© 1999 Larry Mullins
© 1999 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
“If something has become a religion in your experience, it is self-evident thatyou already have become an active evangel of that religion since you deem the supreme concept of your religion as being worthy of the worship of all mankind, all universe intelligences. If you are not a positive and missionary evangel of your religion, you are self-deceived in that what you call a religion is only a traditional belief or a mere system of intellectual philosophy.” (UB 160:5.3)
Dr. Sprunger began an energetic and programmed outreach to Christian ministerial colleagues decades ago. Such an appeal to individuals with degrees and professional expertise, for most of us lay persons, is out of the question. How can we hope to interest a professor or a professional religionist in the Urantia Papers? However, we should keep in mind that the Urantia Papers refer to Jesus as a layperson, and makes the comment that “ the world’s greatest religious teacher was indeed a layman.” (p. 2091)
J.J. Johnson of Phoenix recently achieved an important break-through by introducing the Urantia Papers to Dr. Mark A. S. McMenamin, a professor of Geology at Holyoke College. Because Johnson made a direct written appeal to this open-minded scientist, The Urantia Book received a favorable, if qualified, acknowledgement in several pages of a recent book by Dr. McMenamin. The professor generally lauded The Urantia Book’s early presentation of a continental drift theory, a presentation far advanced from the ideas of Wegener, who first proposed continental drift. McMenamin is noted for his ground-breaking discoveries, and his latest mainstream book: The Garden of Ediacara, [1] is published by the prestigious Columbia University Press.
J.J. Johnson of Phoenix recently achieved an important break-through by introducing the Urantia Papers to Dr. Mark A. S. McMenamin, a professor of Geology at Holyoke College. Because Johnson made a direct written appeal to this open-minded scientist, The Urantia Book received a favorable, if qualified, acknowledgement in several pages of a recent book by Dr. McMenamin.
An exchange of letters between Johnson and Dr. McMenamin was set into motion when Johnson spotted an article on one of the professor’s geological finds in the Phoenix newspaper. As a result, McMenamin examined the material in the Urantia Papers and agreed it was far ahead of its time, even allowing for the publication date of 1955. A few excerpts from Dr. McMenamin’s book, The Garden of Ediacara:
“Clearly we are not dealing here with an orthodox scientific treatise. Nevertheless, the anonymous members of the Urantia Corps hit on some remarkable scientific revelations in the mid-1930’s. They embraced continental drift at a time when it was decidedly out of vogue in the scientific community. They recognized the presence of a global supercontinent (Rodinia) and superocean (Mirovia), in existence on earth before Pangea.” (p. 174)
Another excerpt:
"Of course I am being selective here in my choice of quotations, and there are reams of scientifically untenable material in The Urantia Book. However, the concept of a billion-year-old supercontinent (the currently accepted age for the formation of Rodinia) that subsequently split apart, forming gradually widening ocean basins in which early marine life flourished, is unquestionably present in this book.
“Orthodox scientific arguments for such a proposal did not appear until the late 1960s, and a pre-Pangea supercontinent was never described until Valentine and Moores made the attempt in 1970. The Urantia Corps not only had the age of the formation of Rodinia approximately correct at 1 billion years, but they also were first to link breakup of Rodinia to the emergence of animals… Furthermore, they even got the timing of that approximately correct at 650 to 600 million years ago (‘These inland seas of olden times were truly the cradle of evolution’)… one wonders how The Urantia Book authors arrived at the concept of a Proterozoic supercontinent, and the link between breakup of this supercontinent and the emergence of complex life in the ensuing rift oceans, 30 years before most geologists accepted continental drift and nearly four decades before scientists had any inkling that Rodinia existed.” (p. 174-5)
“I am not advocating an abandonment of a disciplined scientific peer review process, but I can’t help but wonder whether science would benefit by having scientists themselves or friends of science systematically scan the various nonscientific literatures for writings such as those appearing in The Urantia Book. Scientists would ordinarily ignore and dismiss such writings, but a discerning eye might pick up some gems.” (p. 176)
However, perhaps the key paragraph in Dr. MeMenamin’s presentation is this one:
“I am not advocating an abandonment of a disciplined scientific peer review process, but I can’t help but wonder whether science would benefit by having scientists themselves or friends of science systematically scan the various nonscientific literatures for writings such as those appearing in The UrantiaBook. Scientists would ordinarily ignore and dismiss such writings, but a discerning eye might pick up some gems.” (p. 176)
It should be noted here that the Urantia Papers state on page 1109: “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.” A reasonable question might arise here as to whether geologic history is possibly a kind of historic fact, especially since it appears in the Papers under Part III: “The History of Urantia.” Regardless of this, however, a precedent has been set, and the door is left open for additional dialogue.
There are other area’s of Dr. McMenamin’s book that seek answers and impinge upon the information that could be supplied in The Urantia Book. These include the puzzle of parallel evolution: How could the precisely same evolutionary traits appear in species that were widely separated by environment? Dr. McMenamin postulates that evolution may have been largely determined by internally driven factors intrinsic to the species themselves, and only moderately adaptive to environment. This idea, of course, is presented in The Urantia Book.
It is unfortunate that Martin Gardner did not have a balanced evaluation of the science in The Urantia Book and completely ignored the authors’ observation that the science of the Papers would soon need to be revised. Now there is a fresh opportunity to reach scientists, especially those who would like the benefit of some insightful Urantia Book“gems.”
“The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in the wholehearted effort to reach the border land of spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence.” UB 196:3.34
McMenamin, Mark A. S. The Garden of Ediacara. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. ↩︎