© 1997 The Fellowship for readers of The Urantia Book
This article on The Urantia Book was recently published in the Sunday supplement of a newspaper in Colombia. It appeared in a section similar to Parade magazine and received widespread attention in that country. It features comments from long-time Urantia Book reader Carlos Zapata in Colombia.
It is said that it was dictated by 33 celestial beings. Its over 2,000 pages contain enigmatic documents that speak of the universe, God and the human race. The book, which before was circulated clandestinely in Colombia, now has a club of followers.
¶ It’s Curious
It began its circulation humbly in our nation, not even in total content, with photocopied sheets which were distributed in closed and specific groups, whose members gathered to analyze its contents. This mysterious document is called The Urantia Book. Today it is found in major libraries at the disposal of those who want and can enter in the fantastic and spiritual world in accordance with a new era.
The Urantia Book (the cosmic name of the earth) has 2,097 pages and is divided in alternate themes which make up 196 documents, which proclaim to be a revelation given and authorized by spiritual beings. In other words and to be more precise, it is affirmed that its 33 authors all are celestials. Hence, there is no one human as an author. The masterpiece has been translated into various languages, including French, Spanish, Finnish and there are some editions under way in Chinese, Russian and German.
According to the scholars of The Urantia Book, its origin goes back to the year 1924, when celestial supervisors, somewhat superhuman beings, directed themselves to men and women in Chicago so they would become part of this revelation. This group was known previously as the Contact Commission. Afterwards the process was developed during more than 30 years until the publication of this masterpiece in 1955.
¶ Club of Followers
According to the authors of this piece, the universe is full of inhabited planets and is the home to thousands of civilizations that are billions of years old. In our local universe are 10 million planets, which is merely a small part of a superuniverse. In each superuniverse there are 1 billion inhabited planets. Since there are seven, then there are 7 billion inhabited planets, some more advanced than others.
Having God as the principle axle, the labor of Urantia concentrates on the concept of good and evil. “The evil that we human beings commit,” affirms Carlos Zapata, the first Colombian that gave knowledge of this book to Colombia at the beginning of the decade of the 1970s — “is by pure unconsciousness. Even then, God is with us, watching bestialities that we commit. Nevertheless, he respects that freedom that he has given us, with the objective that we continue to learn about life and seek him.”
For those who follow the teachings of the book, hell, as a place, doesn’t exist. Those who do not wish to follow the path of life, simply cease to exist after death here on earth. “God loves us and wants us all to survive, men and women. Nevertheless, we have the liberty to accept or reject him.” The Bible only describes few days of Jesus’ path on earth. For a change, The Urantia Book dedicates 775 pages to only speak of him. There, details of his life are revealed, of which almost no one knows.
“The Urantia Book is not related with any sects or cults. Cult devotees follow blindly an authoritative figure, charismatic and opportunistic, which sooner or later induces them to give them their fidelity and terrestrial belongings,” Carlos Zapata comments. “It is opposed to the adoration of either person, image or thing which is not directly God. Till now no reader has been found who has The Urantia Book as an object of a cult.”
Before the explosion of this labor there was in Colombia a confraternity of readers of The Urantia Book, an organization which has various hundreds of study groups around the world, the majority of these which gather weekly to comment or discuss the book.
