© 2005 Ken Glasziou
© 2005 The Brotherhood of Man Library
Zircons and Earth-Moon Relations | Volume 12 - No. 3 — Index | Is The Urantia Book Believable? Is it Logical? |
At the very least there is a need to have certainty about the Urantia revelation–for if it has no errors of substance, it must be prophetic–and therefore carry divine authority. But if there are errors of substance, it becomes a decision of faith on the part of the individual to accept what they believe to be of value and to discard what they believe to be of no significant value.
For this important reason we first pose the question–are there errors of substance in the Urantia revelation? And in the next section we present what we believe to be incontrovertible evidence that there are such errors–and we discuss the reasons why they are there.
On UB 57:5.1 of The Urantia Book we read:
“5,000,000,000 years ago your sun was a comparatively isolated blazing orb. . .” followed by:
“4,500,000,000 years ago the enormous Angona system began its approach to the neighborhood of this solitary sun. . . .The effect was to draw out solar extrusions which evolved into the twelve planets of the sun.”
Modern science says nothing about the Angona system but agrees that the solar system was born during the 4.5 to 5.0 billion years ago interval. Then, on UB 57:6.8, the Book states:
“3,000,000,000 years ago the solar system was functioning much as it does today. Its members continued to grow in size as space meteors continued to pour in upon the planets and their satellites at a prodigious rate.”
Modern science says that by this time, the rate at which space meteors poured in upon the earth-moon system had fallen enormously and no longer contributed significantly to their rate of increase of mass.
“2,500,000,000 years ago the planets had grown immensely in size. Urantia was a well developed sphere about one tenth its present mass and was still growing rapidly by meteoric accretion.” UB 57:6.10
And at the top of Urantia Book page UB 57:7.2 it is stated:
“2,000,000,000 years ago the earth began decidedly to gain on the moon. Always had the planet been larger than its satellite but there was not so much difference in size until about this time, when enormous space bodies were captured by the earth. Urantia was then about one fifth its present size.”
Previously, Urantia Book readers disagreed about whether these last two paragraphs really mean that the earth and moon were about the same size (mass) until 2,000,000,000 years ago. Modern isotopic analysis shows that both sides of this disagreement were incorrect as the earth and the moon had actually reached almost their full size and mass by about 4,600,000,000 years ago.
Proof that the moon had virtually ceased all growth by the 4 billion years ago mark is provided in the illustration below. Further down on page UB 57:7.4-5 is:
“1,500,000,000 years ago the earth was two thirds its present size, while the moon was nearing its present mass . . …Volcanic activity is now at its height. The whole earth is a veritable fiery inferno. . .”
Modern science finds no evidence to support these assertions. And 3 paragraphs further down:
“Presently the atmosphere became more settled and cooled sufficiently to start precipitation of rain on the hot rocky surface of the planet. For thousands of years Urantia was enveloped in one vast and continuous blanket of steam. And during these ages the sun never shone upon the earth’s surface.” UB 57:7.7
There is much contrary evidence to this statement which will be covered later.
Lastly on UB 57:8.1 we have:
“1,000,000,000 years ago is the date of the actual beginning of Urantia history. The planet has attained approximately its present size.”
The Urantia Book statement on UB 57:5.4 that our planetary system first evolved 4,500,000,000 years ago is remarkably close to the deduction from radiometric data carried out in 1955 by C.C. Patterson using the lead isotopes in chondritic meteoric materials which put their age at 4.5 billion years. Later, Patterson also put the age of our planet at 4.56 billion years.
Patterson’s figure was verified as being close to reality when the latest radiometric techniques were applied to the 382 kilograms of moon rocks comprised of 2415 individual samples brought back by the Apollo program to the moon from 1969 onwards. Further samples were also available from the Russian moon program. The oldest moon rock among these samples was found to be nearly 4.6 billion years which is just about as old as the oldest Earth rocks. These studies included the use of oxygen isotope ratios on both moon and earth rocks which demonstrated that the Earth and its moon have a common ancestry–that is they are constructed from the same pool of source materials.
In the paragraph covering the 2,000,000,000 to 1,500,000,000 years period the Urantia Papers’ authors (here the Life Carriers) inform us: “The radium clock is your most reliable time piece for making scientific estimates of the age of the planet. . .” (note: uranium to lead is now the preferred clock) UB 57:7.3
This finally turned out to be a truly prophetic statement but not until such time as zircon crystals, plus advanced technology such as the use of ion probes towards the end of the second millennium A.D., permitted the construction of the history of individual zircons to be revealed with an unprecedented accuracy of one million in three billion1 years. In many cases this same history could be used to clarify much more than just the history of the zircon.
Conclusions drawn with the aid of isotopic and geophysical data are:
1. The moon is not a primordial object; it is an evolved terrestrial planet with internal zoning similar to that of the Earth.
Before Apollo the state of the moon was a subject of almost unlimited speculation. We now know that the moon is made of rocky material that has been variously melted, erupted through volcanoes, and crushed by meteorite impacts. It possess a thick crust (60 km), a fairly uniform lithosphere (60–1000 km), and a partly liquid asthenosphere (1000-1740 km); a small iron core at the bottom of the asthenosphere is possible but unconfirmed… Some rocks give hints for ancient magnetic fields although no planetary field exists today.
2. The moon is ancient and still preserves an early history (the first billion years) that must be common to all terrestrial planets.
The extensive record of meteorite craters on the moon, when calibrated using absolute ages of rock samples, provides a key for unraveling time scales for the geologic evolution of Mercury, Venus, and Mars based on their individual crater records.
3. The oldest moon rocks are virtually as old as the oldest Earth rocks. The earliest processes and events that probably affected both planetary bodies can now only be found on the moon.
Moon rock ages range from about 3.2 billion years in the maria (dark solidified lava plains) to nearly 4.6 billion years in the light rugged highlands.
4. The moon and Earth are genetically related and formed from different proportions of a common reservoir of materials.
The distinctively similar oxygen isotopic compositions of moon rocks and Earth rocks clearly show common ancestry. Relative to Earth, however, the moon is highly depleted in iron and in volatile elements that are needed to form atmospheric gases and water.
5. All moon rocks originated through high-temperature processes with little or no involvement with water. They are roughly divisible into three types: basalts, anorthosites, and breccias.
6. The lunar magma ocean was followed by a series of large asteroid impacts that created basins which were later filled by lava flows.
The large, dark basins such as Mare Imbrium are gigantic impact craters, formed early in lunar history, that were later filled by lava flows about 3.2-3.9 billion years ago. Lunar volcanism occurred mostly as lava floods that spread horizontally; volcanic fire fountains produced deposits of orange and emerald-green glass beads.
7. The lunar highlands were formed 4.4-4.6 billion years ago by flotation of an early, feldspar-rich crust on a magma ocean that covered the moon to a depth of many tens of kilometers. Innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic time reduced much of the ancient crust to mountain ranges between basins.
8. Little has occurred on the moon since about 3 billion years ago; after the volcanic fires died the only activity has been the occasional formation of an impact crater and the constant rain of micrometeorites.
9. Since the Apollo missions there have been two fly-by visits in the early 1990’s by the Jupiter-bound Galileo space craft which, using spectral filters to map the moon surface, noted the presence of high iron rocks in the floor of the South Pole-Aitkin basin. Further visits were made in 1994 by the spacecraft Clementine which orbited the moon for 71 days and obtained a complete global map of the lunar surface in 11 wavelengths. Later, the Lunar Prospector in 1998 mapped the moon’s surface composition using gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy. Both found evidence for water ice at the poles.
Numbers 7 and 8 above illustrate the enormous difference between The Urantia Book’s account of earth-moon relationships during their construction phase and that formulated from scientific investigations. The Urantia Book has the earth and the moon following a parallel pathway of growth through the 2.5 billion years ago period but diverging at 2.0 billion years ago when the Earth captured “enormous space bodies.” In contrast, modern science has utilized advanced techniques to produce a picture in which both the earth and the moon utilized the same pool of building materials in a process (the accumulation of mass) that was virtually complete for each around 4.6 billion years ago.
For the moon, volcanic activity and lava flow continued until 3.2 billion years ago, after which activity ceased other than for occasional collisions with meteorites.
This was a time at which The Urantia Book claims building activity for both earth and moon had hardly commenced. (The Urantia Book says 2.5 billion years ago the earth was 1/10th its present mass.)
According to The Urantia Book between 1.5 and 1.0 billion years ago the “whole earth was a veritable fiery inferno” towards the end of which “for thousands of years Urantia was enveloped in a continuous blanket of steam” through which “the sun never shone upon the earth’s surface.” This, the Book states, was the time of appearance of the first primitive ocean and the formation of sediments on the ocean floor. However because there was no free oxygen in the atmosphere, these early oceanic deposits were devoid of “colored stones or shales.” (UB 57:7.9) Presumably this comment refers to the absence of iron salts in their ferric (oxidized) form which are from red to reddish-brown.
But according to modern science the reality was entirely different. Colored sedimentary deposits that originated in oceans are dated to be at least 2.5 billion years old and as a result of oxygenation of the ocean waters through photosynthesis.[1] Stromatolites that are formed in the shallow oceans may be up to thirty meters thick and ten meters high–and are the product of colonies of living organisms. Foremost among these are the photosynthetic Cyanacae bacteria often wrongly called blue-green algae. Some stromatolites are dated to go back as far as 3.9 billion years ago, and analysis of zircons from sedimentary rocks in Western Australia place ocean formation beyond 4.3 billion years ago [2] [^71]–a conclusion in line with the dating of oceanic stromatolites of 3.9 billion years ago.
Another group of organisms are called the Ediacarans, named after the mountain range in South Australia where their fossil remains were first found. In the fossilized crawling trails of sea-bottom-dwelling worm-like creatures that date back close to 1 billion years ago, the Ediacarans provide the first unequivocal evidence of more highly developed life forms than the bacteria. All Ediacarans were sea dwelling forms. One type, Charniodiscus had a holdfast to anchor it to the sea bed and a leaf-like structure that grew to about 10 feet in length. Others used dwelling tubes composed of calcium carbonate (lime) and were most probably sessile, filter feeding worm-like creatures. Though very primitive, some of these animals are now believed to have possessed muscles, internal organs, and head and tail regions.
Prior to 1.0 billion years ago, life consisted of prokaryotes, single cell bacteria that do not have their DNA protected in a cell nucleus plus eukaryote bacteria that do. The prokaryotes came into being almost 4 billion years ago. The eukaryotes may have come into being as far back as 2.7 billion years. The evidence for this is the occurrence of steranes in the shales of Western Australia. These are hydrocarbon molecules that are produced exclusively by eukaryotic organisms. Fossils from other eukaryotic organisms such as Eosphaera and Huraniospora are dated at 1.9 billion years ago.
None of these organisms could have survived that interval between 1.5 and 1.0 billion years ago when The Urantia Book says the sun failed to “shine upon the earth’s surface for thousands of years.” So either this failure simply did not happen or else life was created for a second time. Also the evidence provided by the stromatolites for continuity of the world’s oceans since more than 4 billion years ago is either false or else The Urania Book’s claim of the primitive ocean first occurring towards the conclusion of the 1.5 to 1.0 billion years ago interval is false.
Whereas there is a wealth of evidence to support the conclusion of early oceans existing 4 billion years ago and for the life forms that lived therein, there is no physical evidence to support The Urantia Book’s version of the first primitive ocean occurring just over 1 billion years ago nor for the assertion that its appearance was preceded by “thousands of years” when the “sun never shone on the earth’s surface.”
To ask readers of The Urantia Book to believe this unsupported evidence in the face of verified scientific evidence to the contrary is akin to the demand of many fundamentalist Christians to believe that both the Old and the New testaments are the absolute word of God–and therefore that Noah really did pack one pair of all the world’s animal species into his arc, that the whale really did swallow Jonah and vomit him up three days later on dry land, that God did hold the sun stationary in the sky thus providing the light allowing Joshua to kill off the Amorites, the enemies of his chosen people!
That brings us to the Life Carriers 550 million years ago and their introduction of “life” to Urantia. There is almost a surfeit of evidence for what both scientists and laymen call “life” throughout time almost to the birth of our planet more than 4 billion years ago. The presence of stromatolites at that time is overwhelming evidence that life was also already present–and because of the complexity of “life,” even considerably earlier. All stromatolites are formed by colonies of organisms, at least one of which was photosynthetic in order to provide an energy source for the colony. The minimum requirement for such an organism is that it could reproduce itself, as well as synthesize a complex organic system capable of trapping sunlight energy (photosynthesis) and making it available in a form the organism could use.
What is the likelihood that such an organism came together simply by chance? All living organisms currently on earth utilize a multitude of different proteins to carry out their vital functions. There is no good reason to believe that an organism we call “living” has ever done anything else. Proteins consist of amino acids strung together in a specific sequence that has for a template, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)–which consists of a string of simpler molecules called nucleotides. Each amino acid requires three nucleotides to specify its place in the string that forms a protein molecule. What are the chances for that template DNA being strung together correctly to specify a single medium size protein? Calculation puts this at one chance in 10150 —an impossibly slight chance.
A single protein molecule could not generate a self-reproducing, functional, living organism able to synthesize and operate a photosynthetic unit such as does the Cyanacae bacterium.
A human being is thought to have about 25,000 genes and between 80,000 and 100,000 functional protein molecules.[3] The complexity of putting together a self-reproducing, photosynthetic Cyanacae cell would certainly require hundreds if not thousands of unique protein molecules. To do so by some kind of random selection of amino-acid sequence for its protein molecules is just not a possibility. Hence it appears that the Life Carriers were operative on Urantia way back more than 4 billion years ago. For reasons of their own, they simply have not told us about the real commencement of life on this planet.
It is quite apparent that Urantia required billions of years of planned preparation prior to introduction of higher life forms than the prokaryote bacteria. One reason was the need for an appropriate mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and also an ozone layer to protect life forms from the harmful rays of ultraviolet light from the sun.
The limiting factor for the increase of atmospheric oxygen appears to have been the level of soluble iron salts dissolved in the ocean water. These had to be oxidized by the oxygen from photosynthesis, likewise dissolved in the ocean water, to the insoluble ferric form before that oxygen could be released into the atmosphere. These reddish-brown, fully oxidized, sedimentary rocks were laid down up to the 1.7 to 1.8 billion years ago interval. Younger rocks have the characteristics of having formed in an oxygen rich atmosphere and thus provide evidence for the function of life–the photosynthetic Cyanacae bacteria–in the evolution of our planet and its atmosphere.[1:1] Land plants, now the major contributors of oxygen to our atmosphere, did not appear until about half a billion years ago.
On (UB 57:7.9), The Urantia Book has: “Even in the later periods the continuing lava flows and the incoming meteors kept the oxygen of the air almost completely used up. Even the early deposits of the soon appearing primitive ocean contain no colored stones or shales. And for a long time after this ocean appeared, there was virtually no free oxygen in the atmosphere; and it did not appear in significant quantities until it was later generated by the seaweeds and other forms of vegetable life.”
Modern science has the oceans appearing around 4 billion years ago, and the colored oceanic sediments disappearing by 1.7 billion years ago due to the presence of oxygen from bacterial photosynthesis. The Urantia Book’s account has the first ocean appearing at 1 to 1.5 billion years ago and oxygen appearing in our atmosphere only after the Life Carriers’ implantation of life forms 550 million years ago.
All the information so far contained in this article is available in current popular science journals as well as being accessible through internet search facilities.[4] [5]
Only recently, with the aid of advanced technology, have we had an account of earth-moon relationships and early earth history in which we can have real confidence. And now that we have it we must accept that most of the account given by the Life Carriers for this earth-moon period prior to 550 million years ago is simply incorrect. Moreover, the Life Carriers who wrote this account must have known it is incorrect.
How can we explain such error in a revelation? The real answer to that question is to read all of the revelation and to discover what it really says.
One answer is that because there are definite limitations to revelation–some of which are set out under the heading of The Limitations of Revelation on UB 101:4.1:
“Because your world is generally ignorant of origins, even of physical origins, it has appeared to be wise from time to time to provide instruction in cosmology. And always has this made trouble for the future. The laws of revelation hamper us greatly by their proscription of the impartation of unearned or premature knowledge. Any cosmology presented as a part of revealed religion is destined to be outgrown in a very short time. Accordingly, future students of such a revelation are tempted to discard any element of genuine religious truth it may contain because they discover errors on the face of the associated cosmologies therein presented.” (UB 101:4.1)
If this statement is taken exactly as it was written then surely no Urantia Book reader should be surprised when they discover errors in the Book’s cosmology?
The revelation continues with: “Mankind should understand that we who participate in the revelation of truth are very rigorously limited by the instructions of our superiors. We are not at liberty to anticipate the scientific discoveries of a thousand years. Revelators must act in accordance with the instructions which form a part of the revelation mandate. We see no way of overcoming this difficulty, either now or at any future time. We full well know that, while the historic facts and religious truths of this series of revelatory presentations will stand on the records of the ages to come, within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision in consequence of additional scientific developments and new discoveries. These new developments we even now foresee, but we are forbidden to include such humanly undiscovered facts in the revelatory records.” (UB 101:4.2)
And at the bottom of page UB 101:4.5 the revelators conclude with, “statements with reference to cosmology are never inspired.” What else can “never inspired” mean other than that their cosmology is “never infallible?”
Interpreted literally then, we should expect that where it was necessary to provide continuity in some area of the sciences, the revelators would be forced to include material that, though not factual, would nevertheless act as a stop-gap until such time as our science caught up.
On UB 115:1.1, such stop-gap material is termed a “framework in which to think:”
“Partial, incomplete, and evolving intellects would be helpless in the master universe, would be unable to form the first rational thought pattern, were it not for the innate ability of all mind, high or low, to form a universe frame in which to think.”
And in the next paragraph, “Conceptual frames of the universe are only relatively true; they are serviceable scaffolding which must eventually give way before the expansions of enlarging cosmic comprehension.”
There appears to be very little, if any, of the erroneous science in earth-moon relations that is not covered by these statements.
Another answer to why there is error–in fact why there must be error in the Urantia Papers–is that God has given us free will. Hence to provide us with a revelation that is infallible and demonstrably free of all error would surely place a severe strain upon our liberty to choose to either believe or not to believe that revelation.
“No personal creature can be coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only in response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will.” (UB 5:6.12)
“No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute.” (UB 5:6.8)
“Free will is supreme in moral affairs, even God’s indwelling Spirit refuses to compel any individual to think a single thought or to perform a single act against the choosing of their own will.” (UB 66:8.6)
“. . .it would be a colossal blunder for the creature to know the future. They heighten man’s taste for the sweetness of uncertainty, for the romance and charm of the indefinite and unknown future.” (UB 39:5.9)
“But long before reaching Havona, these ascendant children of time have learned to feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappointment, to enthuse over apparent defeat, to invigorate in the presence of difficulties, to exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity, and to exercise unconquerable faith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable. Long since, the battle cry of these pilgrims became: ”In liaison with God, nothing–absolutely nothing–is impossible." (UB 26:5.3)
“Uncertainty with security is the essence of the Paradise adventure–uncertainty in time and in mind, uncertainty as to the events of the unfolding Paradise ascent; security in spirit and in eternity, security in the unqualified trust of the creature son in the divine compassion and infinite love of the Universal Father; uncertainty as an inexperienced citizen of the universe; security as an ascending son in the universe mansions of an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving Father.” (UB 111:7.1)
And so we conclude that during our earthly career we are expected–are destined–to live with error and uncertainty. And faith is our ultimate need. For that is God’s way.
“Jesus laid great emphasis upon what he called the two truths of first import in the teachings of the kingdom, and they are: the attainment of salvation by faith and faith alone, associated with the revolutionary teaching of the attainment of human liberty through the sincere recognition of truth, ‘you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” (UB 141:7.6)
The occurrence of error in The Urantia Book gives us no option other than to make our decision about it, “by faith and faith alone.” Associated is the recognition that such truth can truly set us free.
Zircons and Earth-Moon Relations | Volume 12 - No. 3 — Index | Is The Urantia Book Believable? Is it Logical? |