The Urantia Book

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Angela
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The Urantia Book

Post by Angela »

I am a newby to this forum and have not had a chance to look around yet. I wanted to ask whether anyone here had heard of The Urantia Book published in 1955?
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Peter Kirby
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by Peter Kirby »

I don't know that much about it. Maybe you could write a post on it?
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
Angela
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by Angela »

Thanks, Peter.
I really like your tag line. In a way your tag line applies to The Urantia Book because there is some considerable effort in its pages to unify religion, science and philosophy through the process of disclosing and adjusting misconceptions in theory. If one suspends disbelief over the origin of these materials long enough to loose oneself in a few paragraphs among the 196 papers, the reward is an opening of channels of thought not experienced before. For most that is reward enough for their time. Enough said.
Roger Pearse
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by Roger Pearse »

I've had occasional contact with the Urantia book. It belongs in a way to the genre of "modern apocrypha", I think; texts that profess to be ancient or of strange origins, and are in fact modern compositions.

A fingerprint of these things is that the supposed original language text never appears; the English text is primary. In this case I believe the supposed authors are "extra planetary"; which raises the question of whether the Martians (or whoever) speak American English. No doubt John Carter could tell us.
Angela
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by Angela »

Hi Roger,
You raise a good point. Within its pages the Urantia Book gives stunning detail - although merely a summary - on the evolution of our planet from nebula, through early life forms in the waters, to the present history of religion. If progress has been so lovingly and carefully documented is it strange that our languages would be one of those things that is intimately known?
Clive
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by Clive »

Is this another way of categorising literature?

Is it utopian, is it about end times, is it epic, the stories of the gods and humans?

Religions and their various intricacies are then secondary features, ways to transmit the stories?
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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DCHindley
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by DCHindley »

Angela wrote:I am a newby to this forum and have not had a chance to look around yet. I wanted to ask whether anyone here had heard of The Urantia Book published in 1955?
Around here, folks have trouble believing that the NT is a revealed set of books, so the chance they will believe a channeled revelation are even less. We had a similar discussion a while back on the book OAHASPE, which makes similar claims to the URANTIA book, but published 70 years earlier. But getting the proponents of this book, who still exist, to give it up is like pulling teeth, which is ironic since the original publisher was a dentist.

http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... lit=Oahspe

DCH (who coincidently has just had two "teefs" pulled - or was it really a coincidence after all?)
Last edited by DCHindley on Fri Jul 22, 2016 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Angela
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by Angela »

Thank you, DCH. You have a sympathetic pal here -- I have had wisdom teeth pulled. I enjoyed the sophisticated discussion in your link.

I am surprised by how many people rely on Wikipedia for their education, to be satisfied by the description there. The person then exhibits grand confidence in their categorisation and dismissal. It is as though comfort and reassurance is derived from concluding "This book, oh it is just another fable like that other one." There is not the slightest curiosity to see what the book holds or to go to its pages and read a few paragraphs before making this pronouncement. The time-poor among us are hard-pressed to allocate our time effectively. So much is wasted just checking and responding to emails saying "read this" or "check this out". So it is gratifying to be able to cross-it-off-the-list as "not missing anything important." This cannot be said of The Urantia Book.It is not a funny cat video or a thought provoking fable.
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DCHindley
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by DCHindley »

Angela wrote:Thank you, DCH. You have a sympathetic pal here -- I have had wisdom teeth pulled. I enjoyed the sophisticated discussion in your link.

I am surprised by how many people rely on Wikipedia for their education, to be satisfied by the description there. The person then exhibits grand confidence in their categorisation and dismissal. It is as though comfort and reassurance is derived from concluding "This book, oh it is just another fable like that other one." There is not the slightest curiosity to see what the book holds or to go to its pages and read a few paragraphs before making this pronouncement. The time-poor among us are hard-pressed to allocate our time effectively. So much is wasted just checking and responding to emails saying "read this" or "check this out". So it is gratifying to be able to cross-it-off-the-list as "not missing anything important." This cannot be said of The Urantia Book.It is not a funny cat video or a thought provoking fable.
I can assure you, I have read a few paragraphs, but many years ago. I didn't know what it was so I took a look in a bookstore when I lived in Los Angeles, CA, in the late 1970s (well, I think it was then). It kind of reminded me of the flying saucer phenomenon of the 1950s. Many of the folks who were heavily invested in it were also into "automatic writing" (the source for the revelations of Oahaspe), and so I concluded that Urantia was another example of this.

http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... tion#p8507

Sorry to disappoint.

DCH
Angela
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Re: The Urantia Book

Post by Angela »

My apologies, DCH. I would prefer to see judgment passed on content rather than similarity of purported origin to another book that is written in a different style.
When I attempted a reading of OAHASPE it was after my exposure to The Urantia Book. I found it cumbersome and overly complex. The Urantia Book is a joy to read. The subject matter is far broader and instructional, anticipating and addressing every question.
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