Paper 57
1. All evolutionary material creations are born of circular and gaseous nebulae, and all such primary nebulae are circular throughout the early part of their gaseous existence. As they grow older, they usually become spiral, and when their function of sun formation has run its course, they often terminate as clusters of stars or as enormous suns surrounded by a varying number of planets, satellites, and smaller groups of matter in many ways resembling your own diminutive solar system.
2. 800,000;000,000 years ago the Andronover creation was well established as one of the magnificent primary nebulae of Orvonton...500,000,000,000 years ago the first Andronover sun was born. This blazing streak broke away from the mother gravity grasp and tore out into space on an independent adventure in the cosmos of creation.
3. 400,000,000,000 years ago began the recaptive period of the Andronover nebula ...Very soon there was inaugurated the terminal phase of nebular condensation, the period which always precedes the final, segregation of these immense space aggregations of energy and matter.
It was scarcely a million years subsequent to this epoch that Michael of Nebadon, a Creator Son of Paradise, selected this disintegrating nebula as the site of his adventure in universe building. Almost immediately the architectural worlds of Salvington and the one hundred constellation headquarters groups of planets were begun. It required almost one million years to complete these clusters of specially created worlds.
4. 200,000,000,000 years ago...some planets revolving around the newborn suns had cooled sufficiently to be suitable for life implantation. The oldest inhabited planets of Nebadon date from these times.
Now the completed universe mechanism of Nebadon first begins to function, and Michael's creation is registered on Uversa as a universe of inhabitation and progressive mortal ascension.
5. 75,000,000,000 years ago this nebula had attained the height of its sun‑family stage... 50,000,000,000 years ago this first period of sun dispersion was completed; the nebula was fast finishing its tertiary cycle of existence, during, which it gave origin to 876,926 sun systems ...8,000,000,000 years ago the terrific terminal eruption began...6,000,000,000 years ago marks the end of the terminal breakup and the birth of your sun, the fifty‑sixth from the last of the Andronover second solar family ...The total number of suns and sun systems having origin in the Andronover nebula was 1,013,628. The number of the solar system sun is 1,013,572.
6. Today, your sun has achieved relative stability, but its eleven and one‑half year sunspot cycles betray that it was a variable star in its youth...This variable state, this periodic pulsation, rendered your sun highly responsive to certain outside influences which were to be shortly encountered.
Thus was the stage of local space set for the unique origin of Monmatia, that being the name of your sun’s planetary family, the solar system to which your world belongs. Less than one per cent of the planetary systems of Orvonton have had a similar origin.
7. 4,500,000,000 years ago the enormous .Angona system began its approach to the neighborhood of this solitary sun ...As the Angona system drew nearer, the solar extrusions grew larger and larger...until Angona made its closest approach to the sun; whereupon the sun, in conjunction with one of its periodic internal convulsions, experiences a partial disruption; from opposite aides and simultaneously, enormous volumes of matter were disgorged ...Jupiter and Saturn, being derived from the very center of the enormous column of superheated. solar gases ...have remained largely gaseous to this day, not even yet having cooled off to the point of complete condensation or solidification.
The gas‑contraction nucleuses of the other ten planets soon reached the stage of solidification and so began to draw to themselves increasing quantities of the meteoric matter circulating in near‑by space.
8. The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences ...causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases ...as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia.
9. When the tidal frictions of the moon and the earth become equalized, the earth will always turn the same hemisphere toward the moon, and the day and month will be analogous—in length about forty‑seven days. When such stability of orbits is attained, tidal frictions will go into reverse action, no longer driving the moon farther away from the earth but gradually drawing the satellite toward the planet. And. then, in that far‑distant future when the moon approaches to within about eleven thousand miles of the earth, the gravity action of the latter will cause the moon to disrupt, and. this tidal‑gravity explosion will shatter the moon into small particles.
10. 2,500,000,000 years ago the.planets had grown immensely in size. Urantia was a well‑developed sphere about one tenth its present mass and was still growing rapidly by meteoric accretion.
11. 1,500,000,000 years ago the earth was two thirds its present size ...Volcanic action is now at its height...Presently, the atmosphere became more settled and cooled sufficiently to start precipitation of rain on the hot rocky surface of the planet. For thousands of years Urantia was enveloped in one vast and. continuous blanket of steam. And during these ages the sun never shone upon the earth's surface.
12. 1,000,000,000 years ago is the date of the actual beginning of Urantia history. The planet had attained approximately its present size. And about this time it was placed upon the physical registries of Nebadon and given its name, Urantia.
13. The real geologic history of Urantia begins with the cooling of the earth's crust sufficiently to cause the formation of the first ocean...By the end of this period the ocean was world‑wide, covering the entire planet to an average depth of over one mile ...950,000,000 years ago Urantia presents the picture of one great continent of land and one large body of water, the Pacific Ocean.
14. 900,000,000 years ago witnessed the arrival on Urantia of the first Satania scouting party sent out from Jerusem to examine the planet and make a report on its adaptation for a life‑experiment station...After making a painstaking survey of the planet, this commission returned to Jerusem and reported favorably to the System Sovereign…Your world was accordingly registered on Jerusem as a decimal planet.
15. 850,000,000 years ago the first real epoch of the stabilization of the earth's crust began. Most of the heavier metals had settled. down toward the center of the globe... Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes continued to diminish in frequency and severity. The atmosphere was clearing of volcanic gases and water vapor, but the percentage of carbon dioxide was still high.
16. Electric disturbances in the air and in the earth were also decreasing. The lava flows had brought to the surface a mixture of elements which diversified the crust and better insulated the planet from certain space‑energies. And all of this did much to facilitate the control of terrestrial energy and to regulate its flow, as is disclosed by the functioning of the magnetic poles.
17. 800,000,000 years ago witnessed the inauguration of the first great land epoch The increasing downthrust of the Pacific Ocean operated further to upthrust the continental land mass. Europe and Africa began to rise out of the Pacific depths along with those masses now called Australia, North and South America, and the continent of Antarctica, while the bed of the Pacific Ocean engaged in a further compensatory sinking adjustment. By the end of this period almost one third of the earth's surface consisted of land, all in one continental body.
18. 750,000,000 years ago the first breaks in the continental land mass began as the great north‑and‑south cracking, which later admitted the ocean waters and prepared the way for the westward drift of the continents of North and South America, including Greenland. The long east‑and‑west cleavage separated Africa from Europe and severed the land masses of Australia, the Pacific Islands, and Antarctica from the Asiatic continent.
19. 650,000,000 years ago witnessed the further separation of the land masses and, in
consequence, a further extension of the continental seas. And these waters were rapidly attaining that degree of saltiness which was essential to Urantia life.
20. It was these seas and their successors that laid down the life records of Urantia, as subsequently discovered in well‑preserved stone pages, volume upon volume, as era succeeded era and age grew upon age. These inland seas of olden times were truly the cradle of evolution.
U.B. 57:651‑663-Life Carrier
1. How have many Christians lived with both the Genesis story of creation and the scientific view?
2. How will scientists react to the information that personalities were involved in the materialization of space creations rather than impersonal physical laws?
3. Why do you think the revelators went into some detail in explaining the origin of our world?
4. What can we learn from the immense amount of time it takes for the origin of suns and planets?
5. What is the value of this scientific description of the origin of our world?
6. How closely is this description in harmony with present day science?
7. Would separating the papers dealing with the physical sciences from the typically religious papers be helpful for certain types of education?