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The "E " Word
Dick Bain, Ga, USA
I have always considered The Urantia Book nonpareil among spiritual books,but after many years of study, it seems different in some respects from the book I read for the first time. I am sure that my experience is not unique. I see our relationship to the book as going through stages similar to those of a romance.
The first stage we experience is likely to be infatuation. We only have eyes for the beloved. We perceive no flaws in the beloved, we want to spend all our waking hours with this other. It's almost as if we are trying to merge with this other, as if this other is the missing half of ourselves. But this stage eventually passes and we begin to see the beloved as "other." We begin to compare our thoughts, beliefs and feelings with those of the other. And we may be unhappy when we discover that the other's ideas, thoughts and beliefs don't always agree with our own. We may be willing to overlook the differences and subsequently decide that the other is someone with whom we wish to build a long term relationship, or we may decide it's best to move on. We may enter a long term relationship with the other, such as marriage. Everything may go well from then on, unless we find that something about the other becomes so objectionable to us that we can no longer tolerate it. This may lead to alienation and even divorce. Now of course it's best not to push an analogy too far, but I do observe similar phases in some peoples experience with The Urantia Book.
Some people who encounter The Urantia Book for the first time become almost obsessed with it. They feel that they must go out and convert the human race to this book. But eventually reality usually sets in and they have to settle for just getting a few friends to look at the book. Unfortunately, their friends' reactions may negatively affect their perception of the book. Or they may study the book for years, and not devote a lot of thought to some parts of it until one day they decide some concept strikes them as unacceptable. I have found the treatment of one subject by the authors disturbing for a long time.
The subject is eugenics. The word is only mentioned once in the book, on p. 1220 where the authors tell us: "Civilization is in danger when youth neglect to interest themselves in ethics, sociology, eugenics, philosophy, the fine arts, religion, and cosmology." I find it odd to include eugenics with the other subjects listed. After all, unless you breed animals, develop new strains of plants, or major in biology, you would be unlikely to study this subject in depth. Is this information in the book derived from human sources? The authors of The Urantia Book informed us that numerous human sources were used in the book. Drs. William and Lena Sadler were both quite interested in eugenics and Dr. William Sadler wrote several books on the subject.
The authors informed us that they used the thoughts and ideas of many human authors. Did they use some of Dr. Sadler's thoughts or the ideas of some other person who wrote about eugenics?
Perhaps we ought to take more interest in human eugenics, but unfortunately the operations of the Third Reich in trying to breed the super race and eliminate others tinged human eugenics with an unsavory reputation. Many people regard the subject with a great deal of suspicion. Now it may be true, as one wag has said, that the human gene pool needs to be chlorinated to rid it of undesirable growths, but there is often a great gap between recognizing a need and being able to take care of it. This is especially true for issues that are so politically and socially sensitive.
I am not pleased with the authors attitude about our duty concerning eugenics. We are informed on p. 585: "These six evolutionary races are destined to be blended and exalted by amalgamation with the progeny of the Adamic uplifters. But before these peoples are blended, the inferior and unfit are largely eliminated. The Planetary Prince and the Material Son, with other suitable planetary authorities, pass upon the fitness of the reproducing strains. The difficulty of executing such a radical program on Urantia consists in the absence of competent judges to pass upon the biologic fitness or unfitness of the individuals of your world races. Notwithstanding this obstacle, it seems that you ought to be able to agree upon the biologic disfellowshiping of your more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial stocks."
Now it would be nice if the authors would speak a bit more plainly at times. It's a bit hard to know what they mean by "biologic disfellowshiping." Do they mean sterilization, eradication, or sending the "degenerates" off to a remote desert island?
Sterilization or eradication would be a problem for many people in our culture. To fellowship is to take a person into one's social group or church. I was unable to find "disfellowship" in any of the dictionaries I checked, but I assume that to disfellowship is to eject a person from your group or church. The intended meaning seems vague to me, but perhaps as in other places, the authors are being deliberately vague--an annoying habit they have.
On p. 839 we are informed that regarding racial improvement, Adam and Eve were: "..quite dismayed. They could see no way out of the dilemma, and they could not take counsel with their superiors on either Jerusem or Edentia." Later on this page: "But on Urantia such a project seemed just about hopeless."
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