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colonies of living organisms. Foremost among these are the photosynthetic Cyanacae bacteria often wrongly called blue-green algae. Some stromatolites are dated to go back as far as 3.9 billion years ago, and analysis of zircons from sedimentary rocks in Western Australia place ocean formation beyond 4.3 billion years ago6,7--a conclusion in line with the dating of oceanic stromatolites of 3.9 billion years ago.
Another group of organisms are called the Ediacarans, named after the mountain range in South Australia where their fossil remains were first found. In the fossilized crawling trails of sea-bottom-dwelling worm-like creatures that date back close to 1 billion years ago, the Ediacarans provide the first unequivocal evidence of more highly developed life forms than the bacteria. All Ediacarans were sea dwelling forms. One type, Charniodiscus had a holdfast to anchor it to the sea bed and a leaf-like structure that grew to about 10 feet in length. Others used dwelling tubes composed of calcium carbonate (lime) and were most probably sessile, filter feeding worm-like creatures. Though very primitive, some of these animals are now believed to have possessed muscles, internal organs, and head and tail regions.
Prior to 1.0 billion years ago, life consisted of prokaryotes, single cell bacteria that do not have their DNA protected in a cell nucleus plus eukaryote bacteria that do. The prokaryotes came into being almost 4 billion years ago. The eukaryotes may have come into being as far back as 2.7 billion years. The evidence for this is the occurrence of steranes in the shales of Western Australia. These are hydrocarbon molecules that are produced exclusively by eukaryotic organisms. Fossils from other eukaryotic organisms such as Eosphaera and Huraniospora are dated at 1.9 billion years ago.
None of these organisms could have survived that interval between 1.5 and 1.0 billion years ago when The Urantia Book says the sun failed to "shine upon the earth's surface for thousands of years." So either this failure simply did not happen or else life was created for a second time. Also the evidence provided by the stromatolites for continuity of the world's oceans since more than 4 billion years ago is either false or else The Urania Book's claim of the primitive ocean first occurring towards the conclusion of the 1.5 to 1.0 billion years ago interval is false.
Whereas there is a wealth of evidence to support the conclusion of early oceans existing 4 billion years ago and for the life forms that lived therein, there is no physical evidence to support The Urantia Book's version of the first primitive ocean occurring just over 1 billion years ago nor for the assertion that its appearance was preceded by "thousands of years" when the "sun never shone on the earth's surface."
To ask readers of The Urantia Book to believe this unsupported evidence in the face of verified scientific evidence to the contrary is akin to the demand of many fundamentalist Christians to believe that both the Old and the New testaments are the absolute word of God--and therefore that Noah really did pack one pair of all the world's animal species into his arc, that the whale really did swallow Jonah and vomit him up three days later on dry land, that God did hold the sun stationary in the sky thus providing the light allowing Joshua to kill off the Amorites, the enemies of his chosen people!
That brings us to the Life Carriers 550 million years ago and their introduction of "life" to Urantia. There is almost a surfeit of evidence for what both scientists and laymen call "life" throughout time almost to the birth of our planet more than 4 billion years ago. The presence of stromatolites at that time is overwhelming evidence that life was also already present--and because of the complexity of "life," even considerably earlier. All stromatolites are formed by colonies of organisms, at least one of which was photosynthetic in order to provide an energy source for the colony. The minimum requirement for such an organism is that it could reproduce itself, as well as synthesize a complex organic system capable of trapping sunlight energy (photosynthesis) and making it available in a form the organism could use.
What is the likelihood that such an organism came together simply by chance? All living organisms currently on earth utilize a multitude of different proteins to carry out their vital functions. There is no good reason to believe that an organism we call "living" has ever done
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