© 2004 Ken Glasziou
© 2004 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| Prophetic material and errors in Urantia revelation—Epilogue | Volume 11 - No. 4 — Index | Continental Drift 2 |
In this issue…
In this issue discussion is continued of the side by side existence of both prophetic and erroneous material in the text of the Urantia revelation.
Because of the knowledge explosion that has occurred over the past fifty or more years, a modest level of High School education is now the only requirement to ensure that new readers become aware of many of these erroneous statements.
However a deep study of both the prophetic and erroneous material Will surely evoke the thought that the revelators must have included such material deliberately.
In the previous issue, examples of the prophetic material were given. That continues but in this errors are the major topic—and speculation is offered upon the manifold possible reasons for their deliberate inclusion.
A number of articles have been written on the subject of continental drift in recognition that the concept was violently opposed by the vast majority of academico geologists over the period 1920 to about 1960, when it began to be accepted after the mid-Atlantic ridge was discovered and mapped. Excerpts from three of them follow.
But besides the fact of the breakup of continents, secondary evidence existed that should have caused disquiet amongst geologists who so violently opposed continental drift. Among them was the proposal that collision of continents was the underlying cause of mountain building so evident along from top to bottom of the west coast of the Americas. Secondly Australia had no placental mammals that suckled their young, but did have large variety of marsupials, some of which had close relatives in South America. The Urantia Papers state that 35 million years ago a southern land bridge reconnected the enormous Antartic continent with Australia, South Africa, and South America. Marsupial fossils have been found in Australia in strata designated as Upper Oligocene (35-40 million years ago) and in strata back to the Cretaceous period (65 million years ago) in South America. Marsupial fossils have also been found on Seymour Island in Antartica. No evidence exists for marsupial migration to Australia from the North. How else could their peculiar distribution occur other than through continental drift?
In detailing their account of life and land evolution on our planet in Urantia papers 57, 58, 59 and 60, the authors have wholeheartedly embraced the concept of continental drift, an idea first touted by Alfred Wegener in 1910. Take away continental drift from these four Papers and they collapse as a somewhat messy heap.
Over the period in which the Urantia Papers were received and published (1921-1956), the concept of continental drift was held only tenuously, and by very few geologists. Antipathy to the concept was stated to have been particularly strong in the USA. This antipathy lasted through from the early 1920’s to well into the 1960 period.
A review of “plate tectonics,” the new name for “continental drift,” appears in the recent CDROM edition of Encyclopedia Britannica and states, “…disbelief (in Wegener’s continental drift) was so strong that it often bordered on indignation. One of the strongest opponents was the British geophysicist Sir Harold Jeffreys, who spent years attempting to demonstrate that continental drift is impossible because the strength of the mantle should be far greater than any conceivable driving force… It was in North America, however, that opposition to Wegener’s ideas was vigorous to the point of excess and very nearly unanimous… Wegener was attacked from virtually every possible vantage point, his paleontological evidence attributed to land bridges, the similarity of strata on both sides of the Atlantic called into question, the fit of Atlantic shores declared inaccurate, and his very competence doubted…”—and much more.
In further support of our view that opposition to the theory was extremely strong, we cite a recently published book by science historian, H.E. Le Grand, as well as earlier criticisms of Wegener’s theory by eminent geologist, R.T. Chamberlin in which he listed 18 points that he considered were destructive of the hypothesis.
In our view, if the Urantia Papers had actually been written by human authors, it would have been quite irrational for them to go against the grain of prevailing strong professional opinion in making their story of life and land evolution so highly dependent upon the truth of the continental drift theory.
For the continental drift story of the Urantia Papers, the major “prophetic” item is the actual starting date for drift, given as 750 million years ago. (UB 57:8.23)
As his starting date for drift, Wegener had suggested 200-300 million years ago, a view that remained dominant until the 1980’s when the commencing date was pushed back to 500 million years or more. A recent estimate actually coincides exactly with the 750 million years given in Urantia Paper 57.
[Note: Up to the discovery and use of the zircon techniques, geological dating of this kind was by no means an exact science. Where modern technology is used, it can be so.]
If the authors of the Urantia Papers were human, we need an explanation of how they were able to come up with their extraordinary concepts on the timing of the continental drift phenomenon. A then-discredited Wegener put 200 million years as the start of break-up of a super-continent, the Urantia Papers’ authors put it at 750 million years, and it appears that both are correct, the explanation being that the super-continent reformed, then broke up a second time. Wegener had some evidence to support his ideas. There appears to have been absolutely no evidence whatever to support the 750 million years breakup at the time the Urantia Papers were written or published.
A lucky guess seems to be the only alternative. But the odds against guessing correctly are enormous.
All finite knowledge and creature understanding are relative. Information and intelligence, gleaned from even high sources, is only relatively complete, locally accurate, and personally true. (UB 2:7.1)
| Prophetic material and errors in Urantia revelation—Epilogue | Volume 11 - No. 4 — Index | Continental Drift 2 |