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of a solid background in science plus the history of its unfolding, there was a failure to perceive that the major portion of the Papers' science material is of a standard that was already present in text books at high school or elementary university level in the mid 1930's. Because of this, the fact that the Papers themselves deny being a divinely-dictated, errorless revelation was overlooked. And so developed the expectation that among other things, the science of the Papers would not only confirm their revelatory authority but also guide the way to new discoveries. It has taken almost fifty years for those initial expectations regarding the Papers to be recognized as erroneous by any substantial portion of the readership. Surely it is now time for a rethink about where we are heading.
Purpose of the Papers
The purpose of the Urantia Papers is best described as renewal. Mainstream Christianity deviated from the pathway for spiritual progress revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. While those deviations may possibly have been essential for the survival of Jesus' revelation, they have become an increasing hindrance as we move further and further towards a fully literate population, a population in which, very soon, a majority will have had some degree of tertiary education.
The Urantia Papers not only expose the deviations made by early Christians, they warn us that we cannot undo what was done by means of any frontal attack. Such a procedure involves conflict--and Jesus was not about conflict. We are instructed to take the positive pathway of revealing truth in our own lives and leave the task of replacing error with truth to the Spirit of Truth.
It has been the consistent policy of this journal to propound the positive path to truth. Accordingly we have attempted to expose the truth about the Urantia Papers and their purpose--and in so doing have incurred the wrath of some Urantia Book fundamentalists.
Repercussions of being positive
Following upon some articles at the beginning of the year, we received a considerable amount of criticism plus the challenge that we have claimed that there are errors in the Papers but have failed to state what they are. In fact, none of our contributors have ever bothered to keep a detailed listing of errors. Instead, they have preferred to uncover details of the key prophetic information allowed by the mandate in order to help new readers to take the Papers seriously.
About ancient stromatolites and sedimentary rocks
However in view of the demands to reveal error, we feel it is necessary to catalogue some samples and propose to now do so. Readers of Innerface might remember that the article on the origin of life on Urantia in our previous issue had a photo of one of the ancient stromatolites that exist in several regions of the world. Some of these are in excess of 3 billion years old.
In the last two decades, enormous advances have been made in the correct determining of ages of sedimentary and other rock strata. There is no use in still throwing up the criticism that radiotracer dating is unreliable. In any case, it was never the technology that was the main problem for it was highly accurate. Rather, it was the sampling methods and the interpretation of their results by field workers with little knowledge of basic science that was the main cause of confusion.
From the modern work, there can be no reasonable doubt that sedimentary beds, including stromatolites, were being laid down in oceanic environments between 3 and 4 billion years ago. The ancient stromatolite we showed was the result of the activities of photosynthetic bacteria--which means that bacterial "life" has been present on the planet, and in an oceanic environment, almost as soon as Urantia was cool enough and hospitable enough to permit life to exist. Thus new readers must be confused when they read that the first life implantations were made about half a billion years ago!
More incompatibilities
A reading of the Urantia Paper's account of this period (page 658 through to 660), in which the primitive ocean is said to first appear just one billion years ago compared to the 3 billion years indicated by some stromatolites, will show to those with sufficiently open minds that the account given in the Papers is totally incompatible with findings of modern paleontology and geology. The reason of course is simple. Something along the lines of the account given in The Urantia Book was one of the many current theories circulating in the early part of the century--and the revelators were following the instructions of the mandate in using one of them to fill a gap in their story. For the purpose of providing a "universe frame in which to think," it was quite adequate.
Error, mythology and universe frames
The truth of this conclusion dawned upon me when I realized that my personal universe frame was not altered in any significant way regardless of which version of Urantia's geological history the revelators had chosen to use. All were incorrect and the revelators
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