Month: January 2018

By James R. Watkins

Well respected Urantia Book speaker David Kantor posed an interesting question at a symposium on the subject of Christianity and The Urantia Book. He said, “there are two paths: the Urantia Book could develop its own “religion,” or the Urantia Book teachings could become a part of Christianity.

In the first scenario, the growth of the UB would be hampered, slowing down the eventual embracing of the book by perhaps hundreds of years, whereas, if the Church began to adopt and integrate the Urantia Book teachings in mainstream, awareness and adoption would yield real results much faster.

It’s an interesting question, and one which deserves some consideration.

How might the teachings of the Urantia Book grow if it became an offshoot, a religion on its own path, of Christian thought? (since so much of its teachings correlate with Christian principles).

Or, conversely, what if the Christian Church announced todaythat it “sanctioned” the Urantia Book as a revelation of new truth, and was adopted as a relevant adjunct to The New Testament, a continuation, as it were, of newly revealed spiritual truth to mankind?

History shows us two examples of what happens when a former religion merges with a newer teligion.

The Hebrew religion discarded Christs‘ teachings, and so the followers of Jesus went thier own way, forming the Christian Church. Christianity borrows from the Jewish religion, but it carries forth the newer revelation of Jesus’ teachings. Obviously it set out on its own path, and while similar, it is clear the Jewish faith and the current Christian faith may never fully reconcile its differences, owing to Jesus.

In more recent times, the Mormon faith has become an offshoot of Christianity because it dared to introduce a new revelation that was rejected by mainline Christianity. Though both religions recognize the divinity of Jesus Christ, the history is dissimilar, and therefore has never been fully reconciled. The relationship between Mormons and fundamentalist Christians is one that can best be described as tentative, but not adversarial.

We should also remember that Christianity has absorbed many an old religion, including many pagan religions and most especially Mithraism, which was highly popular in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries.  It’s why we celebrate Christmas on December 25th.

In its infancy Christianity has shown itself to be flexible, and more than welcoming to other faiths and beliefs, But not so much in recent times.

Christians today are very guarded, very sringent of any notion that God continues to speak, especially in the form of a 2,200 page book called The Urantia Book.

I agree with Kantors’ assessment that the Urantia Book could grow much faster in awareness if mainline Christianity embraced it, but I also don’t see it happening. The power of Church authority is just too great. Already have Christians been taught that no other record can be added to the Bible. The Bible is a finished document, and any one who dares to look at some new book as a “revelation,” is obviously committing heresy, at least in the mainstream.

In the end, the Urantia Book will embark on its own path, and it’s followers will be attracted to it because in part, of the stringent regulations imposed by the Christian Church which has driven people away from its more crystallized truth-presentation of eternal reality. People need a religion which comprises an integration of science, spirituality and philosophy consistant with our intellectual and scientific growth, all three of which are perfectly blended in the Urantia Book.

It’s not that the Christian church needs to embrace the Urantia Book, it’s whether people who believe in the Bible as the only “word of God,” will eventually be standing in a room by themselves in the ages to come, as more people seek for advanced truth. This fact alone will determine the further growth and acceptance of The Urantia Book – with or without the help of Christians.

I invite you to view the full video of David Kantors’ excellent presentation, click below.

One thing I have noticed about today’s society is that we don’t say “God Bless You,” enough when we talk with people.

Maybe its an old custom, but I like it when someone says that phrase to me. I find it comforting. It makes me pause for a moment and appreciate social contact, that the person saying it has a heart and is truly conveying a sentiment that we should all reflect upon from time to time.

So often in life we forget that our efforts do matter, and our relationships do count. Saying “God bless you” is a salutation that goes back far in time. Spit exchange, what eventually evolved into kissing, was another salutation, but I am sure most people wouldn’t want me to share my saliva with them, but saying ‘God bless you’ puts that extra care into our common everyday dealings with fellow travelers in this life.

Although I am sure someone might be offended by saying “God bless you,” in their minds, especially if they are an ardent atheist, they might think, “What do you mean God bless you? what, you think there is a god? how dare you offend me with such notions, what are you, a neanderthal?!” and you can just hear the offended persons thoughts spiral into a heated moment of utter resentment. “How dare they presume that I believe in some non-sensical deity…”

When offering that extra kind phrase, one that should, as I say, give pause to the idea that our life has purpose and that God cares about us, remember that it is always a good thing to inject some “positive vibrations” as you go about your day., and saying ‘God bless you,’ is a simple way to do so, even if the other person doesn’t necesarrily subscribe to deity personification.

Oh, and by the way, God bless you for reading this. You took five minutes out of your day to give me your attention and consideration. I hope the good Lord graces you with good fortune.

 

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There is much to say about how the Urantia Book came to be.

Unfortunately, most of what is being perpetuated about the origins of this strange tome of profound religious, scientific and philosophical subject matter appears to be jaded by man’s incessant need to “make stuff up” when the real facts are hard to comprehend.

The ongoing misconception is that The Urantia Book was channelled because bookshelves are lined with other so-called “channelled works” (Conversations with God, A Course in Miracles, and Book of Commandments by Joseph Smith, founder of The Mormon Church, to name a few so-called “channelled” works) and these books have popularized the notion that people are able to tap into ‘the other side’ and get messages from spiritual sources.

It is not for me to say whether these or other books are authentic, or even if channelling as a method of communication is possible. But I can say The Urantia Book was not channelled, nor did anyone associated with the early appearance of the book ever claim the book was a work of channelling.

Channelling usually involves one person being used as a sort of clearing house of communication and shares it with the rest of us. In the case of the Urantia Book, there were always at least two people or more in observance when any communication ensued between the ‘sleeping subject’ and the observing doctors. Verifiable facts also disclose that the actual writings of the Urantia Papers were never witnessed by anyone when the papers were written.

Dr. William Sadler and his wife Dr. Lena Sadler were very successful at debunking so-called mediumship and other forms of psychic phenomena. In fact, both of these physicians were well-regarded in their day as being practical, grounded in science, and philanthropical in their work as medical doctors. Though they treated a patient who appeared to be used as a gateway of verbal communication, this person never wrote one word of, or claimed to know anything about the material contained in the Urantia papers. 

Even the Urantia Book authors make it clear no human author was involved in the writings of the 2,097 book. They (the sources of the written material) emphatically state that the book was not inspired, and was in fact, presented as a celestial-sourced document provided by personalities who were mandated to produce the 196 papers to “fill in the missing gaps” and to provide a context of reality which was to serve in the expansion of our cosmic awareness of origins, destiny and purpose.

Dr. Sadler, an expert in psychiatry, declared emphatically that channelling or any kind of mediumship was never involved in the actual writings, that the handwritten papers simply appeared fully written on paper. Expert handwriting analysis corroborated Sadler’s claim that no human author (he could find) was ever involved.

In other words, no human being has ever come forward to make such a claim of authorship.

To presume the Sadler’s were somehow involved, or knowingly deceived people about the writings of the Urantia book  is to refute sworn testimony from two well-respected physicians who had stellar reputations, and that you the reader should be open to the possibility that channelling is not the only method ever used when angels choose to communicate. It should be emphasized that the Urantia Book itself states it was not a work of channelled communication or human authorship.

The theory that appears to have some merit, though it is at best speculative, is that the manuscript was dictated to a lower angelic being (what they call a Midwayer) who was able to physically put words to paper. 

As Bill Sadler, Jr. once theorized, if you were in the room when the papers were being written, all you would have observed is a pencil moving by itself writing words on pieces of paper. But even this proposed theory is never conclusively answered.

Most, if not all channelled works usually have a human source named. Most channelled works do not include specific information that heretofore, becomes validated over time. Most channelled works supposedly come from a deceased person, or a specific personality by name. A Course in Miracles, for example, claims to be the thoughts and testimony from Jesus himself. 

I bring this up now because there is much more interest in The Urantia book than in prior decades, and I fear that when people start to dig for background information on the papers (as we all do when we are first learning about it), the mis-information is mixed in with the more factual information that is also readily available, and such misleading speculation can detract from the importance of the writings themselves.

To this end I would direct people to read Larry Mullins A History of the Urantia Papers. Larry is a consummate fact-finder. He used verifiable evidence to draw his conclusions.

Judged on its own merit, as it should be, The Urantia Book stands alone as a literally masterpiece, even if only viewed as fiction. The revelatory scope of knowledge presented therein will be paying out dividends for many years to come, even decades to come, as more people actually read it and delve into what it says about our human history, astronomy, geology, religious history and paleontology, not to mention the clues it provides to help us discover new forms of energy sources, cures for illnesses, answers for social ills, and lastly, a new and improved understanding of the very nature of God.

Repeat after me, “the Urantia Book was not channelled, the Urantia book was not channelled, the Urantia Book was not channelled.”

Read Larry’s book if you want to get to the truth about the origins of the Urantia Book, it is a marvelous read and one that puts to rest many misconceptions being presented as fact.

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There really is a parallel universe, its just not what you think it is.

If you are a materialist you might think earth came to be by some kind of cosmic disbursement 14 billion years ago, the first uncaused cause, you think man has been alone all along, you might think all of the entirety of the known universe is completely empty of intelligent life and we are the only ones here who can figure it out.

The way most people view our world is not unlike how a small tribe that lives on an island in the South Pacific sees themselves and assumes there is no other land – or people.

But the parallel universe, unlike what Stephen Hawking might describe, as being some mirror or reflective universe that is independent of our own, one filled with exact replicas and the like, is NOT what I am speaking of.

In the parallel universe I am talking about it can best be described as the greater reality, the real place where things are unfolding in an intelligently organized way, of which our world is just a very small part. This greater reality is filled with spirit personalities, angelic personalities and a whole host of non-personality energy forms that have been in existence long before our earth, or even our sun, has been in existence.

Our earth lies on the outskirts of this very large creation.

Long before earth “got here,” there were and are other “earths” or worlds, and they too, are inhabited with beings like ourselves, but they too are also being guided by spiritual forces we simply can’t see in our present state. Our material vision, and especially our inability to grasp the connected-ness of things, does not allow us to see just beyond the scenes of the physical world. Just beyond our mortal vision, are agents and forces who work on our behalf.

Spiritually-minded people already know what this greater reality is, but they are called fools, stupid religionists who are not “rooted in the science of physical existence,” as if the physical is all there is.

You see, religion is a result of they trying to teach us that there is a heaven, a greater and enduring reality where there is a continued existence, and we are ascendant beings who start out on earth and ascend inward and upward.

Just as a small Island tribe one day learns of the existence of others and then begins real growth and development, so are we, when the time is ripe, going to learn of this other existence, this parallel universe that moves alongside our own limited, finite reality.

We are getting close to being ready. Just as we begin to at first discover other worlds of habitation, and then later begin to find one that is far in advance of our own, the first thing we learn from this other world is that they too believe they are part of a cosmic and expansive universe where life springs forth on a grand scale. It’s just that right now we are a tiny tribe on an island, and when we do advance in our cosmic awareness we are going to learn so much about ourselves and about our future, both as a species and as individuals.

And then all of those things that the prophets tried to teach us, all of those great mysteries that have baffled us for a long time about our origins, all of the great truths that Jesus taught and still teaches, will be revealed more fully.

And it starts with one simple notion. A Creator of spiritual and physical brilliance created the arena for life to exist so that all beings, high and low, can experience living, and to grow from that experience, to be perfect, even as God is perfect. All else proceeds from this one great truth.

We are not alone, we never were.