Summary
The only way to reconcile the Urantia Book's story about life implantation with that of modern archaeology is to assume that the authors' definition of life includes the potential to develop 'intellect.' However, for even the genome of the most primitive bacteria to be spontaneously self-generating from a pool of readily available nucleotides (DNA consists of a long polymer of four nucleotides strung together in a specific order) appears to be an impossibility. The reason? The chances of even a single gene arising spontaneously in such a situation is one chance in 10150--a number far larger that the number of stars in the visible universe.
Which is indicative that not even the spontaneous generation of the most primitive life form is a rational possibility.
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"That we are called Life Carriers should not confuse you. We can and do carry life to the planets, but we brought no life to Urantia. Urantia life is unique, original with the planet. This sphere is a life-modification world; all life appearing hereon was formulated by us right here on the planet…."
"550,000,000 years ago the Life Carrier corps returned to Urantia. In co-operation with spiritual powers and superphysical forces we organized and initiated the original life patterns of this world and planted them in the hospitable waters of the realm." (P.667)
The fact that what we call life has been upon this planet for billions of years is widely known. Hence the above declaration must come as a puzzle.
Evidence for the occurrence of ancient life forms comes from the deposition of certain kinds of sedimentary red sandstone deposits, the red coloration being due to a coating of the sand grains with fully oxidized iron. This process is thought to have been due to the water- soluble ferrous form of iron in the seas being used as a recipient for the oxygen formed during photosynthesis by various life forms. The product, the red ferric iron, was insoluble and was deposited on the sand grains. This kind of deposit dates as far back as 2.5 billion years ago.
In later years the deposition of red sedimentary rocks in which the color is due to the ferric form of iron occurred when the oxygen content of the atmosphere rose to levels sufficiently high to trigger oxidation of soluble ferrous iron and the deposition of the insoluble ferric form
The only known process to bring about such high levels of atmospheric oxygen is photosynthesis by living organisms. Many, possibly all, of these deposits date from times prior to 550 million years ago, and present evidence for the occurrence of life forms that pre-date the introduction of life plasm by the Life Carriers. Further evidence comes from the occurrence of several kinds of microfossils thought to be evidence for bacterial or algal cells.
The Urantia Papers state, "Life does not originate spontaneously but is constructed...it appears on the inhabited worlds either by direct importation or as a result of the operation of the Life Carriers." (P.396)
That statement rules out the possibility that some primitive life forms, originating from other inhabited planets, are able to survive in outer space, and, after floating around among the galaxies, they seed new planets when conditions become favorable.
There is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes life. However the vast majority of us do accept that animals and plants are life forms, a large majority also includes bacteria and fungi as life forms, while almost all think of viruses and disease-causing entities like prions as non-living. If we accept majority opinion, then "life" appears to have been present on our planet for something close to four billion years.
