© 2020 Nigel Nunn
© 2020 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
By Nigel Nunn, ACT
¶ Video 4D
The Urantia Book presents a cosmology that stirs the soul: a central and perfect universe, fringed by spacetime shallows in which finaliters are born; finaliters, destined to launch from this cosmic continental shelf into oceanic depths, seeding the light and life of personality throughout nested levels of outer space.
Soul stirring indeed! A cosmology pervaded by meaning and value, eclipsing in its scope our finest Sci-fi. What a relief from the consensus materialist models that native science has managed to evolve.
However, right after having thus stirred our souls, these authors pour cold water over our expectations. From Paper 101 section 4:
…within a few short years many of our statements regarding the physical sciences will stand in need of revision… [UB 101:4.2]
“Will stand in need of revision”. When compared with current consensus cosmology, of a young universe beginning with a hot Big Bang, the cosmology of The Urantia Book is so unorthodox, and so apparently wrong, that some students of these papers now see this cosmology as little more than decoration for the book’s more important themes: its spiritual and philosophical revelations. But take another look at those “Limitations of Revelation” discussed in Paper 101. Immediately after stating that, with regard to scientific facts they were limited in what could reveal, they go on to list a number of things they were permitted to do. The first of these is especially interesting. Again, from Paper 101 section 4:
The reduction of confusion by the authoritative elimination of error. [UB 101:4.6]
“[T]he authoritative elimination of error.” As far as I can tell, there is only one place where the authors point explicitly to one of our scientific assumptions, and tell us bluntly that it’s wrong. This is in Paper 12, regarding the use of redshift to determine the distance to galaxies in outer space. From Paper 12 section 4,
…But this apparent speed of recession is not real;… [UB 12:4.14]
Recall that the “apparent speed of recession” of distant galaxies forms the foundation of our current consensus cosmology, that the universe began with a hot big bang a mere 14 billion years ago. So if this “apparent speed of recession” is in fact “not real”, then this single assumption (about “Hubble’s Law”) is indeed responsible for an awful lot of confusion! And so the authors would be well within their rights to attempt some “reduction of confusion by the authoritative elimination of error”.
Which opens the door to an opportunity: that students of The Urantia Book present a model of the cosmos that explains all the data and anomalies that (increasingly!) confuse and contradict current mainstream assumptions. One attempt to sketch the outlines of such a model is taking shape at this link:
Playlist – Urantia Book Cosmology
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLujf81__tQbQ_tAoVrvr6xOPm4XkZUStU
Regarding the (missing) final video in this series, the James Webb Space Telescope is due to be launched late this year (November 2021). Given what this (infrared-optimized) space telescope might reveal, video Part 4D is being tuned to predict a few simple but game-changing facts about our home spiral of stars, the ancient Milky Way. Stay tuned!
Nigel Nunn
Presentation of the same name by Nigel Nunn at the Scientific Symposium 2019, Urantia Foundations Headquarters, Chicago, USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9neaFSIqhc