's account in Genesis, Chapter 1 and 2. It also does not fully agree
with Naturalistic Evolution, as it is currently understood by scientists.
- Just as lower animals evolved into humans, we are destined to become
spirit beings, called finaliters. The book details our long
progression of spiritual experiences on other, more advanced, worlds.
- The book teaches that an a fragment of God's spirit dwells within each
person; this is called a Thought Adjuster. Its role is to guide the
individual towards greater spiritual understanding through many lives on
this and other planets.
- The book corrects the Genesis account of Adam and Eve and the concept of
atonement. Adam and Eve did not "fall," although they fell short of their
mandate to uplift humankind. People today do not suffer from original
sin, and thus do not need to be redeemed by the blood of Christ. They
are inherently children of God.
- The book counters many beliefs that Christians have traditionally held
about the nature and message of Jesus Christ; it expands upon his known
teachings. Jesus (who they refer to by his real name of Joshua ben
Joseph) is viewed as the 7th incarnation of Michael of Nebadon, the
611,121st Creator Son of God. Christ is believed to have toured the Roman
empire with two people from India in the years preceding his ministry. He is
believed to have died on the cross and resurrected in a morontial body
(an intermediate state between matter and spirit) visible to numerous
disciples before his ascension. He now is the sovereign of our universe,
where he "represents and actually embodies the personality presence of the
Universal Father."
- Jesus boldly proclaimed the spiritual equality of women at a time when
women were not even allowed on the main floor of the synagogue. The book
explains that Jesus appointed twelve women evangelists, and these women
remained faithful even when his apostles denied or betrayed him.
- The book attributes the following teachings to Jesus: "Prayer is
self-reminding; worship is self-forgetting." "Worship must alternate
with service, work should alternate with play, religion should be balanced by
humor, profound philosophy should be relieved by rhythmic poetry, the
strain of living should be relaxed by the restfulness of worship."
- The world's religions are all beneficial, "to the extent that they
bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man... all
contain truth." "The Hebrews based their religion on goodness; the Greeks
on beauty; both religions sought truth. Jesus revealed a God of love, and
love is all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness."
- True religion "is to know God as your Father and man as your brother.
Religion is not a slavish belief in threats of punishment or magical
promises of future mystical rewards."
References
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