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as a hopeless morass of outdated information, but I am of the opinion that the authors have given hints about how the universe is rather than precise information. Or perhaps they have provided concepts that are analogs of the features rather than exact pictures. Apparently, their intention was that we would have to do a great deal of work to find what they are implying about the structure and nature of the universe. I have read nothing outside the book to convince me that the universe is structured exactly as the book describes it, but nevertheless, astronomers are finding an amazing amount of structure in the universe as they study it. The astronomers see bubbles, filaments, great walls and superclusters of galaxies.[4] Unfortunately, they do not yet agree on what structures are actual and which are just apparent. There are still too many pieces of the puzzle missing to decide what's going on out there.
This speculation about the size of the universe is a necessary step towards looking at the space respiration phenomenon (125) and attempting to correlate it with current astronomical findings, which I hope to do in a future article. I am hopeful that there are features of the universe like space respiration that are accurately described in The Urantia Book. I will be very disappointed if there is no evidence supporting the space respiration concept in the results of our astronomers investigations. Nevertheless, I think that we owe it to the future generations of Urantia Book students to look at the validity of the various scientific concepts in the book and honestly assess which are supported by the evidence, and which are not. As Jesus said, "..the truth never suffers from honest examination." (1711)
[1] See "Limitations on Revelation" on page 1109.
[2] Appendices to a Study of The Master Universe, William Sadler Jr., The Second Society Foundation, Chicago, IL.
[3] "The Hubbell Deep Field Project", Notre Dame Science Quarterly, Mar., 1996
[4] "Constructing the Cosmos" by John Horgan, "Scientific American Explorations," on www.sciam.com/explorations/index.html, (Jan 20, 1997)
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