Urantia Book Commentary and Articles: 2007-01-21

Jan 12,2007

With â€œGod Refined: A Proposal for Peaceâ€�, Robert Kezer answers what may be our most important question: Can the average person make a difference in the world, or are we destined to a future beyond our control -- one of increasing war, environmental destruction, and disparity between the rich and poor?

Today, many people feel religious strife is tearing us apart. Yet, rather than our spirituality destroying us, Kezer says it is what has stopped the carnage from getting worse: this, he offers, is a clue for ending the violence consuming our planet.

In God Refined, we are challenged to accept global change as personal responsibility. Drawing on the Urantia Revelation, he teaches the unified nature of creation, that our relationship with God is personal, and that all religions are considered equal under the umbrella of a single sovereign Creator.

On a planet becoming ever more violent, Kezer offers the tools we need to survive. His approach is simple, direct, and compelling: abolishing war is our responsibility, not that of our leaders. Believing that crisis creates opportunity, he visualizes a new era of global community -- one where women enjoy full partnership with men in all decision-making, from the family level to the world stage. Relating humanityâ€™s evolution to individual personal growth, we are presented with a path to a higher order of existence, one from which peace can have its first true chance.

God Refined: A Proposal for Peace is offered in paperback and in a Complimentary E-book edition for those people for whom the cost would impose a hardship.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kezer returned to college in 2002 pursuing a self-designed program in Peace Studies: he graduated in 2006 with bachelorsâ€™ degrees in International and Religious Studies from the University of Oregon. Working to become bilingual so he can also present in Spanish, he writes and speaks on God, religious tolerance, and our tools for abolishing war. Bob has one adult son and lives in Eugene, Oregon.

ABOUT THE BOOK: â€�God Refined: A Proposal for Peaceâ€� by Robert A. Kezer 2006. First Edition. 6 x 9; 60 pages. ISBN: 978-0-6151-3810-7. Available through bookstores and in paperback ($12.99 p&h), e-book ($6.98), and complimentary download at http://stores.lulu.com/bobkezer. Publication Date: 1 March 2007.

Labels: global change, global community, God, peace, personal responsibility, Robert Kezer, violence

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, January 26, 2007

The Urantia Book and the Coming Transformation of Civilization

by Stan Hartman

The most important event of the twentieth century is the most important event of the past twenty centuries and most of the world still knows nothing about it.

For those unfamiliar with the huge, strange text that appeared on earth sixty-five years ago, what I have to say here may seem like science-fiction, but it is not. The truth, it turns out, is stranger even than science fiction. We've grown used to the discoveries of science being strange, but this truth, though in part scientific, goes much deeper than science, even into the incredible core of the human mind itself, the center of which is directly connected with the core of the universe. With that statement, I know I've already lost some readers, but I intend to begin here as openly as possible, to save the time of those who will find this story too much to believe. The appearance of The Urantia Book, though it's still largely unknown, will mark this century throughout all future generations, eclipsing even the splitting of the atom. The knowledge this book has brought us is destined to make nuclear power seem trivial, and rather than breeding the dread that atomic energy has bred, will illuminate the deepest, most ancient human ignorance, and make fear an anachronism.

This is the story of a book unlike any ever written, promoted for the most part by word of mouth for the past decades, quietly circulating throughout the world and changing the lives of those who understand what it means for more than forty years now, though it and the phenomenon that gave rise to it began even earlier, in the second decade of the century. The crisis I'll describe that's unfolding around it presently is both tragic and transforming, challenging the best in human nature to once again stand up against its shadows, command them to get behind, and move on into the incredible light ahead.

Those enslaved by tradition will find the book a threat unlike any they have ever faced, though it comes not to destroy but to reveal and clarify, to paraphrase a message from many centuries ago whose significance it illuminates as it has never been illuminated. Likewise, those caught up in the distractions and aimless frivolities of a materialistic culture will find the text, if not a threat, an irrelevant fantasy, too complex and weighty to be amusing.

For the generations to come, though, and for many living now whose life experience has prepared them to recognize it for exactly what it says it is, The Urantia Book marks a turning point in world history that there is no turning back from. Its true students will always seek to serve rather than battle the forces of fear and ignorance that are even now trying to invalidate and destroy the book, though sometimes their deep service may not be recognized as such and may hardly be what the bookâ€™s enemies want. For those who don't know what I'm speaking of, let me expand a little on the story I've been alluding to and have barely begun to tell, though even before I can I need to say more about what the book is.

Only very recently, in historical terms, has the consciousness of most of humankind evolved to the point where it is willing and even eager to embrace the idea that we are not alone in the universe. There are many religions, and the religion some make of science, that resist such an idea, but the mass of humanity has shown itself in the last decades to be prepared for and excited by the possibility of meeting beings from beyond the planet. True scientists, who refuse to confuse what they know with what they surmise, and who have willingly or unwillingly been placed in positions of leadership in the march of human thought, have asserted for many years now that we must not be alone, though they have found no way to understand how the vast distances they assume must separate us from other intelligent worlds can be traversed in a reasonable time by material beings.

Philosophers, however, whose study and expertise are not limited to material facts but also embrace values and meanings, have long understood that we ourselves are more than material beings. And psychologists open-minded enough to realize that the mind can't be explained by brain physiology alone have added to the philosopher's palette the new colors of intuition, insight, and so-called paranormal abilities, which seem to be attributes of mind itself, some of them evident in animals even more than in humans. All of this investigation has led to a revolution in human thinking, making it at times so open to new ideas that it's in danger of falling into delusion and fanaticism, against which scientific thinkers struggle to maintain order and some more fearful religionists become hysterically reactionary. For many centuries before our era, religion was a tyranny in human thought, finally crumbling before the successes and eventually new tyranny of the pseudo-scientific religion of scientism, which asserts that all relevant phenomena can be explained rationally and eventually measured and controlled. It's against this betrayal of the true scientific method, which would never make such claims, that the present uncentered and ungrounded openness of much human thinking has reacted.

In the midst of this century's growing turmoil of ideas, opinions, rigidifying fundamentalisms, wild speculations, actual breakthroughs, catastrophic wars, technology addiction, information explosion, raping of natural resources, ridicule of traditions, and general collapse of order, The Urantia Papers appeared in the following way to a prominent student of Freud who was famous for his work in exposing fraudulent or deluded psychic phenomena.

Here is Dr. William S. Sadler, writing in 1929, in the appendix to his work, The Mind at Mischief, before the text of The Urantia Papers itself began to arrive, and before he understood the true significance of what was happening:

"I have promised not to publish this case during the lifetime of the individual. I hope sometime to secure a modification of that promise and to be able to report this case more fully because of its interesting features. I was brought in contact with it, in the summer of 1911, and I have had it under my observation more or less ever since, having been present at probably 250 of the night sessions, many of which have been attended by a stenographer who made voluminous notes.

"A thorough study of this case has convinced me that it is not one of ordinary trance. While the sleep seems to be quite of a natural order, it is very profound, and so far we have never been able to awaken the subject when in this state; but the body is never rigid, and the heart action is never modified, tho respiration is sometimes markedly interfered with. This man is utterly unconscious, wholly oblivious to what takes place, and, unless told about it subsequently, never knows that he has been used as a sort of clearing house for the coming and going of alleged extra-planetary personalities. In fact, he is more or less indifferent to the whole proceeding, and shows a surprising lack of interest in these affairs as they occur from time to time.

"In no way are these night visitations like the sÃ©ances associated with spiritualism. At no time during the period of eighteen years' observation has there been a communication from any source that claimed to be the spirit of a deceased human being. The communications which have been written, or which we have had the opportunity to hear spoken, are made by a vast order of alleged beings who claim to come from other planets to visit this world, to stop here as student visitors for study and observation when they are en route from one universe to another or from one planet to another. These communications further arise in alleged spiritual beings who purport to have been assigned to this planet for duties of various sorts.

"Eighteen years of study and careful investigation have failed to reveal the psychic origin of these messages. I find myself at the present time just where I was when I started. Psychoanalysis, hypnotism, intensive comparison, fail to show that the written or spoken messages of this individual have origin in his own mind. Much of the material secured through this subject is quite contrary to his habits of thought, to the way in which he has been taught, and to his entire philosophy. In fact, of much that we have secured, we have failed to find anything of its nature in existence. Its philosophic content is quite new, and we are unable to find where very much of it has ever found human expression.

"Much as I would like to report details of this case, I am not in a position to do so at present. I can only say that I have found in these years of observation that all the information imparted through this source has proved to be consistent within itself. While there is considerable difference in the quality of the communications, this seems to be reasonably explained by a difference in state of development and order of the personalities making the communications. Its philosophy is consistent . . . . In fact, the case is so unusual and extraordinary that it establishes itself immediately, as far as my experience goes, in a class by itself, one which has thus far resisted all my efforts to prove it to be of auto-psychic origin. Our investigations are being continued and, as I have intimated, I hope some time in the near future to secure permission for the more complete reporting of the phenomena connected with this interesting case."

Instead, even this appendix was removed from later editions, as a veil of secrecy was drawn down over the proceedings until the one hundred and ninety-six papers that were delivered and recorded in 1934 and 1935 were compiled into the text called The Urantia Book and published in 1955. By then, Sadler had realized, skeptic though he was almost by profession, that the information was what it said it was, and he was as humbled and amazed as everyone else by what it meant.

The information the book presents is transforming the consciousness of all those who are open to it, many of whom feel that they were waiting for it to come to them but didn't know it until it did, as if something inside them had prepared them for its appearance in their lives. Public figures who are familiar with it - and there are many - usually make no public acknowledgment of it, perhaps because those who understand it know that it's the most important book in human history, leaving them uncertain at first about how to present that fact to others without sounding fanatical or seeming to undercut others' beliefs. They know the book marks the beginning of a new epoch unlike any that has come before it, an age which will focus not merely on itself or even on this world alone, but on our planet's place in the universe and the universal destiny of each individual.

It is a book which both diminishes and infinitely enlarges humanity's view of its own importance, promoting a deeper humility but at the same time a deeper dignity, and challenging many of the assumptions of both traditional religion and science. It has vital things to teach more than simply those now living, as parts of it are meant for the minds of generations yet to come, who will be better prepared to understand. It gives people on this world a view of human nature, history, and destiny which has never been presented before, perhaps because human consciousness has only recently evolved to the point where it can be expected to deal with what the book presents without losing its balance, falling into either slavish devotion and fetishism, or fear that would seek to destroy the book and all who openly value it. In fact, both extremes are still very possible and even in evidence already on this world. For the most part, though, those who find the book are freed by it in a way they had never imagined they could be freed, and overwhelmed with gratitude for that freedom, if also somewhat confused by the responsibility they know is inherent in it.

It is a book which reveals to us our true home, where our minds and hearts know they really belong. It opens our eyes to a love, security, and infinite adventure which we can't help feeling we were designed to live, if we recognize the book's greater-than-human integrity, consistency, and authority, which is never condescending, if sometimes uncompromisingly truthful. There is humor in it as well as the most profound gravity. One of its most insistent statements is that all the universe is mobilized to help humanity overcome its fears, both collectively and individually. Though it describes us as the lowest form of creature who can be given will and recognize the existence of God, it also clearly emphasizes that there is no apparent limit to our destiny.

It simply rings true, to those who approach it without fear, and its message of hope, forgiveness, love, and the universality of family - how the family of humanity is not limited to this world alone, and the family of personality is not limited even by space and time - will transform human civilization here as it has never been transformed, and inspire it to become what it was designed from its very beginnings to become, before the tragedy happened that sent us spinning off on our own without apparent guidance.

It shows us that we are not really alone and never have been, as individuals and as a species of self-conscious personalities trying to understand their place in reality. It shows us that the ageless yearnings and sufferings of humanity, infinitely far from being futile, have a value beyond imagination.

It is a book which is literally from beyond this world, as the true origins of life here are as well, as scientists have only recently begun to suspect. It is a message that we are one inhabited world in a teeming, peopled universe. Though we are on the edge - at the wilderness frontier, in a way - of the expanding civilization among the stars, the story it presents of our history is one of unending, invisible watchcare by those who have been with us from the beginning, guiding our evolution, though limited by our own decisions, toward the dynamic peace and perfection, both individual and cultural, that all inhabited worlds aspire to and one day attain, no matter what tragedies of ignorance and barbarism they endure.

With respect to such tragedies and the suffering they bring, the book also makes clear that there is a darker aspect of our relationship with the larger universe civilization that has watched us and invisibly cared for us, a tragedy beyond our world which we had no part in instigating but had to suffer the consequences of, as all members of a family suffer when one of its members goes astray. It is a tragedy which is only now coming to an end, it may be, and the end of which is being prepared for on this world by the book itself. This crime on the part of those who were supposed to teach and guide us has kept us in relative spiritual darkness for two hundred thousand years, though not all the darkness of this world can be blamed on it, and the suffering it has caused has given those who keep their faith despite it a strength that is far more valuable than the tragedy itself was destructive.

All those with open minds must know there is life beyond this world, but the abundance of that life, and its good will, have never been revealed to humanity at large until this book revealed it. Reading it, it is certainly not unreasonable to hope that one of its purposes is to prepare the way for even more direct communication, in the not-far-distant future, with our family, both human and transhuman, beyond this planet. Such communication has in reality been taking place far longer than our current ideas of history acknowledge there has been a human civilization, from as much as five hundred millennia ago, and the traces of that communication can be found in many sacred texts and other writings from the remotest antiquity. Clues to even more evidence of this are presented throughout the book, as are scientific facts and cosmology which humanity is incapable of discovering on its own, though the authors were not permitted to reveal all that we can discover on our own in the future and deprive us of the adventure and joy of such discoveries.

There may be a question in the minds of many, reading here, especially when aware of the fact that the book has been in existence for over sixty years, as to why its arrival has not been proclaimed from the rooftops. Why do we not see discussions of its implications on the evening news?

The answer to that involves in part the nature of the book itself, but also another tragedy of fear and duplicity that has already occurred in connection with its appearance.

The first great tragedy on this world, that I referred to above, involved a betrayal of trust on the part of some of the transhuman caretakers of the very beginnings of civilization. The present tragedy, though, is one of a betrayal of trust on the part of those all-too-human caretakers of the book itself.

In the beginning, those to whom the book was entrusted were naturally very concerned with its safety, for more reasons than are obvious, that can't be enumerated here. They went to great lengths to protect it and to keep the text inviolate. Fortunately, they also took what has proven to be the most protective action of all, publishing thousands of copies of it and distributing them.

If this were all they had done, they would have done well, but it was not. Failing to study the book itself deeply enough and read its warnings, the desire to protect it slowly evolved in the minds of these people into a desire to possess and control it, and they became a menace to its safety and the spread of its message to the world. They lied to obtain a copyright on it, stopped distributing it, and threatened those who challenged their policies. They appointed themselves its guardians for life, chose as some of their leaders men who are unbalanced if not psychopathic, and sought to destroy all organizations of its readers and believers who were not controlled by them. This is a drama unfolding on this world even at the present time, and one of the reasons why the book is not more prominent than it is, though the nature of the text itself can of course be threatening to many before they truly understand it.

These supposed caretakers of the book obtained and keep a fraudulent copyright on it, by going so far as to say that their predecessors were its authors (predecessors who would be aghast at such an assertion), and have been successful so far in convincing the courts of their claims because the unfortunate personality at their head has abundant resources to spend on legal stratagems, and because the courts have refused to take the real nature of the book seriously.

All in all, it has resulted in a pitiful spectacle, but one the like of which is unfortunately not rare on our planet and points to how barely ready for such a gift we are.

As with all such crises, though, it also presents an opportunity to those who refuse to be ruled by fear. Without an atmosphere of fear, all evil is impotent. To those who truly know and understand the book's teachings, the group that claims to own it now has made itself irrelevant, ridiculous, and unworthy of serious consideration. They deserve help, but not the kind they imagine. There are those, of course, who need some kind of human authority to guide them, who will, out of genuine but naive trust, or laziness, or fear, unthinkingly follow those who want to control them.

Most serious students of the text, though, who rely on the book itself for their guidance rather than their own inner fears or ignorant ambitions, know they have a responsibility to what they have been given, a responsibility to create a worthy foundation for the book's revelations to the world. This foundation is not so much a social and organizational matter, though that can be part of it, but a spiritual one, a challenge to live as the book shows in its final section that all of us can live, aware of a destiny much greater than ever imagined in recorded history. It is in essence the challenge to realize - to make literally real - the kind of human family all our evolution has been designed to achieve. It is a responsibility to create relationships that acknowledge and devote themselves to the kinship all of us share, not only with our human brothers and sisters on this world, but with all the personalities throughout the inhabited cosmos who care for us despite our childish barbarism and the distortions of our culture that have resulted from our isolation and ignorance. We have a responsibility to this greater family as well, those who gave us the gift of the book and now watch us to see what we will do with it.

The history of our world is in a way like Lord of the Flies. We have been left to our own resources on our little island long enough, and though the book is not the first appearance to us of adult authority, it is the latest and most important for our time, as is obvious to all who open it with openness. It doesn't seek to supplant all other systems of human thought or to disparage the evolutionary beliefs and truths we have struggled so hard to attain and maintain. It states very clearly that, though it is a revelation, it is not inspired. Its purpose is to awaken us to what we can't know except with help from beyond the reach of our understanding and imagination, and to help us integrate that new information with the uniquely human perspective we have evolved in such relative isolation.

It points us to our own inner depths as individuals at least as much as to outer, cosmic vistas. In the end, such inner and outer depths are connected, and work together to help us toward an indescribable destiny in this world and beyond, the awareness of which will transform our planet as surely as it transforms the individual minds that share such awareness.

In its depiction of our history and destiny, The Urantia Book focuses mostly on the ancient past and far-distant future, but it also says of our present time that we are "quivering on the brink" of one of our "most amazing and enthralling epochs."

Perhaps if people from all the nations of the world would unite enough to organize into a democratic world government that represented all humanity, we could authorize such a government to broadcast to the universe watching us a few small, sincere words, such as "Thank you. Forgive us. Please help us." - or some other first prayer of collective humanity. Perhaps because this request came as the duly-elected voice of all mankind, we would receive an answer that was not only invisible but also visible. Perhaps we would be freed from the quarantine that has isolated us for so long, and find ourselves connected, in ways our science has so far not dreamed of, with neighbors in space who may not be as distant as many believe.

Until we unite as one world under God, perhaps this will not happen. Is it so strange, though, or naive, to believe it can? In the light of The Urantia Book, it most certainly will happen, one day. If enough people sincerely desire it, what can prevent us from making that day our own?

Labels: destiny, Dr Willam Sadler, extraterrestrials, family, God, history, humanity, Mind at Mischief, religion, responsibility, Stan Hartman, the universe, The Urantia Book, tradition, tragedy, truth

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

The Urantia Book: An Evaluation

The Urantia Book: An Evaluation
Jim Mills
1970

Introduction:

Ever since man first became conscious of himself, and of his environment, he has asked questions about both. Regardless of how the questions are worded, in general they can be reduced to a few simple queries. These are: "Why am I here?" "Where am I going?" "What is the meaning of it all?", and, "What am I?"

The answers to these questions have not been easy to obtain. Man, therefore, developed a technique of postulating answers to his questions, and then attempted to develop the means of testing these postulates under reproducible conditions consistent with his knowledge of his environment. Thus was the scientific method for the study of physical phenomena born and its success has changed the face of civilization.

No such success has accrued to the efforts of man in the areas of meanings (Philosophy) and values (Religion), for no valid method has ever been developed to test the postulates of philosophy and religion with the efficiencies available to science at the physical level of existence. The truth of meanings and values is something that must still be "felt" by the individual as a near-emotional experience. Consequently, individual judgment, with all its personal uniqueness and variety, is still a major testing procedure for new postulates in Philosophy and Religion.

However, history has taught us that many men and women who we have called "prophets" have periodically appeared with new and advanced postulates that have gained such acceptance that new religions have resulted therefrom which have had tremendous influence on the development of civilization. In this group we find Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha) in India; Lao-Tse and Confucius in China; Ikhnaton in Egypt; Zoroaster in Persia, all of whom mysteriously appeared about 2,500 years ago, almost as though by design; to be followed later by Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed in Arabia. Scores of others, perhaps less well known, have appeared on the stage and have had their influence on the world.

The teachings of these "prophets" we have called "revelations", because each advanced a new concept of man in relation to ultimate reality â€“ they "revealed" new truths to man about himself and his relations to his environment, and in some degree, to his Creator. They have all had a strong impact because they provided contemporary answers to the questions asked above.

But no revelation, short of finding and recognizing ultimate reality, God, The Uncaused Cause, can be final. Revelation is time periodic, partial, and limited to the conceptual boundaries of manâ€™s intellectual universe of knowledge. As manâ€™s intellectual frontiers have expanded, and when the need for new revelations caused by this has grown to a point of great tensions, another revelation has always appeared.

Today our understanding of cosmology is growing with the use of the 200-inch telescope, and the radio-telescopes and receivers, aimed at space. Data already collected may not be analyzed and interpreted for many years. Men have actually walked on the Moon. Probes have gone to the planets Mars and Venus to record and return data, even photographs.

Slowly it is dawning upon us that even the physical size of the universe may be beyond our present capabilities to comprehend. So far we have been able to detect very little about physical universe organization beyond our present ideas about galaxies. We ask the questions: How are the starry heavens organized? Is there a pattern in cosmology such as we find in terrestrial nature? What is manâ€™s relation to all of this? Does he have a future out there? Are our ideas about the origin, age, and development of the universe valid? Are we being misled by our ability to observe only a small portion instead of the total phenomenon? And finally, again, why am I here? These questions contribute to a mounting tension.

In 1955, without fanfare or publicity, without preaching or promotion, there appeared in the city of Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., a 2097 page book called The Urantia Book. Its name derives from the fact that within it our planet is called Urantia. Those who have read it seriously and in detail, and repeatedly, are generally convinced that it is the "revelation" for which contemporary society has so long been crying.

What makes this book a revelation? The true answer can only be found in reading it â€“ then studying it. However, some reasons are and can be given. Simply, because it presents a cosmology which is consistent with, and an extension of our present knowledge of cosmology. For example, it foretold Calcium 19 as being present in the sun. It was discovered there in 1964. (Time Magazine, May 29th, 1964, p. 80.) It presents a clear, understandable story about the nature and destiny of man. It teaches the religion of Jesus instead of a religion about Jesus. It recognizes the truths to be found in all religions. It recognizes evolutionary religion as separate from revelation. It stresses the importance of the individual regardless of origin and tells something about our supernal destinies. It differentiates between fact, meaning, and value: science, philosophy, and religion, and then unites them in a true integration.

The Urantia Book is divided into four parts.

Part One: Thirty-one papers. These depict the nature of deity and the reality of Paradise; discuss the cosmology of the Superuniverses, and portray some of their inhabitants by origin and function. They also discuss the organization and workings of the Central and Superuniverses.

Part Two: Twenty-five papers. These discuss the local Universe, an administrative subdivision, in terms of organization and administration complete with the personalities in authority. These papers also tell much about the career of the human personality after it terminates its stay on this planet, Urantia, by the death and dissolution of its physical carrying mechanism. They depict our first steps on new worlds and the tremendous program provided for our personal development which will sometime permit us to recognize God when we have, by our own efforts, aided by ever-present celestial help, grown and developed to that point where we have the conceptual capacity to see and recognize God. The challenge is immense and the help equal to it.

Part Three: Sixty-three papers. The history of our own planet, Urantia, from its origin in a sun (ours) thrown out by the now extinct Andronover nebula about 6,000,000,000 years ago to the present. Its geologic and life evolution (after implantation) is traced as well as the evolution of races, civilizations, customs, philosophies and religions. Many new insights found in hitherto unavailable sources are revealed. We learn much, previously forgotten and lost, about our own history and evolution. New and higher religious insights make their appearance.

Part Four: Seventy-seven papers. These record the life and teachings of that superb being known to us as Jesus of Nazareth. From hitherto unavailable sources, his pre-Urantian life is unfolded and the details of his own early existence here are told year by year. We learn details of his family life, his religious growth, the death of his father, Joseph, and much detail which was apparently withheld from his apostles. What actually happened when the so-called "miracles" were performed?

Presented in detail are the teachings of Jesus which even in the attenuated and compromised form know as Christianity have been the driving force behind Western Civilization. Reaffirmed is his great love for the individual, yet uncompromised is the high ideal of attainment he sets for everyone. Also presented is the real philosophy and religion of Jesus, and we learn how much evolutionary religion has diluted it and modified it in order to force it into the mold of passing contemporary doctrine and dogma. As presented, the religion of Jesus, and we learn how much evolutionary religion has diluted it and modified it in order to force it into the mold of passing contemporary doctrine and dogma. As presented, the religion of Jesus is dynamic, inspiring, uplifting, totally contemporary because it is timeless and worthy of lifelong study.

The writer once asked the late Sir Hubert Wilkins, who was a Urantia Book devotee even prior to publication, "What is your test of the validity of this work?" Sir Hubertâ€™s answer was a succinct classic. He said: "Its utter consistency with itself."

The writer has gained an outlook upon life and a personal philosophy solely from the study of this book that he has found in no other sources. Simply expressed, it is this. The Urantia Book has given me so many clues to the truths and realities that are to be found from the observation of life on this planet, that I desire to remain here to experience life and gain knowledge through the experience of living this life as long as my physical mechanism can be kept in working order. Knowledge distilled with experience produces wisdom, a commodity we all need. However, when my course is finally run, the day I die will be the most interesting day of my life.

J. C. Mills

Labels: cosmology, God, individual judgment, Jesus, Jim Mills, philosophy, prophets, religion, Revelation, scientific method, The Urantia Book