The Incredible or Incredulous Urantia Book.

Lakon said:
I thought the OP siad it was written by Loose. My mistake.

Aliens were also mentioned by OP.
Click to expand...

Understood. IF there are angels, and IF one believes in them, then to the extent that angels are non-human and/or extraterrestrial, then one could say they are "aliens." The same goes for God. God would be an alien spirit being. But there are no Klingon, Vulcan, Mimbari, Centauri, or Narn type beings involved with the book or the writing of the book (Anyone see the series Babylon 5 in the mid 90s? Great show.)

That said (and I don't know who believes what here, regarding religion so feel free to assume your own qualifications to my statements), Adam and Eve were aliens. But they were God's government's aliens. Every world gets their own Adam and Eve at the right time. They are biologic uplifters. They are dematerialized on their world and flown here by seraphic transport. Then they are rematerialized here (or on whatever world they're going to). Our Adam and Eve arrived here some 38,000 years ago. They were here about 100 years before they failed in their mission.

Melchizedek in the bible is another character who materialized here on another mission from God's government to our world, 4000 years ago. I'm going to post a couple bible verses but I'm NOT a bible person, followed by a few words from The Urantia Book:

Heb 7:1 For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;
Heb 7:3 Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life;

The bible story has some basis in reality:

93:2.1 It was 1,973 years before the birth of Jesus that Machiventa was bestowed upon the human races of Urantia. His coming was unspectacular; his materialization was not witnessed by human eyes. He was first observed by mortal man on that eventful day when he entered the tent of Amdon, a Chaldean herder of Sumerian extraction. And the proclamation of his mission was embodied in the simple statement which he made to this shepherd, “I am Melchizedek, priest of El Elyon, the Most High, the one and only God.”
93:2.2 When the herder had recovered from his astonishment, and after he had plied this stranger with many questions, he asked Melchizedek to sup with him, and this was the first time in his long universe career that Machiventa had partaken of material food, the nourishment which was to sustain him throughout his ninety-four years of life as a material being.
93:2.3 And that night, as they talked out under the stars, Melchizedek began his mission of the revelation of the truth of the reality of God when, with a sweep of his arm, he turned to Amdon, saying, “El Elyon, the Most High, is the divine creator of the stars of the firmament and even of this very earth on which we live, and he is also the supreme God of heaven.” -The Urantia Book
 
Furchizedek said:
Lakon said:
Pick any page, any chapter, any part. I have never in my life seen such superflous word salad, eg,

In a special manner these Trinity observers co-ordinate the administrative
activities of all branches of the universal government, from those of the local
universes up through the sector governments to those of the superuniverse, hence
their name—Unions of Days. They make a threefold report to their superiors:
They report pertinent data of a physical and semi-intellectual nature to the
Recents of Days of their minor sector; they report intellectual and quasispiritual
happenings to the Perfections of Days of their major sector; they report
spiritual and semiparadisiacal matters to the Ancients of Days at the capital
of their superuniverse.

I AGREE that the above can be a bit dry and daunting. That doesn't mean it's not correct or that it makes no sense. It simply explains what the "Unions of Days" (aka, "Trinity observers") do for a living. They're spiritual beings in God's government. Truth to tell, even though I am more familiar with it than you, you probably know as much about it as I do, which is just what you posted. You're in the part of the book that deals with God's government and how it runs, who the players are, and who does what and why. It can make your eyes glaze over. If I wrote the book I would take responsibility for eyes that are glazed over because of the text, but I didn't. Maybe take a look at some other parts of the book too, it's not all like that.

On the other hand, who the heck (what human) would sit down and make up stuff like that, pages and pages of it, and why? That makes NO sense. You chose a good example. No one is making any money off of the book. Sure, if you want a printed copy it costs a WHOPPING $15 for one at Amazon.com. Wow. Books cost money to print, but $15 for a 2000 page book and they throw in a free DVD of the complete audio reading. And Amazon gets 40% of that whopping $15. It's also free to read or download, online. There is no cult leader like say, Paul of Christianity. There are no churches or priests, and so on. There is just the book.



See above. That's all I've got for "What the hell does that mean?"



At the end of that Paper (18) it says, "[Presented by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.]"

So that's who wrote it.



Actually, that is partly correct. IT is the bureaucracy of the Universe spiritual government. Just as the Universe is immense, so too is the spiritual government that is in place to run it, for whatever reasons the "Creator" (if you will allow that for this discusion) has.

There's trillions of worlds with sentient beings on them. If one believes in a spiritual afterlife then we're talking trillions of worlds with billions of mortals of one kind or another on them. When these mortals die, if there is an "afterlife" of a spirit nature, that's a lot of things to take care of. The Urantia Book says:

"As you journey toward your Paradise goal, constantly acquiring added knowledge and enhanced skill, you are continuously afforded the opportunity to give out to others the wisdom and experience you have already accumulated; all the way in to Havona you enact the role of a pupil-teacher. You will work your way through the ascending levels of this vast experiential university by imparting to those just below you the new-found knowledge of your advancing career."
Click to expand...

The part I posted was chosen purely at random. it all goes much in the sames vein.

You said;
On the other hand, who the heck (what human) would sit down and make up stuff like that, pages and pages of it, and why? That makes NO sense.

Plenty of people. And it makes plenty of sense. It's called fiction, and there's much of it about. Heard of Tolkien and the like ? Years ago I read a book called 'The Deathgate Cycle'. It blew out to about 13 books in all. And in hindsight, complete rubbish - not even good fiction.

This stuff isn't even mediocre fiction.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.crank.net/

PS - if you go to the above website for example, you will find legion of sites, with people publishing all manner of material, for all manner of reasons. It does not follow however, that just because they went to the trouble of publishing, that we should accept said material as having some basis of fact.

Edit;
.. and be sure to check the religion link;
http://www.crank.net/religion.html
 
It would need to be a series of writers as the Authorship claims to change in many of the papers and so does the writing style.

I do like the point about much of it being word salad, but there are also many parts that require research or in depth knowledge of history and science, and I am more interested in those areas. Also the "Word Salad" areas are even well written and suggest that if they do come form someone then they are likely highly educated in English at least.

I still find it an interesting book and have been examining it from time to time.
 
Lakon said:
Furchizedek said:
The part I posted was chosen purely at random. it all goes much in the sames vein.

You said;
On the other hand, who the heck (what human) would sit down and make up stuff like that, pages and pages of it, and why? That makes NO sense.

Plenty of people. And it makes plenty of sense. It's called fiction, and there's much of it about. Heard of Tolkien and the like ? Years ago I read a book called 'The Deathgate Cycle'. It blew out to about 13 books in all. And in hindsight, complete rubbish - not even good fiction.

This stuff isn't even mediocre fiction.
Click to expand...

Well this is great, isn't it? This is what America is all about. You believe it's fiction and I believe it's true. So..., what do you want to talk about now?
Click to expand...
 
Lakon said:
(I had to remove your links, it won't let me post them.)

PS - if you go to the above website for example, you will find legion of sites, with people publishing all manner of material, for all manner of reasons. It does not follow however, that just because they went to the trouble of publishing, that we should accept said material as having some basis of fact.

Edit;
.. and be sure to check the religion link;
(I had to remove your links, it won't let me post them.)
Click to expand...

It also does not follow that since people have legions of sites and publish all manner of material, that The Urantia Book is wrong. Nor has ANYONE suggested that anyone accept any material as having any or some basis in fact simply because it's been published. What you employed there is a straw man argument. And are you now invoking "the above website" as an Appeal to Authority as to what is true in the world and what is not?
 
Lakon; said:
It's called fiction, and there's much of it about.
Click to expand...

Really? I never knew that.

Heard of Tolkien and the like ?
Click to expand...

Heard of, but never read any or seen the movies. I'm not into fantasy (wizards, magic spells, magic wands, unicorns, potions, and so on).

Years ago I read a book called 'The Deathgate Cycle'.
Click to expand...

Good for you. What was that about? Oh, I see:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Death Gate Cycle is a seven-part series (heptalogy) of fantasy novels written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The main conflict is between two powerful races, the Sartan and the Patryns, which branched off from humans following a nuclear/anti-matter holocaust. Centuries prior to the events of the series, the Sartan attempted to end the conflict by sundering the Earth into four elemental realms, and imprisoning the Patryn in a fifth prison world, the Labyrinth. And so on...

No, stuff like that has no interest for me.

It blew out to about 13 books in all. And in hindsight, complete rubbish - not even good fiction.
Click to expand...

Wow! What a colossal waste of your time, huh? But you knew it was fantasy going in, didn't you? It was marketed as fantasy. Why even start?

I used to read a lot of sci fi, but not fantasy. One of the books I enjoyed the most was Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. I believe there are other volumes but I only read the three in the Trilogy:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Foundation Series
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth
Author Isaac Asimov
Country United States
Language English
Genre Science Fiction
Publisher Astounding Magazine, Gnome Press, Spectra, Doubleday
Published 1942–1993
Media type Print
The Foundation Series is a science fiction series by Isaac Asimov. There are seven volumes in the Foundation Series proper, which in its in-universe chronological order are Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, and Foundation and Earth.
The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept of mathematical sociology (analogous to mathematical physics). Using the laws of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (equal to the population of the galaxy, which has a population of quadrillions of humans, inhabiting millions of star systems). The larger the number, the more predictable is the future.
Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. Etc...

This stuff isn't even mediocre fiction.
Click to expand...

At least you can be thankful that in America you are entitled to your opinion and that no one is going to force you to read anything. Are you thankful?
 
Furchizedek said:
Really? I never knew that.



Heard of, but never read any or seen the movies. I'm not into fantasy (wizards, magic spells, magic wands, unicorns, potions, and so on).



Good for you. What was that about? Oh, I see:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Death Gate Cycle is a seven-part series (heptalogy) of fantasy novels written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The main conflict is between two powerful races, the Sartan and the Patryns, which branched off from humans following a nuclear/anti-matter holocaust. Centuries prior to the events of the series, the Sartan attempted to end the conflict by sundering the Earth into four elemental realms, and imprisoning the Patryn in a fifth prison world, the Labyrinth. And so on...

No, stuff like that has no interest for me.



Wow! What a colossal waste of your time, huh? But you knew it was fantasy going in, didn't you? It was marketed as fantasy. Why even start?

I used to read a lot of sci fi, but not fantasy. One of the books I enjoyed the most was Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. I believe there are other volumes but I only read the three in the Trilogy:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Foundation Series
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth
Author Isaac Asimov
Country United States
Language English
Genre Science Fiction
Publisher Astounding Magazine, Gnome Press, Spectra, Doubleday
Published 1942–1993
Media type Print
The Foundation Series is a science fiction series by Isaac Asimov. There are seven volumes in the Foundation Series proper, which in its in-universe chronological order are Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, and Foundation and Earth.
The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept of mathematical sociology (analogous to mathematical physics). Using the laws of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale. It works on the principle that the behaviour of a mass of people is predictable if the quantity of this mass is very large (equal to the population of the galaxy, which has a population of quadrillions of humans, inhabiting millions of star systems). The larger the number, the more predictable is the future.
Using these techniques, Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a dark age lasting thirty thousand years before a second great empire arises. Etc...



At least you can be thankful that in America you are entitled to your opinion and that no one is going to force you to read anything. Are you thankful?
Click to expand...

I made reference to that series (Deathgate Cycle) as evidence that people can create voluminous works of fiction. I actually only read the 1st book. Years later I noticed it had blown out to many more books.

Yes, although I'm not in America, I nonetheless tresasure my (relative) freedom of opinion. You seem to think someone is trying to deprive you of yours ?
 
kwhilborn said:
It would need to be a series of writers as the Authorship claims to change in many of the papers and so does the writing style.

I do like the point about much of it being word salad, but there are also many parts that require research or in depth knowledge of history and science, and I am more interested in those areas. Also the "Word Salad" areas are even well written and suggest that if they do come form someone then they are likely highly educated in English at least.

I still find it an interesting book and have been examining it from time to time.
Click to expand...

Highly educated is no proof of non fiction. I would suppose that many of the great fiction writers would be / were highly educated.
 
Lakon said:
I made reference to that series (Deathgate Cycle) as evidence that people can create voluminous works of fiction.
Click to expand...

The fact that people can and do create voluminous works of fiction does not mean The Urantia Book is not true and it does not mean The Urantia Book is fiction. Sorry, but your logic is clever but lacking.

Yes, although I'm not in America, I nonetheless tresasure my (relative) freedom of opinion. You seem to think someone is trying to deprive you of yours ?
Click to expand...

Sorry. I use "America" to mean the US. It's wrong because America means both South and North America, but somehow the US has co-opted the term. I shouldn't have used the term. When people do use it I often ask them to show me on the map any nation named "Amercia." Where are you? Canada? Uzbekistan? I never said anyone was trying to deprive me of anything. Another strawman, apparently. Believe what you want about the book. It's not my problem. I'm not here to convince you of anything. Christians do that, I don't. In your country, do they have the expression, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink"? Well, there you go. Once you know about the book, you're on your own. If you don't like it or believe it, that's your business. You won't get a hard sell from me or from any Urantia Book believer as far as I know. There may be some fringies but for the most part we tell people about the book, answer questions if they have any, and then that's it. Get one, read it, or don't. No one is keeping track.
 
Crunchy Cat said:
I wasn't stating opinion.
Click to expand...

Yes, you actually were. If you don't know the difference between your opinions and facts, then that's a problem for you. How old are you anyway? A lot of Christians are confused in that same way, I don't know if you are one, but they'll say "Jesus died for your sins," and if you tell them that's just their belief, they'll say no, "It's a fact." Or they'll call the bible "The Word of God." If you tell them it's just their opinion that it's "God's Word," they will tell you no, it's a fact, and even more, they will tell you they can "prove" it. LOL. One thing I appreciated about the OP is that he knew when to use qualifiers. :)
 
Furchizedek said:
The fact that people can and do create voluminous works of fiction does not mean The Urantia Book is not true and it does not mean The Urantia Book is fiction. Sorry, but your logic is clever but lacking.
Click to expand...

My reference to other works of voluminous fiction was directly, and only, in response to your earlier comment ..

On the other hand, who the heck (what human) would sit down and make up stuff like that, pages and pages of it, and why? That makes NO sense.

There is an inference there, that just because someone wrote pages and pages, it ain't made up.

Edit;

PS
- I deleted your last paragraph because it was rather silly.
- I'm in Australia.
- If you want to debate religion, there's a religion page on this site, with plenty of threads - or start your own there.
 
Lakon said:
My reference to other works of voluminous fiction was directly, and only, in response to your earlier comment ..

On the other hand, who the heck (what human) would sit down and make up stuff like that, pages and pages of it, and why? That makes NO sense.

There is an inference there, that just because someone wrote pages and pages, it ain't made up.
There was an inference in your statements that because people write fiction and because you have read some fiction that it can be assumed that The Urantia Book is fiction. I said the opposite of what you just inferred above. I said that just because you've read fiction that doesn't mean The Urantia Book is fiction or that it's not true. That's not an inference. It makes NO SENSE to me (in other words, it's my opinion) that anyone would sit down and make up what's in The Urantia Book.

- If you want to debate religion, there's a religion page on this site, with plenty of threads - or start your own there.
Click to expand...

I didn't start this thread, I had no input into it's placement on this site. Take it up with kwhilborn or the moderators, or just delete the entire thing yourself if YOU are a moderator. I have plenty of interests and hardly have the time to be here jousting about people's "opinions." Nor do I want to debate religion. The Urantia Book is far more than simply "religion." And a "debate" does not necessarily equate to a "discussion," imo. A debate is like a duel. A discussion is something else. If anyone here has any honest questions about The Urantia Book I'll be happy to try to answer them. If all we have here is mostly smugly militant science people popping off clever one-liners and largely uninformed opinions about a book they have not read, then there's not much to discuss.

Now I have a science question: There was a supernova visible on earth in 1572. It's often called "Tycho's Supernova" after Tycho Brahe. It was a type 1a supernova, a binary star supernova. Does anyone here know when it was thought by science that it was a type 1a supernova and when that information was verified by observation?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Furchizedek said:
Yes, you actually were.
Click to expand...

When someone makes an assertion that reality both agrees with and doesn't disagree with, it's not an opinion.

Furchizedek said:
If you don't know the difference between your opinions and facts, then that's a problem for you.
Click to expand...

Fact - objective observation
Opinion - anything I want

Only one of us here is having a problem.

Furchizedek said:
How old are you anyway?
Click to expand...

*Slaps you for asking for personal information*
*Gives you a boot to the head for doing it on a public forum*

Furchizedek said:
A lot of Christians are confused in that same way, I don't know if you are one, but they'll say "Jesus died for your sins," and if you tell them that's just their belief, they'll say no, "It's a fact." Or they'll call the bible "The Word of God." If you tell them it's just their opinion that it's "God's Word," they will tell you no, it's a fact, and even more, they will tell you they can "prove" it. LOL. One thing I appreciated about the OP is that he knew when to use qualifiers. :)
Click to expand...

I'll speculate you might share a similar confusion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top