By Dick Bain

   If we were showing The Urantia Book to someone for the first time, could we convince that person that the major concepts are logical and believable?   Why do some people believe something like The Urantia Book, and others reject it?  Does logic dictate what we believe?  Why is one person a skeptic and another a fundamentalist?

Total acceptance vs. skepticism

   I observe that people have differing levels of tolerance for uncertainty.  Those with the least tolerance wish to have a source of truth they feel is complete and infallible.  This characteristic may lead such folks to seek a guru or join a community of like-minded people.  The in-group mentality may then strongly reinforce the person's belief in the holy book, religion, or "ism" embraced by the group.  And then there are those at the other end of the spectrum.

Some people seem to be natural born skeptics; they take nothing for granted, and nothing is exempt from questioning.  They are often quite well educated; many of those who labor in the fields of science and engineering fall in this category.  These are the sorts of persons the authors of The Urantia Book had in mind when they said, "If such a metamorphosis could not be seen, a scientist would be inclined to deny the possibility of developing a butterfly out of a caterpillar." [42:9.4]  These persons may feel that all religion is a product of culture and has no basis in reality, or like Karl Marx they may feel that religion is "the opiate of the masses."  Fortunately, most of us fall somewhere between the two extremes of total gullibility and total skepticism.  Many of us can believe without giving up our ability to question and we generally retain the flexibility to examine our beliefs as we mature and adjust them if we find a better alternative.  In addition to our need to believe and our critical thinking abilities, we also bring both our culture and our inherited tendencies to our study of The Urantia Book, and these help determine whether or not we will believe the concepts presented in the book.

Influences on Beliefs

   What we believe is strongly influenced by who we are, and who we are is shaped by both heredity and environment.  A few researchers have decided that we are apparently born with the need to believe in a transcendent being such as God. (1)  According to the authors of The Urantia Book, we are also born with a need for a meaningful structure:  "If mind cannot fathom conclusions, if it cannot penetrate to true origins, then will such mind unfailingly postulate conclusions and invent origins that it may have a means of logical thought within the frame of these mind-created postulates." [115:1.2]  We are also born with a need for social acceptance.  The nurture side of the equation is just as powerful in shaping us as is the nature side.   Our initial impression of the world comes from our relationship with our parents.  Later on, friends, authority figures, and others share their culture with us and we are indelibly marked by these influences.  But these aren't the only influences.

The authors of The Urantia Book tell us that the Spirit of Truth works in our minds to help us discern spiritual truth.  If we all have this marvelous helper working within us, why don't we all believe the book?  Is the problem with us, or the book?  I think that there are a number of reasons that some people reject the book.  One obvious reason is the bundle of preconceived notions and beliefs we bring to our study of it.  If we are Christians, we might reject anything that disagrees with any part of the Bible or Christian theology.  At the other extreme, we might reject the book because it seems too Christian.  I recall showing The Urantia Book to a minister and theology professor who had left his mainline Christian church to join a Unity church after he retired.  He said that he didn't want to read the book because he had long ago rejected some Christian theology and didn't want to revisit that decision.  Others might be frightened by the size or content of the book.  These are people who may also be frightened when someone starts talking about the vastness of the universe; they are frightened by the immensity of it all.  But are there some logical reasons not to believe the book?

Let's be honest.  Some of the ideas in The Urantia Book seem rather strange when we are first exposed to them.  Some have said that it's a bit hard to swallow the idea of fandors, or people having invisible children, or all the colored races originating in one family, or the complex spiritual administration in charge of the universe.  A person once told me that he couldn't believe that heaven was so organized; he apparently believed that God did all the work himself.  Other people may be put off by some inaccuracies in the science concepts in the book.  The authors addressed this problem:  "Any cosmology presented as a part of revealed religion is destined to be outgrown in a very short time. Accordingly, future students of such a revelation are tempted to discard any element of genuine religious truth it may contain because they discover errors on the face of the associated cosmologies therein presented."  [101:4.1]