I have not seen any discussion regarding the Urantia texts on these forums and would love to discuss the teachings and other things pertaining to this revelation. I personally find the book to be the most profound work ever to appear on the planet. Skeptics welcome but would love to begin discussing the religious/philosophic/scientific claims of the text.

For those who have not read the texts I find they explain pretty much everything that you could possibly question about reality, deity, etc etc. Incredible to say the least

Ohh and you're welcome

There seem to be many excerpts from Urantia books on many different forums but I've never been able to find a copy of the real thing... are they out of print already? I read a comment recently from I Wannariot and he seemed to be very knowledgable on the chapter about Jenny tals.

No they are still in print...

You can visit the Urantia Foundation's Website at www.Urantia.org and read it for free. You can also download the audio or listen to an audio presentation of a particular paper on the site as well. Hope this helps!

Jenny tals?? I'm not sure what you mean there

I haven't heard of this work before. I read up on it, and the background story was fairly intriguing. It's also interesting to read how coherency and literary value seem to be strong points of the book - usually these things are near non-existent in these kind of "big scope" spiritual works. Even "mainstream" stuff like Hubbard's works are.. well... hmm... somewhat wanting.

I don't know enough of the work to really offer neither criticism nor praise. I see there is a big debate and the "skeptic" side seem to be able to make a fairly good case for plagiarism of popular science material from the same era as the book was written.

The book is public domain, so it should be perfectly legal to download copies and print them for personal use. As a response to those unable to find one to buy.

not read but have read several similar books, it looks pretty interesting, i might get hold of a copy but apparently it's huge and might take a while to get through. maybe OP wants to offer some thoughts of his own etc. for discussion in response to reading?

I may be wrong about this but is this a big white book,encyclopedia size, to which you're referring? I ask because I remember reading through it and coming across the idea that those who are unfit, not necessarily criminal in the usual sense, will be killed in order to continue the the society in proper order.

Is this true and have I referenced the right consideration? This was long ago when I came across this in a bookstore and went no further.

Glad people are getting interested in the text... I will address some of the questions and comments when I get home

I skimmed a little of it, but I dont get it. It seems just like the bible to me, essentially stating a lot of stuff about the universe, with nothing to back it up.

Shame, 2+2 ate my post but here we go again....

neeeel - keep reading if you are interested I don't think the Bible ever really dealt with universe makeup, administration, and purpose

carlo - Yes the revelation does deal with eugenics of sorts when discussing spiritual, physical, and mental potentials in creatures. It does not however point to violence or 'killing' as a method of achieving these longterm societal goals. That would imply a society that was immature to begin with.

tame deuces- This is taken from another forum discussing the merits of the Urantia book
(http://www.godlikeproductions.com/fo...sage815857/pg1) Out of context but still gets to your concern

"J.T. Manning is a pseudonym for Matthew Block. Matthew is an intrepid researcher, likes libraries and such. For many years he worked for the Urantia Brotherhood, aka, the Fellowship. Matthew discovered parallel material in the Urantia Book, parallel with some human writings. At first, everyone in the Urantia movement was shocked. Then we realized that the revelators clearly state that they used human ideas and concepts, because we would understand things better if they had been expressed by humans already. Close examination of the parallels does not show any of them to be plagiarism, they are almost always, if not always, restated, expanded, and/or corrected. Matthew Block, who is quite the scholarly type and who knows what the term means, does not call them plagiarisms. But they are parallels, to be sure. In my opinion, the title of Matthew's book is somewhat misleading. These are "source authors" only in a limited sense. They are in no way, authors of The Urantia Book. They are the authors of some human ideas that are used in The Urantia Book by the revelators, and as noted, these ideas are restated, expanded, and corrected. "

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On a personal note I have read the text three times and listen to the audio almost every day. I find it so so so interesting and it has taken me from a place of spiritual confusion to that place of complete peace and love for God and his incredible universe. I wish I knew what topic would interest you guys most to present as a starting point. Any suggestions? You really could throw any question out and I am more than confident that the UB deals with it directly. I can point you to the answers it if you are not experienced with the text and maybe we can have a little discussion.

Im not here to bash this revelation over the heads of people only to help those who have sincere religious questions and I don't want to derail all the other thread in this forum with UB material.

But its just a list of statements. Why should I believe it? Or want to read further? Why should I believe what it says about purpose?

This is a very good question.

When I first came across the text I read through it and was blown away by the level of cohesiveness within, and the high quality of production. I came to the conclusion no man or group of men could have put this piece of work together due to the magnitude, seamlessness, and most of all the message it was delivering.

I then realized that to experience the teachings and the truths espoused I had to take a step of faith with God and the rest has been history so to speak. The spiritual truths contained are the important thing and once you trust those, the science and detailed lists become more things of interest for your own curiosity and edification.


Alot of readers suggest reading part IV first as it offers the best context to start exploring the rest of the text, but I didn't. I started reading about the universe and the history of urantia first and then went to part IV then part I.

Faith is required to experience the spiritual truths and to claim increased enlightenment and that is a very personal thing... everyone is different in how they can respond. The point is to get to that level where you personally start communicating then the rest is up to you and the deities. After I began experiencing personal communion it was alot easier to believe what the rest of the book was saying... cause yea it can be out there at times

Im not sure I answered your question and ill try to dig up some quotes that point to this essential personal step.

That's a pretty contrived denial that immediately makes me think there has been plagiarism

Yea well ok... have you even read the book?

Its funny cause the science part is the least consequential thing in the text... just confirming what we already know or will know. If scientific facts are facts whats the problem

From the same thread discussing the issue
"So what? The revelators freely admit that they used human ideas and concepts, the better that we should be able to understand, since we are humans. Wording is certainly "similar," in the "nineteen examples" but always altered and improved, and CORRECTED. Isaac Newton had ideas. Albert Einstein improved upon them. "

So the scientific facts in the book are facts then?

Yes it would appear so

I like seeing others people's approach to this text...Some like to build their way up from the scientific facts to approach some of the philosophic/spiritual material... others take the spiritual/ philosophic material and add on the science. It really makes no difference in the end since it is supposed to a comprehensive work.

Ohh and God is the upholder of truth among an infinite number of other transcendent things

Courtesy of wikipedia:

Examples of criticisms regarding the science in The Urantia Book include:

The described formation of the solar system is consistent with the Chamberlin-Moulton planetesimal hypothesis,[101] which though popular in the early part of the 20th century, was discarded by the 1940s after major flaws were noted.[102] The currently accepted scientific explanation for the origin of the solar system is based on the nebular hypothesis.[101]
According to the book's descriptions, the universe is hundreds of billions of years old and periodically expands and contracts — "respires" — at 2-billion-year intervals. Current observations suggest that the true age of the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years,[103] and there are no cycles of expansion and contraction. The book does not support the big bang theory.[104]
A fundamental particle called an "ultimaton" is proposed, with an electron being composed of 100 ultimatons. The particle is not known to be described anywhere else and the concept is not supported by modern particle physics.[105]
The Andromeda Galaxy is claimed to be "almost one million" light years away, repeating the understandings of the 1920s,[106] but the galaxy is now understood to be 2.5 million light years away.
The book repeats the mistaken idea that planets close to a sun will gradually spin slower until one hemisphere is left always turned to the sun due to tidal locking, citing Mercury as an example. Scientists at the time of the book's origin thought one side of Mercury always faced the sun, just as one side of the Moon always faces the Earth. In 1965, radio astronomers discovered however that Mercury rotates fast enough for all sides to see exposure to the sun.[104] Scientists further established that Mercury is locked in this spin rate in a stable resonance of 3 spins for every 2 orbits, and it is not slowing and so will never have one side left always turned to the sun.[107]
Some species are said to have evolved suddenly from single mutations without transitional species.[108] The theory originated with Dutch botanist Hugo De Vries but was short-lived and is not now supported.[109]
The book erroneously says that a solar eclipse was predicted in 1808 by the Native American prophet Tenskwatawa. The eclipse actually was predicted in late April 1806 and occurred on June 16, 1806.[110] In 2009, Urantia Foundation acknowledged the error and revised the book.[c]
Controversial statements about human races can be found in the book.[111] Gardner believes that William S. Sadler, who wrote some eugenicist works, had a hand in editing or writing the book, and that this is how the ideas were included.[112]

husker go read the book man, don't just snip bits out of wikipedia in response to someone who says they've read the text cover-to-cover three times. that's lame

If having read the entire 2000 page book is a pre-requisite for commenting on it I'm guessing this thread is going to be fairly short.

I would imagine claims of plagiarism are mostly interesting because of the claims of celestial authorship.

It's 2097 pages, can I just look at the pictures instead?

yeh the page count is kinda putting me off from taking it in for the sake of this thread, hence my suggestion on the first page to the OP.

What does this even mean? Why is faith required? Seems like bs to me....

Ughh i did it again need to start saving my posts before pressing send.

Husker yes, I have read the Wiki page and know about some supposed inconsistencies with 'accepted science' and the dreaded typo. All I can say is science is constantly changing...adopting, abandoning, and readopting theories models etc as we try to make sense of things in our physical universe. The higgs boson is our latest big find pertaining to particle science.

From an article: Here's the gist of the standard model, which was developed in the early 1970s: Our entire universe is made of 12 different matter particles and four forces [source: European Organization for Nuclear Research]. Among those 12 particles, you'll encounter six quarks and six leptons. Quarks make up protons and neutrons, while members of the lepton family include the electron and the electron neutrino, its neutrally charged counterpart. Scientists think that leptons and quarks are indivisible; that you can't break them apart into smaller particles. Along with all those particles, the standard model also acknowledges four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak

This is just to illustrate that nothing in science is static and things are constantly changing...But your skepticism is valid being a thinking human

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Hainesy you are right, the text is incredibly dense but is very worth digging into if not for the science but for the philosophic/spiritual nuggets. I guess I should ask what kind of spiritual questions you have or what interests you guys the most to kick things off.

How about why are we here in the first place?