The Urantia Revelation

[Majeston]

Posted 15 February 2011 - 07:23 PM

 

View Postdduckwessel, on 15 February 2011 - 01:23 AM, said:

It seems to me be a mix of many religions. I don't think it's that unique. Much of it can be tied to Christian and Judaic mysticism ...

 

What set’s the Urantia Book apart from other primary Judeo-Christian religious documents is its age (written 1925-1935 or later, published 1955), the certainty of its authorship (at least the humans – though some identities were kept secret, and the human “receiver” is claimed to have gotten most or all of it via telepathic communications with “celestial beings”), and, key IMHO for a science discussion forum, its inclusion of fairly modern scientific ideas, those familiar to a well-educated person in the 1920s.

 

It’s contemporary with, and IMHO vaguely similar, to L Ron Hubbard’s Scientology writings.

 

Quote

... esoteric cults like Gnosticism, and a host of others.

 

Though I’ve not read it all, from what of it and commentary on it I have, I see not a hint of Gnosticism in the UB. Ontologically, the UB is very straight-forward, without hint of the key Gnostic belief that ordinary reality is imperfect and false. There’s no demiurge in the UB!

 

For me, a key charms of the UB is that it makes scientifically testable claims, often in the style and tone of a clearly written introductory science text book. A key indictment of its accuracy is that some of these testable claims have been tested, and found unambiguously wrong. For example, the UB claims that Mercury’s rotation is tidally locked to the Sun – a reasonable assumption, commonly accepted by astronomers prior to about 1970, but now known to be incorrect. (see this post and this one for details)

 

I wonder how William Sadler, a major contributor to the UB and a reputable debunker, would have reacted had he lived long enough to see the UB’s Mercury’s rotation claim refuted? I’m inclined, perhaps over-charitably (as folk like my long-time hypography friend Turtle can attest, I’m prone to being over-charitable), to think that he and others of the UBs contributors, would no longer accept their own work, were they alive today. Those who today believe the UB to be without error, despite such clear examples as above, tend to be “true believers”.

 

 

First of all, it is not contemporary with L.R.Hubbards work and any similarity to it would be what Urantia inspired in L.Ron after he read it. The Urantia papers began in 1911 and were "fixed" and in the vaults of R.R. Donnelley & Sons by 1942. "Wilfred Kellogg signs contract with R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company for typesetting The Urantia Book" 1942. (reference Sadler appendix Mind at Mischief 1929.)

As far as I am aware, There have been no errors in content proven in the Urantia papers since its' 1955 printing excepting typographical, typesetting, or dyslexic errors by the typist or the typesetter.

 

The Urantia papers are exceptionally precise with phrasing and usage of words and qualifiers and upon careful observation and reading any one part of the revelation is in perfect harmony with any other part encompassing all 2096 pages.

 

Regarding Craig's "unambiguously wrong" claim about Mercury, the text does not say what he thinks it says.

 

Mercury

"Another effect of the 3:2 resonance between the rotational and orbital periods is that the same hemisphere always faces the Sun at alternate perihelion passages. This happens because the hemisphere facing the Sun at one perihelion will rotate one and a half times by the next perihelion, so that it faces away from the sun; after another orbit it rotates another one and a half times so that it directly faces the Sun again."

Encyclopedia of the Solar System by Paul Robert Weissman, Torrence V. Johnson 2007.

 

 

http://scienceforums.com/topic/13935-urantia-book-complications-and-contradictions/page__view__findpost__p__224636

 

 

P657:5, 57:6.2 The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia.

 

P657:6, 57:6.3 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, which may assemble about the world as rings of matter resembling those of Saturn or may be gradually drawn into the earth as meteors.

 

P658:1, 57:6.4 If space bodies are similar in size and density, collisions may occur. But if two space bodies of similar density are relatively unequal in size, then, if the smaller progressively approaches the larger, the disruption of the smaller body will occur when the radius of its orbit becomes less than two and one-half times the radius of the larger body. Collisions among the giants of space are rare indeed, but these gravity-tidal explosions of lesser bodies are quite common.

 

The text makes no mention of the 3:2 resonance because that is not the topic and Craig's assumption that the revelators would have disclosed this is simply his departure into fantasy. The text is correct in the information it provides. Furthermore the text seperates the Mercury and the moon by stating that Mercury is an example of the previous "illustration" of slowing axial revolution...... while the "moon" always turns the same face towards Urantia.

[modest]

As far as I am aware, There have been no errors in content proven in the Urantia papers since its' 1955 printing

 

That is quite untrue.

 

After reading The Urantia Book -- Paper 57 I can say with confidence that most everything in there is proven wrong by modern science.

 

The milky way didn't exist hundreds of billions of years ago. The sun didn't eject material for planet formation from a near-collision. Earth wasn't 1/10th its present size 2.5 billion years ago and it didn't slowly grow to its present size over the next 1.5 billion years. The earth and moon didn't form as co-accretion binaries. The oceans are not as young as 1 billion years. The formation of a supercontinent wasn't a one-time event.

 

I could go on, but suffice it to say, all of the geochronology is wrong as are the physical descriptions. The other papers...

 

Yeah... I skipped forward a few papers to #60 and started reading a random paragraph...

 

55,000,000 years ago the evolutionary march was marked by the sudden appearance of the first of the true birds, a small pigeonlike creature which was the ancestor of all bird life. This was the third type of flying creature to appear on earth, and it sprang directly from the reptilian group, not from the contemporary flying dinosaurs nor from the earlier types of toothed land birds. And so this becomes known as the age of birds as well as the declining age of reptiles.

 

60:3.22

 

which again is incorrect and predictably so because the debate about whether birds came from reptiles or dinosaurs was settled in the '90s with archeological finds in that decade. In the first half of the 20th century the above quote would be considered quite reasonable.

 

On that topic, if you compare the time line in paper #57 to, for example, Arthur Holmes' 1927 publication "The Age of the Earth" it compares remarkably well. Comparing #57 to modern dating methods and models fails. Likewise, the close-approach solar system formation proffered in #57 is none other than James Jeans and Harold Jeffreys' 1918 tidal filament hypothesis which was under consideration when Urantia was written, but no longer. Likewise, #57 has only one supercontinent in earth's history, but we now know the formation and breakup of supercontinents is cyclical with direct evidence of at least two. This is a product of plate tectonics—Alfred Wegener and other proponents of continental drift had no reason to suspect such a thing.

 

So, of course, not only is the paper consistently demonstrably wrong, it is predictably wrong. It makes mistakes particular to the first half of the 20th century.

 

P657:5, 57:6.2 The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia.

 

Again, in the first half of the 20th century astronomers believed Mercury always showed one side to the sun so this mistake is understandable and predictable.

 

P657:6, 57:6.3 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, which may assemble about the world as rings of matter resembling those of Saturn or may be gradually drawn into the earth as meteors.

 

The bolded part is mistaken. This is not a mistake that would have been made by astronomers of Urantia's time, but is rather a general mistaken understanding of orbital dynamics. Tidal effects can degrade an orbit as, for example, with Phobos and Triton—however, this will happen only when the moon's orbital period is less than the rotational period of the parent body or if it is a retrograde orbit. The author has generalized those cases to a synchronous orbit which is mistaken. Let me find a source...

 

The Once and Future Moon

 

...The Earth & Moon would then be locked together in a 1:1 Tidal Resonance, and always keep the same face towards each other.

 

Once the Earth and Moon are tidally locked, further tidal evolution should stop...

 

Lecture 20: Tides

 

It is a very understandable and very human mistake.

 

~modest

[dduckwessel]

That is quite untrue.

 

After reading The Urantia Book -- Paper 57 I can say with confidence that most everything in there is proven wrong by modern science. ~modest

 

What about this page! Wasn't it only recently science discovered lemurs on one side and eventual human branch on the other?

 

 

http://www.urantia.org/en/urantia-book-standardized/paper-62-dawn-races-early-man

 

"ABOUT one million years ago the immediate ancestors of mankind made their appearance by three successive and sudden mutations stemming from early stock of the lemur type of placental mammal. The dominant factors of these early lemurs were derived from the western or later American group of the evolving life plasm. But before establishing the direct line of human ancestry, this strain was reinforced by contributions from the central life implantation evolved in Africa. The eastern life group contributed little or nothing to the actual production of the human species.

 

 

1. The Early Lemur Types

 

(703.2) 62:1.1 The early lemurs concerned in the ancestry of the human species were not directly related to the pre-existent tribes of gibbons and apes then living in Eurasia and northern Africa, whose progeny have survived to the present time. Neither were they the offspring of the modern type of lemur, though springing from an ancestor common to both but long since extinct.

 

(703.3) 62:1.2 While these early lemurs evolved in the Western Hemisphere, the establishment of the direct mammalian ancestry of mankind took place in southwestern Asia, in the original area of the central life implantation but on the borders of the eastern regions. Several million years ago the North American type lemurs had migrated westward over the Bering land bridge and had slowly made their way southwestward along the Asiatic coast. These migrating tribes finally reached the salubrious region lying between the then expanded Mediterranean Sea and the elevating mountainous regions of the Indian peninsula. In these lands to the west of India they united with other and favorable strains, thus establishing the ancestry of the human race.

 

(703.4) 62:1.3 With the passing of time the seacoast of India southwest of the mountains gradually submerged, completely isolating the life of this region. There was no avenue of approach to, or escape from, this Mesopotamian or Persian peninsula except to the north, and that was repeatedly cut off by the southern invasions of the glaciers. And it was in this then almost paradisiacal area, and from the superior descendants of this lemur type of mammal, that there sprang two great groups, the simian tribes of modern times and the present-day human species."

[dduckwessel]

 

...the debate about whether birds came from reptiles or dinosaurs was settled in the '90s with archeological finds in that decade...modest

 

Do you know offhand of a link where I could read more about this?

[modest]

What about this page! Wasn't it only recently science discovered lemurs on one side and eventual human branch on the other?

 

I don't know what you're trying to say. Lemurs and people are both primates, but are different species.

 

ABOUT one million years ago the immediate ancestors of mankind made their appearance by three successive and sudden mutations stemming from early stock of the lemur type of placental mammal.

 

I think this says that people looked like lemurs about a million years ago. People looked like homo erectus or homo antecessor around that time

 

The rest reads like a confusing mess of words to me.

 

Do you know offhand of a link where I could read more about this?

 

Modern research and feathered dinosaurs in China

 

The early 1990s saw the discovery of spectacularly preserved bird fossils in several Early Cretaceous geological formations in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning.[34][35] In 1996, Chinese paleontologists described Sinosauropteryx as a new genus of bird from the Yixian Formation,[36] but this animal was quickly recognized as a theropod dinosaur closely related to Compsognathus. Surprisingly, its body was covered by long filamentous structures. These were dubbed 'protofeathers' and considered to be homologous with the more advanced feathers of birds,[37] although some scientists disagree with this assessment.[38] Chinese and North American scientists described Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx soon after. Based on skeletal features, these animals were non-avian dinosaurs, but their remains bore fully-formed feathers closely resembling those of birds.[39] "Archaeoraptor," described without peer review in a 1999 issue of National Geographic,[40] turned out to be a smuggled forgery,[41] but legitimate remains continue to pour out of the Yixian, both legally and illegally. Feathers or "protofeathers" have been found on a wide variety of theropods in the Yixian,[42][43] and the discoveries of extremely bird-like dinosaurs,[44] as well as dinosaur-like primitive birds,[45] have almost entirely closed the morphological gap between theropods and birds.

 

A small minority, including ornithologists Alan Feduccia and Larry Martin, continues to assert that birds are instead the descendants of earlier archosaurs, such as Longisquama or Euparkeria.[46][47] Embryological studies of bird developmental biology have raised questions about digit homology in bird and dinosaur forelimbs.[48] However, due to the cogent evidence provided by comparative anatomy and phylogenetics, as well as the dramatic feathered dinosaur fossils from China, the idea that birds are derived dinosaurs, first championed by Huxley and later by Nopcsa and Ostrom, enjoys near-unanimous support among today's paleontologists.[14]

 

Wikipedia - Origin of birds

[Majeston]

That is quite untrue.

 

After reading The Urantia Book -- Paper 57 I can say with confidence that most everything in there is proven wrong by modern science.

 

The milky way didn't exist hundreds of billions of years ago. The sun didn't eject material for planet formation from a near-collision. Earth wasn't 1/10th its present size 2.5 billion years ago and it didn't slowly grow to its present size over the next 1.5 billion years. The earth and moon didn't form as co-accretion binaries. The oceans are not as young as 1 billion years. The formation of a supercontinent wasn't a one-time event.

 

I could go on, but suffice it to say, all of the geochronology is wrong as are the physical descriptions. The other papers...

 

Yeah... I skipped forward a few papers to #60 and started reading a random paragraph...

 

 

 

which again is incorrect and predictably so because the debate about whether birds came from reptiles or dinosaurs was settled in the '90s with archeological finds in that decade. In the first half of the 20th century the above quote would be considered quite reasonable.

 

On that topic, if you compare the time line in paper #57 to, for example, Arthur Holmes' 1927 publication "The Age of the Earth" it compares remarkably well. Comparing #57 to modern dating methods and models fails. Likewise, the close-approach solar system formation proffered in #57 is none other than James Jeans and Harold Jeffreys' 1918 tidal filament hypothesis which was under consideration when Urantia was written, but no longer. Likewise, #57 has only one supercontinent in earth's history, but we now know the formation and breakup of supercontinents is cyclical with direct evidence of at least two. This is a product of plate tectonics—Alfred Wegener and other proponents of continental drift had no reason to suspect such a thing.

 

So, of course, not only is the paper consistently demonstrably wrong, it is predictably wrong. It makes mistakes particular to the first half of the 20th century.

 

 

 

Again, in the first half of the 20th century astronomers believed Mercury always showed one side to the sun so this mistake is understandable and predictable.

 

 

 

The bolded part is mistaken. This is not a mistake that would have been made by astronomers of Urantia's time, but is rather a general mistaken understanding of orbital dynamics. Tidal effects can degrade an orbit as, for example, with Phobos and Triton—however, this will happen only when the moon's orbital period is less than the rotational period of the parent body or if it is a retrograde orbit. The author has generalized those cases to a synchronous orbit which is mistaken. Let me find a source...

 

The Once and Future Moon

 

...The Earth & Moon would then be locked together in a 1:1 Tidal Resonance, and always keep the same face towards each other.

 

Once the Earth and Moon are tidally locked, further tidal evolution should stop...

 

Lecture 20: Tides

 

It is a very understandable and very human mistake.

 

~modest

 

Modest,

 

It's nice to see that this topic is reopened. It was actually quite outrageous that it was closed and locked to begin with. I think they used to burn people at the stake or imprison them or excommunicate them, now we just flunk them, give them bad reps or lock topics and prevent people searching for truth from finding it.

I am in the middle of changing residences and all that entails and am quite busy at the moment, but in the next few weeks I will address each and every point you made in your reply. Your position is quite understandable and all the errors you made are quite human. Nothing you cited in the Urantia revelation is in error, the errors are the assumptions being made in "science". For instance "science" is dating time periods radiometrically while the Urantia revelation is dating time periods by when they actually happened. One assumption being made by science is that the rate of carbon decay has been constant. The Urantia revelation reveals that the decay rate was not constant but was manipulated. In the meantime, for you to better understand what some of the mistakes "science" is making, would be for you to familiarize yourself with the work of Dr. Halvorson, since he not only read the papers you cited above, but he actually understands them and has done an enormous amount of work with them instead of simply parroting pop science and claiming it has "proved" something.

With the help of Dr. Halvorson, out of the box thinking "scientists" are now able to make many breakthroughs in understanding the history and future of science on our planet and to also perfectly harmonize it with Theology and Philosophy. Something which heretofore has been impossible without the help of the Urantia revelation.

Chris deals with these papers of interest here...

http://perfectinghorizons.org/01-evolution%20of%20life.htm

Additionally Chris has a chart and explanation to compare the time lines here

http://perfectinghorizons.org/ByChrisHalvorson/histlife.pdf

 

Thanks for being patient. One day, hopefully sooner than later you will begin to realize just what you have come in contact with.

[Majeston]

dduckwessel

http://scienceforums.com/topic/3103-urantia-book-who-couldve-hoaxed-this/page__view__findpost__p__305081

 

Posted 26 February 2011 - 01:57 PM

Quote from the Urantia Book:

 

"Nowhere on the surface of the world will there be found more of the modified remnants of these ancient preocean rocks than in northeastern Canada around Hudson Bay. This extensive granite elevation is composed of stone belonging to the preoceanic ages. These rock layers have been heated, bent, twisted, upcrumpled, and again and again have they passed through these distorting metamorphic experiences."

 

Can anyone confirm if this statement is true?

 

..... in the portion of this section describing events during the period of 900,000,000 years ago, The Urantia Book states:

 

57:8.11-13 This entire age was characterized by frequent and violent storms. The early crust of the earth was in a state of continual flux. Surface cooling alternated with immense lava flows. Nowhere can there be found on the surface of the world anything of this original planetary crust. It has all been mixed up too many times with extruding lavas of deep origins and admixed with subsequent deposits of the early world-wide ocean.

 

Nowhere on the surface of the world will there be found more of the modified remnants of these ancient preocean rocks than in northeastern Canada around Hudson Bay. This extensive granite elevation is composed of stone belonging to the preoceanic ages. These rock layers have been heated, bent, twisted, upcrumpled, and again and again have they passed through these distorting metamorphic experiences.

 

Throughout the oceanic ages, enormous layers of fossil-free stratified stone were deposited on this ancient ocean bottom. (Limestone can form as a result of chemical precipitation; not all of the older limestone was produced by marine-life deposition.) In none of these ancient rock formations will there be found evidences of life; they contain no fossils unless, by some chance, later deposits of the water ages have become mixed with these older prelife layers.

 

 

 

Oldest Rock Supporting Links

 

The original Science article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/sci;325/5938/267-a.pdf

 

 

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iSuFBNhLw5AXOXVIWx1o4cH3jUew

 

http://paleogeology.blogspot.com/2008/08/acasta-gneiss.html

 

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AGUFM.V62A1384I

 

 

 

http://www.ubthenews.com/topics/Oldest_Rock1.htm

[dduckwessel]

I don't know what you're trying to say. Lemurs and people are both primates, but are different species.

 

I was saying that from what I understand, early evolution branched off into two distinct groups, lemurs and another critter from which, primates, and eventual humans evolved.

 

The reason for my question was because I don't believe this recent information about lemurs was available in 1955! Or was it?

 

Thanks for the rest of the info. I had read with fascination about the feathered fossils from China, which seems to prove that feathers came long before eventual flight!

 

On the subject of the Urantia Book, would you say it was based on the scientific knowledge available in 1955?

[dduckwessel]

 

Oldest Rock Supporting Links

 

The original Science article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/sci;325/5938/267-a.pdf

 

 

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iSuFBNhLw5AXOXVIWx1o4cH3jUew

 

http://paleogeology.blogspot.com/2008/08/acasta-gneiss.html

 

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AGUFM.V62A1384I

 

Thanks for the info and specifically the links. It reveals quite clearly that the Urantia Book is wrong in so many instances regarding science. Angels should have been more astute!!

[dduckwessel]

On a little different note, the Urantia Book says that Jesus was really a Creator Son, Michael (an archangel).

 

This was news to me but the Bible agrees:

 

"But the prince of the kingdom of Persia (Satan) withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me ..." (Daniel 10:13 - brackets mine)

 

"But I will show you that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holds with me in these things, but Michael your prince." (Dan. 10:21)

 

"And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince..." (Dan. 12:1, see also Jude 1:9, Rev. 12:7)

 

The reason I list these is because many Christians believe that Jesus was 'God in the flesh'. Whereas, a prince is an angel - thereby making Jesus an Archangel.

 

Again the Bible does not disagree as Jesus calls himself a morning star, which is another name for an angel:

 

"I Jesus have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." (Rev. 22:16, Job 38:7)

 

 

Catholics attribute all of the divine characteristics of Jesus to Michael as divine protector, without saying it directly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Michael_(Roman_Catholic)

 

 

This makes me wonder if The Urantia Book could have been written by a well-educated Catholic because they were the only Christians (not sure if that was their view in 1955!) who entertained the notion that Jesus was Michael and visa versa!! Nonetheless, The Urantia Book is an amazing piece of literary work.

 

One of the reasons I think this book is not angelic in nature is because the scientific information proposed in the Book of Urantia (the scientific knowledge has been shown on this forum to be erroneous) may be limited to the scientific knowledge available in 1955!

[modest]

Nothing you cited in the Urantia revelation is in error, the errors are the assumptions being made in "science".

 

I get it, Majeston. After hundreds of posts back and forth, how could I not? Round about 2008 I said something like "if modern science can't prove anything to you then it can't disprove Urantia". That turned out to be true.

 

You have rejected and are perfectly willing to reject the big bang, radiometric dating, evidence from paleontology, archeology, astronomy, and any other verified scientific knowledge when it disagrees with Urantia. It's a matter of faith. I get it.

 

It leaves no common footing on which to have a discussion. I am not willing or able to reject whole fields of modern scientific evidence so that I might have faith in, what is clearly to me, an outdated and racist science fiction book. You are not able to debate the science. So long as both those things are true, I am confident there is no common ground between us on which to discuss the book.

 

~modest

[modest]

I was saying that from what I understand, early evolution branched off into two distinct groups, lemurs and another critter from which, primates, and eventual humans evolved.

 

Ok. I think I see what you're saying.

 

The reason for my question was because I don't believe this recent information about lemurs was available in 1955! Or was it?

 

Yeah, the classification or distinction between prosimians (what Urantia calls "lemur type of placental mammal") and anthropoids is a very old one. Prosimians have long been considered more primitive and predating anthropoids or hominids.

 

On the subject of the Urantia Book, would you say it was based on the scientific knowledge available in 1955?

 

Yeah, I think 1950's and earlier. There are giveaways that it dates to the first half of the 20th century like its retelling of the Jeans-Jeffreys tidal hypothesis of solar system formation and its description of Mercury's orbit—things that were widely believed to be true in the first half of the 20th century and are now widely known not to be.

 

~modest

[CraigD]

I was saying that from what I understand, early evolution branched off into two distinct groups, lemurs and another critter from which, primates, and eventual humans evolved.

 

The reason for my question was because I don't believe this recent information about lemurs was available in 1955! Or was it?

Cladistics, the organizing of living and fossil species by common characteristics, is pretty old – it’s generally said to have appeared in something much like its modern form - two-part Latin names and hierarchical organization - around 1735, with Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae. Notice, importantly, that this predates both the modern concept of biological evolution, and the earliest major scientific attempts to roughly date fossils and the Earth overall, by about 150 years.

 

It’s important, and somewhat difficult, to understand how cladistics and phylogeny are related. Cladistics just seeks to organize species according to schemes convenient to biologists – is short, folk in the field who discover a suspected new fern, butterfly, mouse, etc. species, and want to see if it really is new and where to fit it in the big catalog of life. Phylogeny is essentially the study of the history of genes. Phylogeny and cladistics tend to give similar results, because organisms that look alike under cladistic analysis usually do so because they have similar genes, inherited from common ancestors.

 

The best way I know to get a feel for pylogeny and cladistics is to browse it on the internet. My favorite sites for this are wikipedia (focus on the “scientific classification” and “species” boxes in the upper right of each article page) and the (my two links above are to these sites)

 

Browsing like this will show you that apes like us didn’t descend from species resembling present day lemurs, but both descended from a now extinct common ancestor likely resembling an extinct species like Plesiadapis (discovered in 1877).

 

On the subject of the Urantia Book, would you say it was based on the scientific knowledge available in 1955?

I’d say it was based on the scientific knowledge of the people who wrote it, between 1924 and 1955, not the best scientific knowledge available at the time.

 

The UB’s failure to clearly describe the spin-orbit resonance of Mercury convinces me that it was not communicated to its writers by people who had explored the planet from space, because it’s such an interesting, “oh, wow” feature, that I can’t imagine anyone know about it failing to mention it. That “the revelators” would not have, but rather given a typical 1950s textbook description like

 

P657:5, 57:6.2 The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia.

is simply unbelievable to me. I don’t accept the explanation Majestron gave in post #1: that I misread, or read too much into, this paragraph, and that it isn’t really talking about Mercury’s rotation. I believe the paragraph states what most educated people or profession astronomers of that time would guess about Mercury’s rotation. This reasonable guess is simply wrong.

[dduckwessel]

Regarding who wrote this book what do you think of my theory that it was written by a Catholic (Jesus was the archangel Michael)?

 

As a work of literature, it's very well-written even if the person was an amateur in the science department, so I assume this person was reasonably well-educated! If written by one person its length suggests the individual would be someone who had a lot of time on their hands.

 

The Book states that various angels (or whatever) wrote it but as I read the manner in which it's written seems to suggest to me that only one individual authored it because the language and manner of speaking appears (to me) to be consistent throughout.

 

I presume it was written by a religious male and the reason I say that is because references to Eve are quite disdainful of her impatience (the thinking that still prevails in religious circles).

 

It had to be someone who was well-familiar with the Bible but one who had been exposed to varied and liberal theology (again someone who was well-educated).

 

My theories however, don't explain why this individual would go through such lengths to describe the hierarchies of angels and their different jurisdictions and duties, nor why the darned thing is so detailed! It's this part that has me baffled.

[dduckwessel]

 

 

I’d say it was based on the scientific knowledge of the people who wrote it, between 1924 and 1955, not the best scientific knowledge available at the time.

 

The UB’s failure to clearly describe the spin-orbit resonance of Mercury convinces me that it was not communicated to its writers by people who had explored the planet from space, because it’s such an interesting, “oh, wow” feature, that I can’t imagine anyone know about it failing to mention it. That “the revelators” would not have, but rather given a typical 1950s textbook description like

 

 

That's the info I was after. Thanks. Still a question that's on my mine is why would someone bother to go through such lengths to write it? What did they have to gain?

[dduckwessel]

 

Yeah, I think 1950's and earlier. There are giveaways that it dates to the first half of the 20th century like its retelling of the...

 

It's interesting how the author (I presume a religious person) seemed so forward-thinking than religious people of today. If you were to sit in on some of the religious discussions of today, especially those amongst Evangelicals (educated Catholics are quite a bit more open), I think you would be shocked. The biggest discussion amongst Evangelicals is, should they allow young people to drink! The less educated, the more outlandish and restrictive the beliefs are, which I guess is really no surprise.

 

Back to the Urantia Book, as I asked Craig D., I wonder why someone would bother to go through all this trouble - what did they hope to gain by it?

[dduckwessel]

 

The best way I know to get a feel for pylogeny and cladistics is to browse it on the internet. My favorite sites for this are wikipedia (focus on the “scientific classification” and “species” boxes in the upper right of each article page) and the (my two links above are to these sites)

 

Browsing like this will show you that apes like us didn’t descend from species resembling present day lemurs, but both descended from a now extinct common ancestor likely resembling an extinct species like Plesiadapis (discovered in 1877).

 

I know it's off topic and probably should be in a different thread but I browsed it as you suggested and came up with this, which shows (I needed to see a simplified version) the branches of species quite clearly. Do you agree with it?

 

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/evolution/early_primates_evolution.html