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The Science and Historical Content of The Urantia Book. Fact, or fact punctuated by symbolism, mythology and allegory?
Based on a talk given at IC96 by Ken Glasziou, Maleny, Australia
About 10 years ago I was asked some questions about the science content of The Urantia Book and made the off-the-cuff reply that if some of its materials were written prior to 1955 (the original date of publication) then it was of genius quality. I then ventured that it was hard to see how some of it could have been written in the absence of prior knowledge on the part of the authors. I was asked to write on this for the Australian Newsletter, Six-0-Six, and for reasons unknown to me, this science content subject material has occupied a considerable portion of my subsequent life.
About 2 years later I found myself, together with my wife, in the home of Jim and Eunice Mills at Pensacola, Florida. The purpose of the visit was to discover as much as possible about cut-off dates for the writing of various materials in the book, i.e. was it all written by 1934/5, or could additions have been made up to and even after 1955. Jim Mills was an interesting character. Then more than 80 years of age, he was teaching philosophy classes at the Pensacola campus of the University of Florida. Originally Jim was some kind of industrial chemist, but during the years of his reading of The Urantia Book, he became imbued with the idea it should become an acceptable object for study in the appropriate departments of U.S. universities--philosophy, theology, religion, humanities, etc.
I could see Jim's point. If studied, for whatever reason, in any of the prestigious universities, sooner or later its study would filter through to the seminaries that train the ministers and priests of our various Christian sects, and maybe, at some future date, it would be respectable for such ministers of religion to present from the pulpit, teachings taken from The Urantia Book.
I suppose that, because of the 'accidents' that appear to shape our earthly lives, my knowledge of basic science was weighted differently from Jim's and I could already see that there was much material of a scientific nature in this strange book that would weigh heavily against it finding the kind of status in the academic world for which Jim was hoping.
In my view, it is undoubtedly true that, if written during 1934/5 and even up to 1955 and beyond, The Urantia Book does contain some remarkable scientific, archaeological, and anthropological material that is indicative of extraordinary knowledge on the part of its authors. For some of these individual items, I'm quite sure that a person with intense knowledge of the appropriate field, would be forced to accept that the odds against it being composed correctly by a human author would have to have been of astronomical proportions.
A persistent rumor indicates that a quite considerable number of new readers have perceived the "prophetic" science material as an adequate reason for them to undertake a serious study of the book, at least during the very initial stages of their contact. Later, its importance to them may decline to zero.
If most or all of the science material in the book had been of the quality of its prophetic science, it seems likely that the book would have been quickly accepted in academia and from there penetrated widely into the Christian churches. But this is not the case.
Besides its prophetic material, this strange book contains portions having the potential of being utilized for its ridicule. Thinking this over, I came to a rough figure of about 3% of its content that, if removed prior to the first printing, perhaps would have turned the book into the sensation that many of the original forum hoped for or expected. Given the removal of that material and some attention-drawing mechanism to its prophetic components (italics for example), then it seems likely that this revelation could have catalyzed a revolution, maybe even achieving already, the hope expressed in:
"What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name..." (2091)
Assuming that those difficult bits and pieces had been edited out of the book and some emphasis given to the prophetic materials, let me quote from the book on what might have come to pass had its science been leading the way.
"The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods." (1124)
"Ancient magic was the cocoon of modern science, indispensable in its time but now no longer useful. And so the phantasms of ignorant superstition agitated primitive minds of men until the concepts of science could be born. Today, Urantia is in the twilight zone of this intellectual evolution. One half of the world is grasping eagerly for the light of truth and the
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