Urantia Book Commentary and Articles

Truthbook did not produce this video, but only offers it for your interest...

We [not Truthbook] made this video about the Big Bang because the theory is important and amazing, but often misunderstood.

This video was produced without any funding from any outside sources. It was put together with donated creative time from a group with a desire to further public cognition of science.

Science has many amazing stories to tell, this is the first. The Big Bang Briefly.
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Story Teller: Janna Levin
Director: Keith Olwell and Elizabeth Kiehner
Producer: Keith Olwell and Elizabeth Kiehner
Animation Studio: Thornberg & Forester
Director of Animation: Justin Meredith
Editorial: Proton Studio
DP: Luke Geissbuhler
Music: Copilot
Color: James Long

In the interest of advancing revealed cosmological truth from The Urantia Book we also offer the following collection of quotes taken from our new study of Evolution. They may help in addressing some of the issues brought up in the video.

________________
In The Beginning...

"In the eternity of the past...," The Urantia Book reveals, God the Spirit - the third person of the Trinity - came into existence. He is the God of Action

The stage of universal space is set for the manifold and never-ending panorama of the creative unfolding of the purpose of the Universal Father through the personality of the Eternal Son and by the execution of the God of Action, the executive agency for the reality performances of the Father-Son creator partnership.(8:1.3)

The Perfect Worlds of Havona are Created. This is center of the universe of universes.

The God of Action functions and the dead vaults of space are astir. One billion perfect spheres flash into existence. Prior to this hypothetical eternity moment the space-energies inherent in Paradise are existent and potentially operative, but they have no actuality of being; neither can physical gravity be measured except by the reaction of material realities to its incessant pull. There is no material universe at this (assumed) eternally distant moment, but the very instant that one billion worlds materialize, there is in evidence gravity sufficient and adequate to hold them in the everlasting grasp of Paradise.(8:1.4)

Gravity, Spirit and Personality in Relation to the Perfect Creation of Havona

There now flashes through the creation of the Gods the second form of energy, and this outflowing spirit is instantly grasped by the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son. Thus the twofold gravity-embraced universe is touched with the energy of infinity and immersed in the spirit of divinity. In this way is the soil of life prepared for the consciousness of mind made manifest in the associated intelligence circuits of the Infinite Spirit.

Upon these seeds of potential existence, diffused throughout the central creation of the Gods, the Father acts, and creature personality appears. Then does the presence of the Paradise Deities fill all organized space and begin effectively to draw all things and beings Paradiseward. (8:1.5)

This is the one and only settled, perfect, and established aggregation of worlds. This is a wholly created and perfect universe; it is not an evolutionary development. This is the eternal core of perfection, about which swirls that endless procession of universes which constitute the tremendous evolutionary experiment, the audacious adventure of the Creator Sons of God, who aspire to duplicate in time and to reproduce in space the pattern universe, the ideal of divine completeness, supreme finality, ultimate reality, and eternal perfection.(14:0.2)

Havona is the home of the pattern personality of every mortal type and the home of all superhuman personalities of mortal association who are not native to the creations of time. (14:6.34)

In brief, the Infinite Spirit testifies that, since he is eternal, so also is the central universe eternal. And this is the traditional starting point of the history of the universe of universes.(8:1.9)

From the Infinite to the Finite - The Time-Space Creations, and the "Growth Cycle"

When the perfect worlds of the Central Universe have been created, there remains the creation of the worlds of time and space - the finite creations whereon mortal beings have their existence by the freewill choice of the First Source and Center.

Finite possibility is inherent in the Infinite, but the transmutation of possibility to probability and inevitability must be attributed to the self-existent free will of the First Source and Center, activating all triunity associations. Only the infinity of the Father's will could ever have so qualified the absolute level of existence as to eventuate an ultimate or to create a finite.

With the appearance of relative and qualified reality there comes into being a new cycle of realityâ€”the growth cycleâ€”a majestic downsweep from the heights of infinity to the domain of the finite, forever swinging inward to Paradise and Deity, always seeking those high destinies commensurate with an infinity source.

These inconceivable transactions mark the beginning of universe history, mark the coming into existence of time itself. To a creature, the beginning of the finite is the genesis of reality; as viewed by creature mind, there is no actuality conceivable prior to the finite.(105:5.6)

The universe response involved an activation of the architectural plans for the superuniverse space level, and this evolution is still progressing throughout the physical organization of the seven superuniverses. (105:6.3)

Enjoy the show...

Labels: astronomy, Big Bang, cosmology, God, Janna Levin, science, the universe, The Urantia Book, video

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Astronomers: Dark Matter Guides Universe's Structure

by Bob Evans on
Apr 5, 2009

A 10-year study of 100,000 galaxies close to our own offers compelling proof that long-hypothesized "dark matter" does exist and is in fact a guiding force behind the structure of the universe, a team of Australian, British, and American astronomers revealed this week.

Saying that "the universe we see is really quite structured," one of the lead researchers explained that the 10-year "census" of galaxies near our own Milky Way offers powerful evidence that this invisible dark matter "seems to hold the galaxies together."

The dark matter's influence on galaxies "stops their constituent stars from flying off and it seems to be driving the large-scale galaxy clusters and super clusters" that are the largest objects in the universe, said Dr. Heath Jones of the Anglo Australian Observatory in an article on the website of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Offering rich details about the direction, speed, shape, and evolving structure of 100,000 galaxies, the 10-year study offered great promise because of its exhaustive scope: it analyzed those dynamic properties for a much larger number of galaxies than any other study had ever attempted.

In reviewing the data from the study, Jones said, it became clear that directly observable visible objects could not possibly have exerted sufficient gravitational force to account for all of the movement and dynamics of the galaxies being studied.

And in hypothesing about what other, nonvisible forces could account for that additional gravitational effect, theories about dark matter completed that equation very nicely, he told the ABC:

"The galaxies just aren't uniform. They are scattered throughout the universe," he said. "What we find is that they tend to clump and cluster together. So you'll get galaxies clustering along nice delicate filamentary chains. You get some galaxies that will congregate in their clusters and you will get clusters of galaxies collecting in super clusters of galaxies, so the universe that we see is really quite structuredâ€¦.

"Astronomers know that this dark matter must exist in the universe," he said. "We can't see it with our telescopes directly, but by studying large objects like galaxies and how they move with respect to each other we can infer its existence quite accurately."

In addition to the compelling evidence the study provides for the existence of dark matter, Jones said, it also offers equally compelling proof that the universe is expanding and will continue to do so, rather than at some point collapsing back in upon itself as some astronomers have theorized.

Labels: Bob Evans, dark matter, Dr. Heath Jones, galaxies, gravity, the universe, The Urantia Book

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Monday, September 29, 2008

Why The Large Hadron Collider Is Already On The Fritz

By Eben Harrell
Monday, Sep. 22, 2008

Anyone who has struggled to change a fuse in their home should pity the scientists at the CERN laboratory in Geneva. Last Friday, just nine days after celebrating the successful test run of the largest particle accelerator ever constructed, a tiny electrical connection between two magnets overheated and caused a minor meltdown.

Although a final evaluation is yet to be completed, scientists believe the fault caused the machine to lose the near absolute-zero temperature it must maintain to operate. For now, however, repair work can't begin because the machine is still too cold; it will take about a month to warm up the area to a temperature at which replacement parts can be inserted. It will take another month to cool it back down, and given that CERN has pledged not to run its giant machine â€” which requires as much power as the entire city of Geneva â€” during winter months when Europe's energy needs are highest, Friday's breakdown could delay the actual smashing of atoms until early next year.

CERN spokesman James Gillies called the fault a "teething problem" and said that previous accelerators that used superconductivity â€” i.e., low temperatures that allow metals to conduct electricity without resistance â€” also faced early problems before "running pretty smoothly after they were sorted out." Even so, "it's certainly a disappointment," he added.

When it is fully operational, the $6 billion LHC will send beams of protons careening around a 17-mile underground ring, crash them into one another to re-create the immediate aftereffects of the Big Bang, and then monitor the debris in the hopes of learning more about the origins and workings of the universe.

Scientists are relying on the experiment to unlock several of the universe's mysteries (for example, how matter in the universe acquires mass) by providing hard data on subatomic matter from which cosmologists and theoretical physicists can extrapolate. But they have less exalted reasons to hope for the LHC's success: After a glut of funding for particle physics in the '80s promised the building of several particle accelerators of equivalent power to the LHC, recent funding cuts mean the CERN experiment is now the only game in town. If it fails to provide results, physicists worry they will have to struggle to justify new, even more powerful machines, not to mention the salaries of thousands of scientists needed to build and operate them. Already, the LHC has been delayed several years and is significantly over budget.

Gillies says last week's functional hiccup was not surprising. A massive machine designed to study miniscule particles will inevitably face problems. The LHC's intricacy is indeed breathtaking: One of the particle detectors on the 17-mile ring (there are four) is connected to enough cable and wiring to wrap around the earth nearly seven times. Scientists had to take into account the gravitational pull of the tides when constructing it.

The sheer size of the LHC â€” watching scientists work on its gargantuan components brings to mind a colony of frantic Lilliputians â€” and the complexity of the science behind it have resulted in bouts of eschatological fear of its destructive potential, with websites and even two lawsuits claiming the LHC will create black holes that will swallow up the earth. (The cover images of this week's issues of the Economist and TIME would suggest that black-hole anxiety has in fact bubbled up into the public consciousness.) But while such scenarios have been ruled out, the machine does pose a small threat to the scientists overseeing it: There's a constant risk of a helium leak, high concentrations of which quickly depletes the tunnels of oxygen.

Gillies says that Friday's breakdown released a "large amount" of helium into the tunnel but that CERN's safety protocols ensured there was no risk to staff. Scientists are not allowed into the tunnel when the machine is running, he says, and first responders after the fault all wore respiratory equipment. All scientists working in the underground ring also carry portable respirators, which they are instructed to use within seconds of a helium leak.

CERN's clerisy of PhDs and Nobel Prizeâ€“winners tire pretty quickly of the public's near-erotic obsession with the destructive power of a machine they consider a harmless tool. But, there's no underestimating the thrill of the risk. Earlier this year, when I visited CERN, my tour group included a father and his slouching, intensely apathetic teenage son. It wasn't until the tour guide mentioned that a helium leak could fell a man on the spot that the youngster's eyes lit up, practically dancing with visions of white-coated scientists crumpling to the floor like unstrung marionettes. "So, this thing could just kill us all," he said. "So, it's a death ray!" The father murmured, "Well, I'm not sure that's correctâ€”" Too late. The son said, "Cool!"

Labels: Eben Harrell, Large Hadron Collider, matter, science, the universe

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Monday, September 08, 2008

Large Hadron Collider: Particle accelerator to recreate birth of universe

Martin Rees
08/09/2008

This experiment may be of interest to Urantia Book students, as it will attempt to actually re-create the dawn of creation. Just as with the Human Genome Project and the Hubble Telescope, there may emerge new understanding and new insights into God's creation, and there may even be more corroboration with the revelation of The Urantia Book. It will certainly be interesting to follow the results and conclusions drawn from such an ambitious project.

NB: Page 1 of 3 - Please click on "external link" at the bottom to access the entire article.

On Wednesday, physicists turn on the multibillion-pound machine that will recreate the birth of the universe. Martin Rees applauds the greatest experiment in history

Einstein famously said that "the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible". The universe isn't anarchic: it's full of patterns and structures.

The same physical laws apply in distant galaxies as in the lab. Our brains evolved to cope with life on the African savannah, but they can make sense of things far beyond our ancestors' experience - from subatomic particles, far too small to be imaged by any microscope, to galaxies billions of light years away.

As the centuries have passed, we have progressed remarkably in our understanding of the world around us. We know that the essence of all substances - their colour, texture, hardness and so forth - is set by the atoms of which they are made, and by how those atoms are linked together.

We know that in every cell of every living creature, atoms are configured into proteins and tangled strings of DNA. We know, even, that these atoms were all synthesised from pristine hydrogen by processes deep inside stars that died before our solar system came into being. We are literally the ashes of ancient stars - the "nuclear waste" from the fuel that made them shine.

We know, also, what forces acted on those stars, and act on our bodies. Isaac Newton showed that the force that makes apples fall is the same thing that holds the planets in their orbits and that controls the trajectory of spacecraft and satellites.

Michael Faraday achieved a further unification by showing that electric and magnetic forces were linked - an insight that led to electric motors and dynamos, and radio waves.

Nearly 100 years ago, Ernest Rutherford, then working in Manchester, inferred that an atom contained a nucleus, surrounded by a "cloud" of electrons. These developments have led to lasers, nuclear energy and much else.

But there are still gaps in our knowledge. In particular, we still can't link the forces uncovered by Faraday and Newton to the so-called "nuclear" force that actually holds the nuclei of atoms together - and without this force there would be no carbon, no oxygen and no life.

Nor can we make our theories about the universe work without adopting some very strange assumptions indeed: there seems, for instance, to be a mysterious force, latent in space itself, that is pushing everything apart and speeding up its expansion.

These profound questions can't be solved just by armchair theorists. In terms of innate brainpower, we're no wiser than Aristotle was; without successive generations of experiments, we would still believe, like him, in the four elements of earth, air, fire and water.

Science demands experimentation - and some scientific challenges are so great that they demand a massive enterprise, in which thousands of researchers combine their efforts to achieve a common goal.

This happened in astronomy with the Hubble Telescope, and in biology with the human genome project. And now it is happening in physics. The Large Hadron Collider, which will begin operations on Wednesday, will be the largest experiment in human history.

Constructed at a cost of Â£4.4 billion, shared among all participating nations, it is the latest in a series of successively more powerful particle accelerators that have been built at the CERN laboratory in Geneva.

CERN was set up in 1955 by European scientists who had won the ear of government through their nuclear work during the Second World War, and who recognised that progress in their subject would require equipment too expensive for any single European country to fund. But what started as a European project is now in effect a machine that belongs to the world.

An even more ambitious American project was cancelled owing to cost overruns, so the LHC is likely to be the world's premier accelerator for at least the next 15 years, home to scientists from America, Russia, Japan and everywhere else. Protons, after all, are the same from China to Peru - and indeed throughout the cosmos.

Continued

Labels: atom, Large Hadron Collider, Martin Rees, pattern, protons, the universe

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

In 2003, the Hubble Space Telescope took the image of a millenium, an image that shows our place in the universe. Anyone who understands what this image represents, is forever changed by it.

Urantia Book readers will not be surprised, but cheered and comforted, knowing that what our beloved Revelation reveals about God's incredible creation is more accurate than ever.

Labels: cosmos, deep field, Hubble Telescope, millenium, size, the universe, The Urantia Book

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Stars, Galaxies, Superuniverses and The Urantia Book

STARS,
GALAXIES,
SUPERUNIVERSES
and
THE URANTIA BOOK

by Frederick L. Beckner

Please click on "external source article" for the complete article, including space images.

INTRODUCTION

In the past several years, since the advent of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), there has been an explosion of astronomical information relating to our Milky Way galaxy, our Local Group of galaxies, and myriads of galaxies unknown at the time the Urantia Book was written. The HST has even allowed us a glimpse at galaxies believed to be near the edge of the universe itself. Figure 1 shows a portion of the Deep Field South image showing galaxies at distances out to 12 billion light years.

The Urantia Book contains a description of the universe which one might describe as "Urantian cosmology." This cosmological information, written prior to 1941 by celestial beings, was derived from revelation, not human astronomical science. It is therefore of interest to examine the Urantian cosmology, some 60 years later, to see how this revelation squares with current astronomical knowledge.

Much information of cosmological interest can be obtained by analysis of selected portions of the Urantia Book text. For example, the number of suns in the Master Universe, being all of material creation, is said to be equal to the number of glasses of water in the oceans of our planet. This paper describes a procedure for calculating this number given current readily-available information, arriving at a figure of 4.5 billion trillion suns. I will show that this number is in reasonable agreement with current knowledge.

Given this number and other astronomical information now available we are able to compute the average number of stars per galaxy. Given the identification of our Milky Way galaxy as the inhabitable portion of the superuniverse of Orvonton, we can estimate the number of inhabitable planets per star. It is even possible to determine, within limits, the size of the Grand Universe, our superuniverse, and our local universe of Nebadon.

After performing these calculations and comparing the results with current astronomical knowledge where possible, one finds that the Urantian cosmology is not generally inconsistent with our present knowledge of the universe. This is in spite of the fact that the Urantia Book states that itâ€™s cosmology is not divinely inspired and may require revision in the future.

"The cosmology of these revelations is not inspired. It is limited by our permission for the co-ordination and sorting of present-day knowledge." (UB1109:3)

Urantian Cosmology

An overview of Urantian cosmology is given on the first page of the Urantia Book.

"Your world, Urantia, is one of many similar inhabited planets which comprise the local universe of Nebadon. This universe, together with similar creations, makes up the superuniverse of Orvonton, from whose capital, Uversa, our commission hails. Orvonton is one of the seven evolutionary superuniverses of time and space which circle the never-beginning, never-ending creation of divine perfectionâ€”the central universe of Havona. At the heart of this eternal and central universe is the stationary Isle of Paradise, the geographic center of infinity and the dwelling place of the eternal God.

The seven evolving superuniverses in association with the central and divine universe, we commonly refer to as the grand universe; these are the now organized and inhabited creations. They are all a part of the master universe, which also embraces the uninhabited but mobilizing universes of outer space." (UB1:5-6)

We thus live in the grand universe, which includes the presently-inhabited portion of the much larger master universe. The grand universe is subdivided into seven superuniverses, or collections of galaxies, one for each of the seven possible Master Spirits, or personality associations of the three triune manifestations of God. The seventh Master Spirit, being the association of the Universal Father, Eternal Son, and Infinite Spirit supervises our superuniverse of Orvonton. We will show that the Milky Way galaxy lies entirely within Orvonton, and is the greatest part of the inhabited portion of Orvonton. The capital of our superuniverse is called Uversa and will be shown to be located outside the Milky Way galaxy.

"Satania has a headquarters world called Jerusem, and it is system number twenty-four in the constellation of Norlatiadek. Your constellation, Norlatiadek, consists of one hundred local systems and has a headquarters world called Edentia. Norlatiadek is number seventy in the universe of Nebadon. The local universe of Nebadon consists of one hundred constellations and has a capital known as Salvington. " (UB182:5)

We also live in a star system called Satania, presumably named after Satan, a lieutenant and associate of Lucifer, a former ruler of Satania, who led a rebellion against God, which resulted in the isolation of our planet, Urantia, from the rest of the universe. Jerusem is said to be an architectural sphere, or artificial world, and thus is nonluminous and is not visible by telescopic means from Urantia. It is of special interest because it is on a subsatellite of a satellite of Jerusem that we are resurrected after death. This is the location of the mansion worlds mentioned by Jesus.

Our star system of Satania is one of approximately 10,000 such systems in our local universe of Nebadon. This local universe was created by a Creator Son of God, Michael, who incarnated on Urantia to live the life of one of His mortal creatures and to reveal the nature of God the Father to the inhabitants of His local universe. Michael is better known on Urantia as His mortal incarnation, Jesus of Nazareth. The Urantia Book specifically says that our local universe of Nebadon is not a physical star system, but that its capital, Salvington, is within such a system. We will show that our local universe is approximately 4000 light years in diameter.

With this brief overview of Urantian cosmology, we are now prepared to examine specific teachings of the Urantia Book and to compare them with current astronomical knowledge.

The Master Universe

Size of the Master Universe

The Urantia Book does not explicitly give a size for the master universe. It does imply that the master universe is finite and is expanding.

"Even if the master universe eventually expands to infinityâ€¦" (UB92:6)

Current scientific estimates of the size of the master universe are generally based on the theory of the "big bang" where the universe came into being at an instant of time about 14 billion years ago, and has expanded outwards from this point at the speed of light ever since. A good discussion of three techniques for determining this age is given at http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/age.html. Under these assumptions, it is thus a sphere having a radius of about 14 billion light years.

The Urantia Book implicitly denies the big bang theory, for it implies that the master universe was already in existence 875 billion years ago. It was at this time the Andronover nebula was initiated which resulted in our local universe of Nebadon.

"875,000,000,000 years ago the enormous Andronover nebula number 876,926 was duly initiated." (UB652:2)

Number of Stars in the Master Universe

The Urantia Book contains the following statement about the number of stars in the master universe.

â€œBut in the master universe there are as many suns as there are glasses of water in the oceans of your world.â€� (UB173:0)

The volume of the oceans of Urantia can be found on the United States Geological Survey web site, www.usgs.gov/edu/waterdistribution.html, as 317 million cubic miles. Knowing this, and that one cubic mile is equivalent to 4.167 x 109 cubic meters, one finds that the volume of water on Urantia is 1.321 x 1018 m3 or 1.321 x 1024 cm3.

Another source states that the oceans cover 70 percent of the earthâ€™s surface and have an average depth of 2 miles. The area of the earthâ€™s surface is 4 pi times the square of the earthâ€™s radius of 6,350 km. Given this, one can calculate that the volume of this water is 1.14 x 1024 cm3, which is in substantial agreement with the volume given by the USGS.

To compute the number of stars in the master universe we need a number for the volume of a glass of water. A small juice glass in my kitchen has a volume of 200 cm3. A typical drinking glass that I use daily has a volume of 300 cm3, and the volume of the largest glass I have is 500 cm3. Thus, taking the volume to be 300 cm3 will give results accurate to within about +/- 40%, a figure sufficient for our purposes. Given that the volume of a typical glass of water is about 300 cm3, one can calculate that the number of glasses of water in the oceans of Urantia is about 4.4 x 1021. Thus, according to the Urantia Book, the number of suns in the master universe must be on the order of 4.4 x 1021. The web site, Atlas of the Universe (http://anzwers.org/free/universe/universe.html), states that there are 2.0 x 1021 stars in the visible universe.

To put this number in perspective consider that a cubic rock salt crystal 0.92 cm (0.36 inches) on an edge will contain the same number of molecules. This can be calculated given that rock salt is a cubic crystal with a lattice constant of 5.64 x 10-8 cm. We can conclude that the number of atoms in the human body is much greater than the number of stars in the universe.

The Mass of the Master Universe
Given the number of stars in the master universe it is possible to estimate its mass. Given that the sun is an average star, and the mass of the sun is 1.989 x 1033 g (grams), then the mass of all the stars in the master universe would be 4.4 x 1021 * 1.989 x 1033 = 9 x 1054 g. Currently astronomers believe that more than 90% of the mass of the universe is tied up in â€œdark matter.â€� Thus the mass of the universe would be about ten times the mass of all the visible stars, or about 9 x 1055 g.

Eddington, in his book, Fundamental Theory (1946, p 105), computes the mass of the universe from general relativistic theory as 1.98 x 1055 g which is within a factor of 4.5 of the value inferred from UB statements. Thus these estimates agree within an order of magnitude, although we have no proof that either Eddingtonâ€™s value or the UB value is correct. Eddington also computes the number of protons in the universe to be 3/2 * 2256 * 136 = 2.36 x 1079 (p283).

Number of Galaxies in the Master Universe
â€œIn the not-distant future, new telescopes will reveal to the wondering gaze of Urantian astronomers no less than 375 million new galaxies in the remote stretches of outer space.â€� (UB130:5)

The Urantia Book is probably referring here to the Hale (Mt Palomar) telescope, which went into operation in 1948. The figure 375 million thus refers to the additional new galaxies observable when the Hale telescope was put into operation, not the number of galaxies in the master universe. Recently the Hubble Space Telescope made two deep field images, in the region of the North Pole, and another in the region of the South Pole (see Figure 1), these regions being those which could be continuously observed for long periods of time without interruption by occultation by the Earth. Exposure times of 10 days were used. From the north deep field image astronomers estimate that there are 80 billion galaxies in the universe. From the southern image they estimate that there are 125 billion galaxies in the universe. For the purposes of this paper we will assume that there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the master universe.

Number of Stars Per Galaxy

Given this number of galaxies and the total number of stars in the master universe, one can calculate that the average number of stars per galaxy is 4.4 x 1021 stars divided by 1.0 x 1011 galaxies or 4.4 x 1010 stars per galaxy (44 billion). The number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy is estimated to be around 200 to 400 billion. This is pretty good agreement with our average number since our galaxy is the second largest in our local cluster of about 30 galaxies, and thus may be considered to be an exceptionally large galaxy. There are many more small galaxies of the elliptical or globular types than there are of the spiral type such as our Milky Way. The information on the number of stars in the Milky Way was obtained from the University of Arizona at http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/more/mw.html.

Density of Stars in the Master Universe

If there are 4.4 x 1021 stars in the master universe and if the radius of the master universe is 14 billion light years, then the average density of stars in the master universe is 3.8 x 10-10 stars per cubic light year. If the stars were uniformly distributed throughout the master universe the minimum distance between stars would be about 1,400 light years. Actually, the stars cluster into globular clusters, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and galactic superclusters where the stellar density is significantly greater than the average density, and leaving great voids in which the stellar density is much less than average. Given knowledge of the density of stars in a given region, it is possible to estimate the volume of the sphere necessary to contain a given number of stars, and from this to determine the approximate radius of this sphere. This technique will be used later to compute radii for the grand universe, our superuniverse, and our local universe.

The Grand Universe and Orvonton

Size of the Grand Universe

The size of the grand universe can be estimated from the number of stars it contains and an estimate of the average star density on that scale. The Urantia Book says there are ten trillion stars in our superuniverse (UB172:7). If we assume that all seven superuniverses are of approximately the same size, then there would be 70 trillion stars in the grand universe.

If the grand universe contains seventy trillion stars, and if these stars are in galaxies which are approximately uniformly distributed throughout the master universe, then the volume of space occupied by the grand universe will be a fraction 70 x 1012/4.4 x 1021 = 1.59 x 10-8 of the volume of the master universe. The current estimate of the radius of the master universe is about 14 billion light years. Since the volume is proportional to the radius cubed, the radius of the grand universe would be of the order of (1.59 x 10-8)0.333 = 2.5 x 10-3 times the radius of the master universe, or about 35 million light years. This assumes that the star density in the Grand Universe is the same as in the Master Universe.

There is good reason to believe that the actual star density within our local part of the universe is considerably higher than the average density throughout the master universe. This is because the stars are grouped into galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and even larger superclusters of galaxies leaving other areas with voids containing relatively few galaxies. We may estimate the average density of stars in our local group of galaxies in the following manner.

One source, the Atlas of the Universe, http://anzwers.org/free/universe/localgr.html, states that there are about 700 x 109 stars within 5 million light years of Earth. The density of stars in this volume is thus about 1.3 x 10-9 per cubic light year, or about 3.3 times the average density of the master universe. The same source gives the density in a sphere of about 1 billion light years as 1.19 x 10-10 per cubic light year. Thus this source estimates that the star density in our local area is about 10 times greater than that in a volume much greater than the volume of any supercluster. Given this, we must reduce our estimate of the size of the grand universe by a factor of the cube root of ten (10.333 = 2.15) to allow for the higher local density of stars. Our corrected estimate of the radius of the grand universe is then 35/2.15 = 16 million light years.

Since Havona is at the center of the grand universe, the distance from Earth to Havona would be about 16 million light years. If there are seven superuniverses distributed equally in angle about Havona, then the distance to the nearest superuniverse outside Orvonton would be about 14 million light years.

Another clue to the size of the grand universe is given in the following passage:

â€œLong before the presence of life on Urantia the [Solitary] messenger now associated with me was assigned on a mission out of Uversa to the central universeâ€”was absent from the roll calls of Orvonton for almost a million years but returned in due time with the desired information.â€� (UB259:2)

The time given in this passage is most likely given in Uversa years, since the writers of the book seem to be quite explicit when they refer to Urantia years, calling such times either â€œUrantia yearsâ€� or â€œyears of Urantia timeâ€� 23 times throughout the book. Since the Solitary Messengers can travel at the rate of 4.52 million light years per Urantian year (UB267:1) and assuming the time given is in Uversa years (8.2 Urantia years, see UB174:2) the distance traveled by the Solitary Messenger would be less than 37 trillion light years. The distance to Havona would then be less than 18.5 trillion light years. This would be in good agreement with the value derived above from the number of stars in Orvonton if the Solitary Messenger had been absent only one Uversa year rather than one million years.

Number of Stars in Orvonton

The Urantia Book specifically gives the number of suns within Orvonton.

â€œThe superuniverse of Orvonton is illuminated and warmed by more than ten trillion blazing suns.â€� (UB172:7)

This number of suns is indicative that Orvonton is composed of more than one galaxy, since the Milky Way, the second largest galaxy within the Local Group, is currently thought to contain about 200 to 400 billion stars. It would take at least 25 Milky Way or about 110 average galaxies to contain ten trillion stars. It is thus clear that our superuniverse of Orvonton is significantly bigger than our local group of about 30 galaxies and is much bigger than the Milky Way galaxy.

The Size of Orvonton

The Urantia Book gives at least seven different clues as to the size of our superuniverse, Orvonton.

"Although the unaided human eye can see only two or three nebulae outside the borders of the superuniverse of Orvonton, your telescopes literally reveal millions upon millions of these physical universes in process of formation." (UB130:4)

The galaxy M81, shown in Figure 2, is visible to the unaided eye under very good viewing conditions. This 6.9 magnitude galaxy is 12 million light years distant and is probably not within Orvonton. It is a candidate for being another of the seven superuniverses.

This passage clearly delineates the spatial extension of Orvonton, since is says that the unaided human eye can see nebulae outside Orvonton. This means that the many galaxies visible by means of the telescope are not within Orvonton. This passage continues saying

â€œMost of the starry realms visually exposed to the search of your present-day telescopes are in Orvonton, but with photographic technique the larger telescopes penetrate far beyond the borders of the grand universe into the domains of outer space, where untold universes are in process of organization.â€� (UB130:4)

This sentence says that most the stars visible by eye through large telescopes are within Orvonton. This is one of the primary distinguishing characteristics of the galaxies within the Local Group; that they contain individual stars which are visible by aid of a telescope. An implication of this sentence is that some of these starry realms are outside of Orvonton. Thus some of the Local Group galaxies are outside of Orvonton. For more information on the Local Group refer to the web page of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/more/local.html.

The upper limit on the radius of the grand universe of 16 million light years also implies an upper limit on the size of our superuniverse, Orvonton. If the seven superuniverses are spherical, equal in size, do not overlap, and are evenly distributed in a circle of radius equal to 16 million light years, then the radius of each superuniverse must be smaller than about 8 million light years. This must be considered to be an extreme upper limit to the size of Orvonton.

Another estimate of the size of Orvonton can be obtained in the same manner as our estimate of the size of the grand universe. If Orvonton contains 10 trillion stars, and if there are 4.4 x 1021 stars evenly distributed in the master universe, then a volume of space with a radius of 15.5 million light years would be required to hold this number of stars. Making the same correction for the difference between the local star density and that of the average density in the universe gives a radius of Orvonton of 15.6/2.15 = 7.2 million light years.

The statement that the Divine Counselor can reach any part of the superuniverse in less than one year implies that the radius of the superuniverse must be less than 4.5 million light years. Assuming that Urantia and Jerusem are in the relative close proximity of 2000 light years, then the radius of Orvonton must be less than 3.35 times 1.35 million light years, or 4.5 million light years.

Another limit to the size of Orvonton can be derived from a passage concerning the physical-energy circuits.

â€œThe power centers and physical controllers of the superuniverses assume direction and partial control of the thirty energy systems which comprise the gravita domain. The physical-energy circuits administered by the power centers of Uversa require a little over 968 million years to complete the encirclement of the superuniverse.â€� (UB175:5)

This passage seems to indicate that the circumference of the superuniverse is 968 million light years. This would indicate that the radius of the superuniverse is 154 million light years. This value is inconsistent with our previously derived information about the size of the superuniverse. The value of 968 million years could be the sum of the travel times from the center of the superuniverse to the outer circumference, around the circumference, and back to the center, for all 30 energy systems. Assuming this, and if these circuits all travel at the velocity of light, then the radius of the superuniverse would be about 3.9 million light years. This value is consistent with our other information.

The size of Orvonton can be estimated from the passage that implies that no less than 4% of the volume of Orvonton is inhabited (UB121:5). From this, and assuming that Orvonton is roughly spherical we may infer that the ratio of the radius of Orvonton to that of the inhabited portion of Orvonton is no less than 2.92. Given that the radius of the inhabited portion of Orvonton is 250,000 light years (UB359:8), then the radius of Orvonton is not less than 730,000 light years.

Another indication of the size of Orvonton comes from the information given in the UB on the Andromeda galaxy. If Andromeda is within Orvonton as indicated by the UB, and if the distance to Andromeda is 1 million light years, then the radius of Orvonton must be at least 500 thousand light years.

Given the above considerations, one may conclude that the radius of Orvonton is greater than 730,000 and less than 4 million light years, possibly about 3 million light years. This would include the large Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies as well as a great number of other smaller galaxies necessary to give the stated number of stars.

The Milky Way Galaxy is within Orvonton

The Urantia Book indicates that our Milky Way galaxy is within the superuniverse of Orvonton.

â€œPractically all of the starry realms visible to the naked eye on Urantia belong to the seventh section of the grand universe, the superuniverse of Orvonton. The vast Milky Way starry system represents the central nucleus of Orvonton, being largely beyond the borders of your local universe. This great aggregation of suns, dark islands of space, double stars, globular clusters, star clouds, spiral and other nebulae, together with myriads of individual planets, forms a watchlike, elongated-circular grouping of about one seventh of the inhabited evolutionary universes.â€� (UB167:3)

One-seventh of the inhabited evolutionary universes (I take this to mean local universes) may very well mean that the Milky Way contains nearly the entire inhabited portion of Orvonton, which is one-seventh of the superuniverses in the grand universe.

The idea that the Milky Way galaxy is within the superuniverse of Orvonton is made even more specific in the following passage.

â€œThey [the short space rays] emanate in the largest quantities from the densest plane of the superuniverse, the Milky Way, which is also the densest plane of the outer universes.â€� (UB475:1)

This passage can also be read to imply that the other outer universes (the other six superuniverses) lie in the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. It can also be read as implying that the Milky Way galaxy is the superuniverse of Orvonton, but this interpretation is inconsistent with the statement that Orvonton contains ten trillion stars, which is much larger than the 200 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way.

We may infer that other nebulae (galaxies) outside the Milky Way belong to Orvonton from the passage

â€œsome of the nebulae which Urantian astronomers regard as extragalactic are actually on the fringe of Orvonton and are traveling along with us.â€� (UB131:0)

The Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies and the Large and Small Magellanic clouds are examples of such nebulae which are extragalactic (outside the Milky Way galaxy) but which are part of Orvonton.

The following passage indicates that there are at least seven galaxies in Orvonton.

â€œOf the ten major divisions of Orvonton, eight have been roughly identified by Urantian astronomers. The other two are difficult of separate recognition because you are obliged to view these phenomena from the inside. If you could look upon the superuniverse of Orvonton from a position far-distant in space, you would immediately recognize the ten major sectors of the seventh galaxy.â€� (UB167:8)

One can presume that they are talking about the Milky Way galaxy as the seventh galaxy in Orvonton. These ten major sectors also presumably refer to ten arms of our spiral galaxy. In one visualization of the spiral arms of the Milky Way (see http://casswww.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/MW.html) I can count only eight arms. The Atlas of the Universe site gives the names of six arms of our galaxy: the Cygnas, Perseus, Orion, Sagittarius, Scutum-Crux, and Norma arms. At this time we cannot exclude the possibility of their being ten arms, since much of the structure of our galaxy is hidden from us by dust clouds, radio observations being the only practical way to observe behind these clouds.

The Small and Large Magellanic Clouds are within Orvonton
Two nearby extragalactic nebula which were known before the invention of the telescope are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which were noted by Magellan in 1519 during his voyages in the southern oceans. The Small Magellanic Cloud, shown in Figure 3, is at a distance of about 210,000 light years, while the Large Magellanic Cloud is only 179,000 light years away. Being at a distance of less than 250,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way puts them within the inhabited portion of Orvonton.

Uversa, the Capital of Orvonton, is not within the Milky Way
The Urantia Book gives the distance from our system capital of Jerusem to the center of the superuniverse of Orvonton. This distance corresponds to the distance to the Small Magellanic Cloud. Thus it is possible, although not likely as we will show later, that Uversa is within the SMC.

â€œThe Satania system of inhabited worlds is far removed from Uversa and that great sun cluster which functions as the physical or astronomic center of the seventh superuniverse. From Jerusem, the headquarters of Satania, it is over two hundred thousand light-years to the physical center of the superuniverse of Orvonton, far, far away in the dense diameter of the Milky Way. Satania is on the periphery of the local universe, and Nebadon is now well out towards the edge of Orvonton. From the outermost system of inhabited worlds to the center of the superuniverse is a trifle less than two hundred and fifty thousand light-years. â€œ (UB359:8)

Being at a distance of 210,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud is certainly â€œover two hundred thousand light-yearsâ€� from Jerusem, and thus might be a candidate for the location of Uversa. The Small Magellanic Cloud does not, however, seem to be centrally located with respect to the three largest nearby galaxies, the Milky Way, Andromeda (M31), and Triangulum (M33). One must read â€œfar, far away in the dense diameter of the Milky Wayâ€� as indicating a direction relative to Jerusem, rather than a position. This would be consistent with accepted astronomical usage of the word â€œinâ€�, as meaning in the same direction. Thus a planet is said to be â€œinâ€� Aquarius, etc. To specifically locate the center of the superuniverse at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, one would use the words â€œat the center ofâ€� rather than â€œin.â€�

Taking the center of the superuniverse at the center of the Milky Way galaxy would be inconsistent with current knowledge in that the disk of the Milky Way is about 120,000 light years in diameter, and that Urantia (and presumably Satania) is about 26,000 light years from the center of the galaxy. Thus the distance from Satania to the center of the superuniverse would likely be slightly less than 26,000 light years, and not over 200,000 light years as stated. We thus conclude that the center of the superuniverse of Orvonton is not within the Milky Way galaxy.

Uversa Is Not Near the Center of the Milky Way

A Divine Counselor of Uversa states that he required 109 days to travel from Uversa to Urantia. He also says that his velocity is less than that of a Solitary Messenger. This allows one to place a lower limit on the distance from Urantia to Uversa.

â€œTrinity-origin beings possess prerogatives of transit which make them independent of transport personalities, such as seraphim. We all possess the power of moving about freely and quickly in the universe of universes. Excepting the Inspired Trinity Spirits, we cannot attain the almost unbelievable velocity of the Solitary Messengers, but we are able so to utilize the sum total of the transport facilities in space that we can reach any point in a superuniverse, from its headquarters [Uversa], in less than one year of Urantia time. It required 109 days of your time for me to journey from Uversa to Urantia.â€� (UB222:6)

This passage also allows one to compute the ratio of the distance from Uversa to the outermost point of Orvonton, basically the radius of Orvonton to the distance from Uversa to Urantia. This ratio is that of one year to 109 days or 365.25/109 = 3.35. Since we know that the radius of the inhabited portion of Orvonton is greater than 250,000 light years, then the distance from Urantia to Uversa must be greater than 74,600 light years. Since the distance from Urantia to the center of the Milky Way galaxy is about 26,000 light years, one can conclude that Uversa is not near the center of the Milky Way.

Another passage of the Urantia Book supports the notion that Uversa is not located at the center of the Milky Way.

â€œUversa is favorably situated for the work of this [astronomy] colony, not only because of its central location, but also because there are no gigantic living or dead suns near at hand to disturb the energy currents.â€� (UB338:4)

It is known that there is a black hole at the center of the Milky Way which should be even more effective at disturbing the energy currents than living or dead suns. Due to dust clouds, dark nebulae, and a very high density of stars, the center of the galaxy would be a most unfavorable location for an astronomy colony.

Uversa is at the Astronomic Center of Orvonton

The following passages indicate that the various components of Orvonton rotate about Uversa, and thus Uversa is the astronomic center of Orvonton.

â€œThe Sagittarius sector and all other sectors and divisions of Orvonton are in rotation around Uversa, â€¦ â€œ (UB168:3)

â€œ6. The whirl of the ten major sectors, the so-called star drifts, about the Uversa headquarters of Orvonton.â€� (UB168:3)

This rotation about Uversa is presumably not due to the gravitational attraction of Uversa since it is an architectural world and this would be of relatively insignificant mass.

â€œ10. Architectural Worlds. These are the worlds which are built according to plans and specifications for some special purpose, such as Salvington, the headquarters of your local universe, and Uversa, the seat of government of our superuniverse.â€� (UB172:1)

The statement that

â€œThe Satania system of inhabited worlds is far removed from Uversa and that great sun cluster which functions as the physical or astronomic center of the seventh superuniverse.â€� (UB359:8)

also supports the notion that Uversa is at the physical center of Orvonton, and that it is at a great distance from Urantia.

An Upper Limit on the Distance to Uversa

The velocity of a Solitary Messenger as given in the passage below can be shown to be equivalent to 4.52 million light years per year of Urantia time.

â€œTheir velocity in traversing space is variable, depending on a great variety of interfering influences, but the record shows that on the journey to fulfill this mission my associate messenger proceeded at the rate of 841,621,642,000 of your miles per second of your time.â€� (UB261:1)

Since the speed of light is 1.862809 x 105 miles/sec, the speed of the Solitary Messenger is 8.41621642 x 1011 miles per second divided by 1.862809 x 105 = 4.518 x 106 light years/ year. This is warp 4.5 million!

Given this speed, the travel time of 109 days stated above, and the location of Jerusem within 4000 light years of Urantia implies that the distance from Urantia to Uversa must be less than 1.35 million light years

Fraction of Orvonton which is Inhabited.

The UB implies that only a small fraction, between one and four percent, of Orvonton is currently inhabited.

â€œThat portion of Paradise which has been designated for the use of the existing universes is occupied only from one to four per cent, while the area assigned to these activities is at least one million times that actually required for such purposes. Paradise is large enough to accommodate the activities of an almost infinite creation.â€� (UB121:5)

This implies that the inhabited portion of each superuniverse occupies between one and four percent of the inhabitable planets of that superuniverse. Thus Orvonton contains 10 trillion stars, 40 trillion planets, 1 trillion inhabitable planets, and the inhabited portion of Orvonton contains between 10 and 40 billion inhabited planets, and must contain between 100 and 400 billion stars. The Milky Way galaxy has been estimated to contain between 200 and 500 billion stars. Thus it appears that the Milky Way galaxy contains most of the inhabited portion of Orvonton.

The ratio of the number of stars in the mostly uninhabited master universe to that of the grand universe is 4.4 x 1021/7 x 1013 = 6.3 x 107 (63 million). Could this be the reason that this portion of Paradise is over one million times greater than that actually required at present?

The Size of the Inhabited Portion of Orvonton

The Urantia Book gives a fairly precise indication of the size of the inhabited portion of Orvonton.

â€œFrom the outermost system of inhabited worlds to the center of the superuniverse is a trifle less than two hundred and fifty thousand light-years.â€� (UB359:8)

The radius of the Milky Way galaxy is about 65,000 light years. If the Milky Way contains the â€œcentral nucleusâ€�, or inhabited portion, of Orvonton, then all of the Milky Way would likely be within the inhabited portion of Orvonton as we concluded above. This also establishes that the radius of Orvonton must be significantly greater than 250,000 light years.

Andromeda not within Inhabited Portion of Orvonton

The Urantia Book explicitly denies that the Andromeda galaxy, shown in Figure 4, is within the inhabited portion of Orvonton, our superuniverse.

â€œThere are not many sun-forming nebulae active in Orvonton at the present time, though Andromeda, which is outside the inhabited superuniverse, is very active.â€� (UB170:1)

This passage implies that Andromeda is, however, within Orvonton. Notice that the UB is here making explicit the distinction between the inhabited and the uninhabited portions of the superuniverse.

The Distance to the Andromeda Galaxy

Speaking of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), the Urantia Book says

â€œThis far-distant nebula [Andromeda] is visible to the naked eye, and when you view it, pause to consider that the light you behold left those distant suns almost one million years ago.â€� (UB170:1)

This contradicts current astronomical knowledge, which gives the distance to Andromeda as 2.39 +/- 0.09 million light years based on an average of 5 different types of determinations as discussed at http://www.earth.uni.edu/astro/cosmos/part6.html. This distance to Andromeda is not inferred from its red shift (Andromeda is actually blue shifted) but is obtained from a knowledge of the absolute brightness of certain Cephid variable stars which can be seen in Andromeda. The distance obtained by these methods could be in error by a factor of 2.667 (2.39/0.9) if the light we received from Andromeda were 86% absorbed by matter in the optical path, allowing only 14% to reach our telescopes. This might be due to the postulated â€œdark matterâ€� surrounding our galaxy, but there is no evidence that this is the case. Such a severe light absorption would have to be exceedingly spatially uniform or its presence would be detectable as a patterning in the images obtained by our telescopes.

Upper Limit on the Distance to Andromeda

Given that Andromeda is within our superuniverse, there is an upper limit on the distance from Urantia to the Andromeda galaxy which would be consistent with other information given in the Urantia Book. This upper limit would be the distance from Urantia to Uversa plus the distance from Uversa to the edge of the superuniverse. In this limiting case Uversa would be directly between Urantia and Andromeda.

Knowing that the ratio of the distance from Uversa to the edge of the superuniverse to the distance from Uversa to Urantia is 3.35, then the maximum possible distance to the Andromeda galaxy is 4.35 (1 + 3.35) times the distance from Urantia to Uversa. Since Urantia is within the inhabited portion of Orvonton, then the distance from Urantia to Uversa is less than 250,000 light years, and so the maximum distance from Urantia to Andromeda is 4.35 x 250,000 = 1,087,500 light years.

This is consistent with the distance given in the Urantia Book as less than one million light years, but inconsistent with the current scientific value of this distance of about 2.4 million light years. In order to bring the Urantia Book cosmology into conformance with current science, the distance given in the UB from Uversa to the edge of the inhabited portion of the superuniverse would have to be scaled up by a factor of at least 2.4/1.0875 = 2.2.

Globular Clusters near the Edge of Orvonton

The Urantia Book states that

â€œThe globular type of star clusters predominates near the outer margins of Orvonton.â€� (UB 170:2)

The existence and location of globular star clusters in a halo around the Milky Way was well known at the time the Urantia Book was written. A discussion of this subject can be found in The Universe Around Us by Sir James Jeans (1929, pp 60-62). This book also contains a description of the distribution of these globular clusters as

â€œâ€¦ lying on both sides of the Milky Way, its greatest diameter of about 250,000 light years lying in this plane, â€¦â€�(p 62)

Given that the UB implies that the radius of the inhabited portion of Orvonton is 250,000 light years (UB359:8) and thus the radius of Orvonton itself must be significantly greater, it seems inconsistent to identify the star clusters mentioned in the UB with the globular clusters described by Jeans which have a maximum radius of 125,000 light years from the galactic center.

They may be speaking of the eleven dwarf spheroidal (or elliptical) galaxies that closely circle the Milky Way. More information on these can be found in an interesting paper by George Lake of the University of Washington. This paper can be found at the URL http://wwwhpcc.astro.washington.edu/papers/localgroup/lg.html. An image of the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo I, located about 830,000 light years away, can be seen at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960519.html. I suspect that these dwarf galaxies are within Orvonton.

Orvonton Rotates about the Isle of Paradise and Havona

The Urantia Book states that our superuniverse of Orvonton circles the Isle of Paradise and the central universe of Havona.

â€œOrvonton is one of the seven evolutionary superuniverses of time and space which circle the never-beginning, never-ending creation of divine perfectionâ€”the central universe of Havona. At the heart of this eternal and central universe is the stationary Isle of Paradise, the geographic center of infinity and the dwelling place of the eternal God.â€� (UB1:5)

Location of Havona

The Urantia Book states that the location of Havona is in the direction of the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Of course it is not in the Milky Way at all, but is about 16 million light years distant.

â€œWhen the angle of observation is propitious, gazing through the main body of this realm of maximum density, you are looking toward the residential universe [Havona] and the center of all things.â€� (UB167:5)

The Period of Rotation of Orvonton about Havona

The Urantia Book gives a clue to the period of rotation of Orvonton about Havona.

â€œToday, the solar system to which Urantia belongs is a few billion years past the swing around the southern curvature so that you are just now advancing beyond the southeastern bend and are moving swiftly through the long and comparatively straightaway northern path.â€� (UB165:4)

If it took a few billion years to move from the southern curvature to just past the southeastern bend, a distance of one eighth of a complete revolution, then the period of rotation of Orvonton about Havona must be 8 times a few billion years. Assuming the word â€œfewâ€� indicates the number 3 gives a value of 24 billion years for the period of rotation of Orvonton about Havona. This is twice the current estimated age of the Universe and implies that Orvonton has not yet made one revolution about Havona.

The Orbital Velocity of Orvonton around Havona

The velocity of Orvonton in its orbit is the circumference of the orbit, 2 pi times the radius of the orbit, divided by the period of the orbit (24 billion years). Given that the period is 7.57 x 1017 s, and assuming a radius of 16 million light years, one finds that the velocity of Orvonton in its orbit around Havona is 1.25 x 106 m/s or 5.6 million miles per hour.

This velocity is of the order of magnitude of the currently estimated velocity of the Local Group of 400 km/s in the direction of the Virgo galactic cluster.

The Mass of Havona and the Isle of Paradise

Knowing the period of rotation of Orvonton about Havona to be about 24 billion years, and knowing the distance from Orvonton to Havona to be about 16 million light years, we can calculate an estimate of the mass of Havona. By equating the gravitational pull of Havona necessary to balance the centrifugal force of Orvonton in its orbit about Havona, one finds the mass of Havona to be given by

M = R V2/G

Where R is the radius of Orvontonâ€™s orbit, V is the velocity of Orvonton in its orbit, and G is the universal gravitational constant (6.673 x 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2). Knowing that 1 light year is 9.46 x 1015 m, the radius of Orvontonâ€™s orbit is 1.51 x 1023 m. The velocity is 1.25 x 106 m/s as found above.

Substituting the appropriate values into the equation above gives the mass of Havona to be 3.5 x 1045 kg. Given that the mass of the sun is 1.989 x 1030 kg, this is equivalent to 1.9 x 1015 solar masses. This is also equivalent to about 900 Milky Way galaxies.

The UB says this about the mass of Havona and the Isle of Paradise:

â€œOwing to the enormous encircling masses of the dark gravity bodies about the fringe of the central universe, the mass content of this central creation is far in excess of the total known mass of all seven sectors of the grand universe.â€� (UB:129:2)

The Urantia Book states that Orvonton contains about 1013 solar masses. The seven sectors of the grand universe thus must contain about 7 x 1013 solar masses. Our calculated value of the mass of Havona and the Isle of Paradise is thus about 27 times that of the seven sectors of the grand universe, in agreement with the UB statement.

Possible Other Galaxies within the Grand Universe

Given that the radius of the grand universe is about 16 million light years, one can compile a list of the galaxies, or groups of galaxies, which could be possible locations of the other six superuniverses. If these superuniverses are in a circular orbit around Havona with radius of 16 million light years, we would expect to find two at a distance of 31 Mly, at +/- 0.86H (0.86 hours = 12.9 deg) galactic azimuth, two at 25 Mly distance at +/- 2.6H azimuth, and two at 14 Mly at +/- 4.3 H azimuth. This is because Havona is said to be in the direction of the center of the Milky Way galaxy (0 H galactic azimuth). Such candidates would also be found near the plane of our galaxy, that is, having small values of galactic elevation, Such a list will include:

After looking through lists of the many galaxies in the vicinity of Urantia, one finds that there are at least 192 galaxies within 32 Mly, and over 1000 galaxies within 100 Mly. It becomes clear that the local universe structure is more complex than the concept of seven superuniverses revolving about Havona presented in the Urantia Book. The concept of the seven superuniverses must be considered as referring to seven inhabited regions of space, and that it must be considered that there are many other uninhabited galaxies within the grand universe, besides Andromeda, not mentioned in the Urantia Book.

The lack of candidate galaxies having the characteristics stated above may be due to the fact that it is difficult to observe galaxies which lie in the plane of the Milky Way, and which are on the opposite side of the Milky Way from Urantia. Recently, some radio observations have revealed galaxies which are otherwise hidden by the obscuring matter of the Milky Way. Undoubtedly there are many unknown galaxies in this region that might be suitable candidates for the location of the other superuniverses.

Our Local Universe

Size of Our Local Universe, Nebadon

Nebadon is said to have about 10 million inhabitable planets. This implies that Nebadon contains about 100 million stars, assuming that on average one star in ten has an inhabitable planet. If the local stellar density is about one star per 240 cubic light years (there are 30 stars within a radius of 12 light years from Urantia), then the volume of space required to hold 100 million stars would be 2.4 x 1010 cubic light years. If this volume were approximately spherical, then the radius of this sphere would be about 1,800 light years. One might conclude that our local universe is about this size, or about 3000 to 4,000 light years in diameter. Thus is is clear that our local universe of Nebadon is not the same as our Local Group of galaxies, which is much bigger, on the order of several million light years in diameter.

The Location of Salvington

The UB makes the following statement concerning the location of Salvington, the capital of our local universe.

â€œSalvington, the headquarters of Nebadon, is situated at the exact energy-mass center of the local universe. But your local universe is not a single astronomic system, though a large system does exist at its physical center.â€� (UB359:1)

We can also guess that Salvington, the capital of our local universe is perhaps about 2000 light years from Urantia in the direction of the center of the Milky Way, since the book says that we are on the outer fringe of Nebadon. This would be near the location of M6, the Butterfly star cluster shown in Figure 7.

It is also likely that the majority of Nebadon is within the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

Planets, Inhabited and Inhabitable

Fraction of Planets in Orvonton which are Inhabitable
The Urantia Book gives information on the fraction of planets that are inhabitable. One reads:

â€œIn your superuniverse not one cool planet in forty is habitable by beings of your order. And, of course, the superheated suns and the frigid outlying worlds are unfit to harbor higher life. In your solar system only three planets are at present suited to harbor life.â€� (UB173:5)

Thus the upper limit on the fraction of planets which are inhabitable by human beings is 1 in 40 (0.025). This statement concerns our superuniverse of Orvonton, but since I assume the laws of nature are the same in all superuniverses I will assume this number is applicable to the other superuniverses as well.

The Number of Inhabitable Planets in Orvonton

The number of inhabitable planets in Orvonton is specifically given in the UB.

â€œSeven superuniverses make up the present organized grand universe, consisting of approximately seven trillion inhabitable worlds plus the architectural spheres and the one billion inhabited spheres of Havona.â€� (UB166:8)

Given this, one can conclude that our superuniverse of Orvonton contains about one trillion inhabitable worlds. Notice that the UB is careful to distinguish between inhabitable planets and inhabited planets. We will show later that most of these one trillion inhabitable worlds are currently uninhabited.

Fraction of Stars in Orvonton Containing an Inhabitable Planet

Given that there are one trillion inhabitable worlds in Orvonton, and 10 trillion stars in Orvonton, one must conclude that if stars had no multiple inhabitable planets, then one star in ten has an inhabitable planet. If, as is indicated in the section on the distribution of inhabited planets in Satania below, stellar systems tend to have only one inhabitable planet, then generally only one star in about ten would have any inhabitable planets.

A recent survey of 800 nearby stars using the Doppler method, has shown that about one star in twenty has at least a Jupiter-sized planet. That one star in ten has an inhabitable planet therefore seems not improbable.

Average Number of Planets per Star in Orvonton

If there are 0.1 inhabitable planets per star, and 0.025 inhabitable planets per planet then on the average there must be 0.1/0.025 = 4 planets per star in Orvonton. This would indicate that planets are a common occurrence. This is verified by current astronomical science which, although it can detect only large planets approximately the size of Jupiter, has shown such planets to be relatively common.

Number of Inhabitable Planets in our Solar System

â€œIn your solar system only three planets are at present suited to harbor life.â€� (UB173:5)

Because of the wide diversity of life forms in the Universe, many planets which we would consider uninhabitable for man, may be perfectly habitable for some of the radically-different other life forms. Our solar system having three inhabitable planets is a rare occurrence since as we show below, only 0.7% of solar systems with inhabitable planets have three.

Distribution of Inhabited Planets in Satania

The UB gives the distribution of inhabited planets in Satania among the physical systems (solar systems) containing such planets.

â€œSatania is not a uniform physical system, a single astronomic unit or organization. Its 619 inhabited worlds are located in over five hundred different physical systems. Only five have more than two inhabited worlds, and of these only one has four peopled planets, while there are forty-six having two inhabited worlds.â€� (UB359: 7)

Thus there are 511 solar systems with one, 46 with two, 4 with 3, and only 1 with 4 inhabited planets. There are thus 511 + 46 + 4 + 1 = 562 solar systems with inhabited planets in the Satania system.

Average Number of Inhabited Planets per Star in Satania

The Urantia Book gives the number of stars in our system, Satania, which allows computing the average number of inhabited planets per star.

â€œThere are upward of two thousand brilliant suns pouring forth light and energy in Satania, and your own sun is an average blazing orb.â€� (UB458:1)

Since there are 619 inhabited planets and 2000 stars in Satania, then there are on the average 0.31 inhabited planets per star, or equivalently, approximately one inhabited planet for every 3 stars. Given that there are 562 solar systems with an inhabited planet, then one star out of every 3.6 in Satania has an inhabited planet.

Given that one star in ten in Orvonton has an inhabitable planet, the fact that in Satania one star in 3.6 has an inhabited planet indicates that the Satania star system is an especially favorable environment for life. Current science accepts that only certain zones within a galaxy are favorable for supporting human life.

Fraction of Satania Presently Inhabited

According to a Table given in the Urantia Book (UB167:1), a system contains about 1000 inhabitable planets, therefore the Satania system containing 619 inhabited planets makes it about 62% inhabited. This is much higher than the fraction of Orvonton that is presently inhabited (around 1 to 4%).

The Size of Satania

Given the number of stars in Satania, one can estimate its size under the assumptions that the star density in Satania is uniform and the same as our local star density (one star per 240 cubic light years). Assuming this, one finds that a sphere of radius 48.5 light years is required to contain the 2000 stars said to comprise Satania.

Urantian Cosmology which may Require Future Revision

The Urantia Book states that its cosmology is not necessarily inspired, and that it may require revision in the future. In this article to this point we have been focusing on positive correspondences between Urantian cosmology and current knowledge. In truth, there are some aspects of this cosmology which are not validated by current science and which are likely to require revision.

For instance, the Urantia Book says

â€œThe Uversa star students observe that the grand universe is surrounded by the ancestors of a series of starry and planetary clusters which completely encircle the present inhabited creation as concentric rings of outer universes upon universes.â€� (UB131:1)

In the past decade there has become available on the Internet a number of 3-dimensional visualizations of the universe. Studying these visualizations, one is struck by the fact that there is no evidence of a structure that can be described as â€œconcentric rings of outer universes.â€� In fact, the universe appears to consist of large superclusters of galaxies, which are distributed in a more or less random manner.

In another instance the Urantia Book describes the â€œspace zonesâ€� beyond the grand universe as

â€œBetween the energy circuits of the seven superuniverses and this gigantic outer belt of force activity, there is a space zone of comparative quiet, which varies in width but averages about four hundred thousand light-years. These space zones are free from star dustâ€”cosmic fog. Our students of these phenomena are in doubt as to the exact status of the space-forces existing in this zone of relative quiet which encircles the seven superuniverses. But about one-half million light-years beyond the periphery of the present grand universe we observe the beginnings of a zone of an unbelievable energy action which increases in volume and intensity for over twenty-five million light-years.â€� (UB130:0)

Again, there is no evidence of spherical zones of empty space surrounding any structure which might be the grand universe. Given the relatively small size of these space zones compared to the size of the grand universe and the distances between galaxies, this statement cannot be reconciled with known universe structure.

The idealized picture of seven superuniverses circling Havona in approximately the plane of our galaxy ignores the fact that assuming this cosmology is true, the space containing these universes also contains numerous other galaxy clusters outside the plane of our galaxy. There is no evidence of any organization of nearby galaxies resulting in a preferential localization near the plane of the Milky Way galaxy.

In another apparent disagreement with current scientific thought, the Urantia Book specifically denies the reality of the expansion of the universe, that the apparent recession of galaxies is linked to their distance by means of the Hubble constant. The UB says:

â€œMany influences interpose to make it appear that the recessional velocity of the external universes increases at the rate of more than one hundred miles a second for every million light-years increase in distance. By this method of reckoning, subsequent to the perfection of more powerful telescopes, it will appear that these far-distant systems are in flight from this part of the universe at the unbelievable rate of more than thirty thousand miles a second. But this apparent speed of recession is not real; it results from numerous factors of error embracing angles of observation and other time-space distortions.â€� (UB134:3)

Current science regards this Hubble effect as real. In fact, all the current 3-dimensional representations of the universe largely rely on this effect to establish the distance to the galaxies, Andromeda being an exception. If the Hubble effect is not real, then all such current representations are invalid. At this time there is no scientific evidence that the Hubble effect is not real, and in fact, there is significant evidence that it is real.

The Urantia Book states that only a very small portion of the observable universe contains life.

â€œAs far as we know, no material beings on the order of humans, no angels or other spirit creatures, exist in this outer ring of nebulae, suns, and planets. This distant domain is beyond the jurisdiction and administration of the superuniverse governments.â€� (UB131:2)

Current scientific opinion is that life formed by a chance combination of chemicals and evolved into the complex life forms known today. It would be deemed as most unlikely that life was concentrated on only a few clusters of galaxies as implied by this UB statement. Of course, we have at present no way to know if this is true or not.

One of the most serious disagreements between current astronomical science and the Urantia Book cosmology concerns the size of Orvonton, The radius of Orvonton can be inferred to be about 3.35 times between 200,000 and 250,000 light years or about 770,000 light years as indicated by UB222:6 and UB359:8. This assumes that Jerusem, the capital of our star system, Satania, is relatively near (within 50 light years) to Urantia and is thus within the Milky Way. Such a small radius would exclude both the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies from the uninhabited portion of Orvonton and it seems impossible that there are 10 trillion stars (UB172:7) within such a small volume.

One possible explanation for this inconsistency and also for that involving the distance to the Andromeda galaxy is to postulate that the authors of the Urantia Book presented a cosmology that was scaled to fit the astronomic knowledge of the time when the book was written. The value of one million light years for the distance to Andromeda was the current astronomical knowledge during the period of 1923 to 1953. The Urantia papers were written within this time period. If the authors scaled the true distance to the Andromeda galaxy down by a factor of about 3 to prevent the disclosure of unearned knowledge, to be maximally self-consistent they may have also scaled down the other two distances which they directly give. These distances are the 200,000 light years from Uversa to Jerusem, and the 250,000 light years corresponding to the radius of the inhabited portion of Orvonton.

If this hypothesis is true, then the true distances can be found by multiplying the values given in the UB by a factor of about 3. This makes the distance to the Andromeda galaxy agree with current knowledge. It makes the distance from Jerusem to Uversa to be greater than 600,000 light years, and the radius of the inhabited portion of Orvonton to be less than 750,000 light years. The overall radius of Orvonton would then be greater than 3.35 times 600,000 or 2.0 million light years. It would be less than 750,000/0.34 or 2.2 million light years. This places both the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies within the uninhabited portion of Orvonton. It also makes the UB statement that Orvonton contains ten trillion stars much more plausible.

Such a scaling would not be inconsistent with the statement that the Divine Counselor can reach any part in Orvonton in one Urantia year. If the distance from Uversa to the edge of Orvonton is about 2.1 million light years, then the velocity of the Divine Counselor would be 2.1/4.51 = 0.47 times that of the Solitary Messengers, or consistent with his statement that he could not attain the speed of a Solitary Messenger. Apparently a Solitary Messenger travels at about twice the speed of a Divine Counselor. Any scaling factor greater than about 6 would be inconsistent with the stated speed of the Divine Counselor.

Could it be that the revision of the Urantian cosmology which the UB authors state may be required in the future is this scaling upwards of the stated distances by a factor of 3? This is probably one of the simplest possible revisions, which could be imagined.

Another discrepancy in UB cosmology concerns the time required for a Solitary Messenger to travel to the central universe (Havona) and back. The Urantia Book states that a Solitary Messenger can travel at a speed of

â€œ841,621,642,000 of your miles per second of your time.â€� (UB261:1)

Since the speed of light is 186,281 miles per second, the speed of the Solitary Messenger is 4,512,000 times the speed of light.

The Urantia Book also says the following about a Solitary Messenger:

â€œLong before the presence of life on Urantia the [Solitary] messenger now associated with me was assigned on a mission out of Uversa to the central universeâ€”was absent from the roll calls of Orvonton for almost a million years but returned in due time with the desired information.â€� (UB259:2)

In a million Urantia years a Solitary Messenger can travel a distance of 2,256 billion light years and back. The age of the universe is thought to be only 14 billion years, so the radius of the universe is no greater than 14 billion light years. It would take a Solitary Messenger only 6,200 years to travel to the edge of the known universe and back.

There is good reason, based on the number of stars in the grand universe, to believe that the distance from Uversa to the central universe is only about 16 million light years. A Solitary Messenger can travel this distance and back in only seven Urantia years. If this distance is correct the Solitary Messenger had 999,993 years to spend in the central Universe before he had to return.

There is also good reason to believe that the speed given for the Solitary Messenger is correct. This is based on the ability of a Divine Counselor, travelling at a lesser speed, to reach any part of Orvonton in one Urantia year, and the apparent size of Orvonton based on the number of stars in Orvonton. If this is so, it appears that he could have made the trip to the central universe and back in less than one Uversa year, or 8.2 Urantia years and still have had 1.2 Urantia years to conduct his business.

Thus it appears that the statement given in UB259:2 is grossly inconsistent with the other cosmology given in the UB. Perhaps it should have read that the Solitary Messenger was gone only one (Uversa) year?

Conclusions
These results show that the major aspects of Urantia Book cosmology are, in most part, in reasonable agreement with our present cosmological understanding. The major conflicts with current astronomical knowledge can be resolved if the three absolute distances given in the book are scaled up by a factor of about 3 to make the distance to the Andromeda galaxy conform approximately to current estimates.

The reader may question why the revelators chose to present a false value for the scale of the cosmology given in the UB. I believe that this choice actually demonstrates the wisdom of the revelators. Given that the currently-accepted value of the distance to the Andromeda galaxy was 900,000 light years at the time the book was written (Jeans, op.cit. p66), the revelators were faced with several conflicting choices. At the time, the distance to the Andromeda galaxy was the only extra-galactic distance known with any belief of certainty. I believe they chose to give this distance to provide an absolute scale to the size of our superuniverse because it was the largest distance determined by Urantian science of that time. Given this, they were faced with two choices: revealing the true distance or presenting a distance in agreement with accepted knowledge. Given the fact that the Urantian science was inaccurate at the time, any statement made would inevitably be at odds with current opinion, either before or after the truth was known. Revealing the true distance would immediately create disbelief in the revelation among the science-minded audience at which the revelation is directed, and would impart unearned scientific knowledge, prohibited by the mandate of revelation, which would shortly be acquired unaided by Urantian scientists in any event. In giving the then-accepted value, they avoided any controversy during the early stages of the acceptance of the revelation. The impact of the later inconsistency with Urantian astronomy they defused by explicitly admitting that the cosmology presented was not divinely inspired and would require revision in the future. Scaling all distances down by the same factor would create the minimum possible distortion to the presented cosmology, and would allow recovery of the true distances in the future when the true distance to the Andromeda galaxy was known.

The Urantia Book expressly condones not revealing facts when it might inhibit spiritual advancement. Speaking of the seraphic recorders it says,

â€œSome day they will teach you to seek truth as well as fact, to expand your soul as well as your mind. â€¦ But sometimes error is so great that its rectification by revelation would be fatal to those slowly emerging truths which are essential to its experiential overthrow. When children have their ideals, do not dislodge them; let them grow.â€� (UB554:6)

Did the revelators decide that correcting the factual error concerning the distance to Andromeda might inhibit the spread of the spiritual truths they were trying to implant?

The apparent inconsistency in the time taken by the Solitary Messenger in his trip to the central universe and back is not convincing evidence of the inaccuracy of UB cosmology. It may be that the Solitary Messenger spent the vast majority of the time during his trip in collecting the desired information, or it may be that the value â€œone millionâ€� was inserted by a human editor who could not believe that such a trip would take only one year.

It appears unlikely that the other disagreement with Urantian science, that of the purposeful implantation of life in the seven superuniverses, or galaxy clusters, versus the random spontaneous self-assembly of life from inert matter, will be resolved anytime within the foreseeable future. It does seem possible to verify the presence of life in the near vicinity of our solar system, which the UB states is a relatively common occurrence. This should be encouraging to those engaged in the present SETI efforts.

Labels: Frederick L. Beckner, galaxies, grand universe, Hubble Telescope, master universe, Milky Way, planets, the universe, The Urantia Book

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Arizona Telescope Sees Deep into the Cosmos

All Things Considered, March 17, 2008

Please click on "external link for an audio feature as well...

The best pair of eyes on Earth are now wide open. The Large Binocular Telescope sits in a 17-story building atop an Arizona mountain.

LBT, as it's known for short, can probe deeper into the cosmos than any other instrument. The 580-ton telescope is twice as big as the next-largest telescope on Earth, and it has 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope. The LBT cannot see farther than Hubble, but the images it sends back are much sharper and of a much wider field than the space telescope.

In the control room, Richard Pogge, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University, types in coordinates for this night's viewing. He and a half-dozen others sit in a room filled with computer screens.

There's a universe to look at, but time is limited, so scientists submit proposals for observation. One of the first for tonight: the Kuiper Belt, which lies on the edge of the solar system, about 2.7 billion miles from Earth.

How small? Well, Pluto is roughly 1,200 miles wide. The LBT can see ice balls in the same region that are one or two miles wide. The cameras take an exposure â€“ which lasts five minutes â€” and then the image is revealed on a computer screen. It looks like a field of stars. But take the same picture six nights in a row and â€” if you know what you're looking for â€” you can see the ice balls moving.

And with the data this telescope gathers, Pogge says you can see a lot more, including how far are away an object is, what it is made of, what its mass is and how fast it's moving away from us.

Answering Questions About the Universe

Notre Dame professor Peter Garnevich helps focus the LBT on another object, which is no small task given the instrument's complexity. Garnevich is interested in a supernova that exploded a few nights earlier.

"The star just happened to die and its jet was pointed at us and we can see it most of the way across the universe," says Garnevich.

The screen shows a large mass with a plume coming from it. Garnevich wants to learn how energy from the dying star decays over time. By looking at objects like this â€” halfway across the universe and back in time â€” these astronomers hope the LBT will answer some fundamental questions.

Pogge lists some of those questions: "Where do we come from, how did we get here, where are we going? Astronomy's one of the few ways we can answer that."

Over the next few years, many more devices will be added to the LBT to enhance its capabilities. That should be enough to keep astronomers happy at night for decades.

Labels: Large Binocular Telescope, Pluto, space, Ted Robbins, the universe

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Saturday, February 24, 2007

Einstein and the Revelation: Inventing the Universe

RICK WARREN, USA

Albert Einstein would have reveled in the Urantia Papers. They offer what he craved to discover: a plausible unifying explanation for all things and beings, a theory that encompassed everything. Alas, he searched only in the material realm for the greater part of his life, but toward the end he did appear to have the glint of God in his seasoned eyes.

If he were again to attempt to uncover the unifying principle of the Universe, this time in the light of the revelation, he might find that he could, in simple terms, define the physical universe as it hangs on three God-created elements: ultimatons, space, and gravity (169:1). Of course he would say it in the language of mathematics and with the metaphor of symbolic equation.

If Albert Einstein agreed with the scientific and spiritual revelations of The Urantia Book, he would rejoice in the connectedness of the physical, the mental, and the divine (102:1). Of course the reason he didn't reach philosophic or religious climax is because mathematics is only a minor and impersonal revelation of the vastly greater whole. But you must admire the quality of his thinking, if not his unremitting persistence. How many of us are able or willing to devote our thinking to one subject for decades?

Imagine what thoughts he could have conjured as a result of embracing the Urantia revelation!
The physical universe is elegantly simple on its surface; ultimatons manifest in space and gravity begins its work (465:2). The ultimatonic â€œhuddlingâ€� [478:4] tendency pulls them into masses (eventually with direction from the physical controllers) that gravity faithfully crushes. This creates heat and pressure which breaks down matter (463:12), and that causes light to be released. Light goes out in all directions, and this light fuels plant life which propels
animal life, which is needed for spirit life to begin the journey back to where the ultimaton beganâ€”Paradise (169:1).

But in between nascent light and eternal life lies a mystery: How can ultimatons, gravity, and space make heat and light which make planets of 100 elements? (541:6) One cannot see the planetary elements in the original three elements of physical universe construction, but they are inherent. How does God do that? And how can the elements show such blindingly diverse properties? (467:4)

We and old Albert are confronted with a question of quintessential significance regarding the mysteries of the physical universes. How can 100 elements display so many odd, unique and eccentric qualities? If the material universes have only three ingredients, how do the Gods transform ultimatons, space, and gravity into star-stuff, light, and planets so that beings may take up bodies to experience life and soul growth in the presence of these 100 elements? (399:7) How can copper come from the same ultimaton that hydrogen comes from?

Mysteries aside, the universal machine does create a magnificent variety of materials by forcing ultimatons to go through different processes. Subject an ultimaton to space, let gravity pull it together with other ultimatons, let the nuclear fire be lit, and voilÃ , implanted vegiforms consume the fireâ€™s light, and preplanned people eat the plants to evolve, and souls use
the bodies to act and grow, and the three great Gods enjoy the show (most of the time) (468:2).

Instead of three inanimate elements, we now have five: matter, space, gravity, heat, and light. Add the crowning two, planets and life, and that makes seven. It's a model that's served Father for eternity. But the story of the â€œInvention of the Universeâ€� (1276:2) is a little more complex where personal will is distributed (53:5) carte blanche, willy-nilly, and apparently, helterskelter.

Underneath lies serenity, however.

In the beginning, there you are in utter harmony, the I AM (6:3); you are infinitely wise and limitlessly capable. You decide to create a Universe where there are beings like yourself, who have free will (71:7). You want them to be sovereign in their world, as are you in infinity. First you divide yourself, becoming a team of three (108:2). You three build a permanent residence
(7:10) and work to hardwire all creation with the basics for independent free will (70:5). Youâ€™ll need material, Mind, Spirit, and Personality circuits (1286:5).

After you create a personal family and a proper home for you and your perfect helpers, you call it Paradise (7:10). (I wonder what symbol Einstein would use for Paradise? Zero?) Then you send ultimatons out in a wide circle (473:1). And with the help of your â€œchildrenâ€�, you start the vortices that pull the ultimatons into aggregations. These clumps of matter are acted on by your gravity, which pulls them into definable masses, and then heat, caused by gravity working on ultimatons, begins to make suns (465:1).

The solar process then gives rise to the 100 elements through the variable use of more heat, then cold and sometimes pressure, which form the diverse planets from cooling solar matter (473:5).

The stage is now set for life. Life is the greatest mystery in the universe aside from the appearance of the I AM. No one can essay to pontificate on life, whence it came, how it came to be (399:6) or where it will take us in ultimate Eternity, save for God (347:5).

The I AM divides himself so that by the time he manifests at our level (638:4), he has forgotten his origin. He has accomplished self-forgetfulness; he has differentiated his consciousness into trillions upon trillions of relatively freewill beings scattered over
vast fields of ultimatonic constructs (2018:4).

God weaves the physical universe on three irrepressible threads: ultimatons, gravity, and space.

What a simple concept! It is not so hard to accept that matter, when gathered into a starâ€™s intense gravity pull, should begin to heat and then radiate light for billions of years as solar engines on which hang the lives and experiences of man and beast (125:4).

What is hard to understand, and maybe Albert would have trouble with this too, is how ultimatons, after becoming grist for the mill of divine creation, develop such diverse properties and amazing powers of cohesion (169:1). Metals are bound in well-nigh indissoluble links and can withstand enormous forces.

Gases are compressible, yet water, made of two gasses, is not compressible, unless it is in the form of steam. The oddities, idiosyncrasies, and the outright diversity of chemical properties are far more than astonishing, they are stupefying!

Water, a compound of two common elements, has within it several odd properties that can be used as a material suggestion for spirit (1795:5), since spirit can flow in any direction, can freeze, and can expand.

Spirit is used but nothing is used up (76:1). Spirit sustains all living beings (1155:4), and without it there is only the barren desert. But without a desert, there will be no place for spirit to flow and no oases of creativity. No oases, no Alberts, no you or me. It all started â€œrelativelyâ€� simply. Einstein would have genuinely enjoyed knowing of the simplicity and elegance of the unified theory of everything, as complex as it finally is. It is simple complexity, mixed with a mystery and driven by a dream.

Albert would have embraced it.

Labels: Albert Einstein, God, gravity, Paradise, Rick Warren, space, the universe, The Urantia Book, ultimaton

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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

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Saturday, January 28, 2006

Introduction to The Urantia Book

by Meredith J. Sprunger

One of the greatest needs of contemporary society is to be inspired by a fresh and enlarged spiritual vision which will stimulate humankind to new spiritual growth. Such advances in spiritual enlightenment in the past have been initiated by pioneering personalities or were inspired by the vision of prophetic books.
It is my considered opinion, confirmed by more than twenty years of critical thought and experience, that we have in The Urantia Book such an epoch-making book. Like a mountain peak rising above the slumbering potentials of our contemporary scene, the book catches and reflects the light which signals the dawn of a new spiritual day. It seems destined to introduce unprecedented creative thought and action in the field of religion.

Such a claim surely will put a knowledgeable and responsible person on guard. Almost every generation produces a number of people who pose as bearers of a "new revelation." What is surprising about The Urantia Book is that it has almost nothing in common with radical or fanatical movements. It does not advocate a new religion. Its viewpoint builds upon the religious heritage of the past and present; yet, it is fresh, expansive, and profound.

The superior quality of the philosophical-religious insights of The Urantia Book is clear to anyone of discriminating mind who reads it. After a judicious and reflective reading of the book, one is impressed by the power of its own authenticity. It is a book, however, which cannot be adequately evaluated until one grasps its comprehensive universe cosmology -- its total religious picture. Just as students of the life of Jesus recognize the superlative quality of his character even though they may reject his divinity, so humankind will eventually recognize the unparalleled quality of the insights of The Urantia Book - even though they do not accept is as a new revelation.

Revelatory authenticity, however, is a secondary consideration. The basic challenge posed by this stimulating book is pragmatic. Does it have something creative and constructive to contribute to our modern religious- philosophic outlook? There is little question but that it can and will make a significant contribution to our religious thinking. Evaluated on the basis of spiritual insight, philosophic coherence, and reality- centeredness, it presents the finest world view of religion available in our day. It will profoundly impress those who are interested in progressive philosophical and religious thinking which has the potential of molding world destiny.

A Holistic Philosophical Orientation

The exceptional philosophical-religious qualities of The Urantia Book include an integrated and masterful concept of reality. The gap between monistic and pluralistic metaphysical concepts is bridged. Mechanistic and vitalistic interpretations of natural phenomena are integrated. Science and religion are seen as aspects of a larger unity. Concepts of deity ranging from that of a personal universal father to an impersonal absolute are so well unified that the holistic picture is harmonious.

Both Unitarian and Trinitarian views are enhanced. These and other philosophic-religious diversities are integrated in such a way as to augment the essential truths in each of these positions. A marvelously organized astronomical universe is projected which includes millions of inhabited planets in all stages of physical, mental, and spiritual evolution. The book contains what is probably the most realistic and inclusive material-mindal-spiritual cosmology in the entire field of philosophy and religion.

Moreover, The Urantia Book presents an eminently reasonable picture of the conditions and nature of immortality. Survival is seen as dependent on the spiritual reality status of the individual - the result of the free choice motivation and decisions of the person toward truth, beauty, and goodness (God) as he or she sincerely understands these values. Nevertheless, evil, sin, and judgment are stern and sober realities in the universe. The interrelationships of body, mind, soul, and spirit are treated with much insight and originality. The central challenge to modern humanity is to make a-Balanced effort to achieve God-consciousness. Growth toward perfection is presented as the fundamental motivation of life. This growth is evolutionary, culminating, and virtually endless.

The Urantia Book also presents a superior understanding of planetary history, dynamics, and destiny. Evolution is seen as the key modus operandi of our planet. It integrates the mechanisms of the physical universe with the purposes of mind and spirit "overcontrol." An excellent summary of the development of religion and the growth of civilization is given with admirable conciseness and insight. The book's penetrating analysis of religion, culture, and the family is of exceptional quality. Its basic philosophy of the various forms of energy is that matter is ultimately subject to mind and that mind is eventually controlled by spirit.

The last section of The Urantia Book contains an extended version of the life and teachings of Jesus which is unsurpassed in theistic philosophical reasonableness, spiritual insight, and personality appeal. This superb presentation of the life of Jesus brings life to the sketchy New Testament story and with it a new authenticity. It is basically acceptable to all religions, emphasizing the religion of Jesus which is unifying as opposed to the religion about Jesus which tends to be divisive.

A Resource Not an Imperative

Although the message of The Urantia Book is solidly rooted in the perennial philosophy and religious experience of the past, it does present an enlarged view of the universe and God. Religious institutions usually find expanded knowledge and insight difficult to assimilate. Light can blind as well as guide. Truth which is presented prematurely brings frustration and rejection. The Urantia Book, therefore, may be disturbing to some people even though it is supportive and positive toward all people and all human efforts in the search for truth and spiritual understanding.

People are receptive to progressive spiritual values long before they are prepared to understand the origin and implications of these truths. Religious leaders, therefore, might best stimulate spiritual growth by translating the insights they discover in The Urantia Book into the idiom and reference frame of the people they serve. Even though The Urantia Book is among the most significant sources of spiritual guidance available to contemporary humankind, it is not an end in itself; nor is it a necessary means to spiritual enlightenment. Its potentials for individual and social growth, however, are so great it should be highly recommended to all who are interested in the creative possibilities of a spiritual renaissance in our society. Its message is balanced and profound. Its approach is open and benign. There are no threats or coercions to "believe." It seeks to work in and through the evolutionary process and within the social institutions of our world. During the years since its publication, this book, without advertisement or sales promotion, is being discovered by steadily increasing numbers of people. The overwhelming consensus among those who have discovered The Urantia Book is that it is destined for universal recognition on our planet.

The Fellowship

The Fellowship, founded in 1955 and originally named Urantia Brotherhood, is a fellowship of people from all walks of life and diverse philosophic-religious backgrounds who recognize the high quality of the teachings of The Urantia Book. These teachings are being primarily disseminated in a quiet, person-to-person manner. Many study groups are forming at the grass roots preparing the world for the time when the majority of men and women are ready for the enlarged spiritual vision of the Urantia Book.

The organizational building blocks of The Fellowship are Fellowship Societies, which emerge from stable and mature study groups and function with great autonomy. These Societies, when formally chartered by The Fellowship, elect delegates, who in turn elect 36 members to the General Council, the highest governing body of The Fellowship.

The overriding concern of The Fellowship is the spiritual regeneration and evolutionary advancement of humankind. Membership in other organizations, fraternal orders, churches, or religious groups is entirely compatible with membership in The Fellowship. During the early decades of its existence, The Fellowship has dedicated itself only to a spiritual and philosophic ministry. We believe this will always characterize The Fellowship's relationship to society.

The kingdom of God is an invisible and spiritual fellowship which is destined to become a living organism transcending social institutions. Contemporary religious institutions can and will serve as an adequate source of religious ministration for our society.

The Fellowship, therefore, seeks to avoid being seen as, or to function as, a "church," and eschews implications that it is promoting a "new religion." It strives, rather, to support, encourage, and strengthen all religious institutions toward the fulfillment of their unique potentials in ministering to the spiritual needs of humankind. The Fellowship's singular aspiration is to act as a leavening influence in the great and many-faceted religious heritage of our world. The Fellowship believes that the greatest contribution it can make to all individuals and institutions is to maintain a leavening ministry rooted in the spiritually inspiring teachings of The Urantia Book. Translating these teachings into specific social-institutional responsibilities remains the task of each of us as individuals and the institutions of our society.

Labels: cosmology, holistic, immortality, Jesus, Meredith Sprunger, planet earth, Revelation, spiritual growth, The Fellowship, the universe, The Urantia Book

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Thursday, January 26, 2006

Seven Urantia Book Historic Truth Affirmations

Meredith Sprunger
4/25/88

1. God is experiencable in human existence. All of us can experience God because we are all children of the Heavenly Father.

2. We will receive eternal life if we have faith and trust in God.

3. Love is the most powerful force in the universe. We are asked to love one another, as Jesus loves us.

4. The ministry of the Spirit is without measure and is efficacious. It is limited only by our receptive capacities.

5. We live in an orderly, intelligent, and progressive universe.

6. Human life has a divine purpose. There is meaning in our planetary history, values in our present situation, and hope for future generations.

7. The most important knowledge in the world is knowing the religious life of Jesus. The most important spiritual practice is living the religion of Jesus.

SEVEN URANTIA BOOK BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS

1. The material and spiritual cosmology of the universe is much greater and more purposefully organized than most scholars have envisioned. The number and diversity of spirit personalities and intelligent beings transcends our most imaginative speculation.

2. The finite universe in inhabited, and is a delegated creation composed of local universes which were brought into being by "Only Begotten" Creator Sons of the Universal Father. These Sons rule over their creations and all mortals who proceed to the Father are assisted in their pilgrimage by the benevolent ministry of these Sons. In this context the role of Jesus for our planet takes on additional significance and importance.

3. The universe is growth oriented and friendly. We must suffer the consequences for our misdeeds, but a literal "Hell" is a humanistic illusion.

4. Personal realities are dynamically interrelated; our mind bridges the dichotomy between matter and spirit; the Indwelling Spirit of God is our authentic self and has an ideal plan for our development; our soul is a divine-human creation which evolves as we make decisions harmonious with truth, beauty, and goodness; personality is a unique bestowal of the Universal Father which never changes and has unlimited potential to organize and integrate all present and future capacities and experiences.

5. The pathway to salvation and Paradise is evolutionary in nature. After death we take up our spiritual growth just where we left off I this life. We partiipate in our own growth toward perfection. The universe is a gigantic university, training mortals for a great and glorious future.

6. The idea that a sense of guilt, repentance, and self-examination are necessary for spiritual growth is replaced by the priorities of faith; self-forgetfulness; service; and self-mastery.

7. Religion is personal experience with God. Religious institutions are second order social creations. Truth is dynamic and cannot be imprisoned in creeds or dogmas; it is a spiritual reality which is living and growing.

Labels: cosmology, eternal life, God, Gospel of Jesus, love, Meredith Sprunger, Mind, personality, purpose, religion of personal experience, soul, Spirit ministry, the universe