© 1986 Jim McNelly
© 1986 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
Every rational mind carries with it a sense of reality and cosmology, an inner image of the universe and the individual’s place within it. For many people, their “world view” is a disorganized mass of facts, beliefs, traditions, and superstitions with the ego at the center of their vague and amorphous internalized universe. The egocentric model of the universe extends beyond the individual’s self concept; it can grow to shape his created institutions into the distorting service of self. Egocentricity is most tragic in the formulation of religious institutions since those organizations operate under the pretext of advocating spirituality and selflessness.
The URANTIA Book represents a radical shift in man’s view of the universe and the place of the individual within it. More than just a new cosmology, this revelation portrays a universe where the individual ego must alter its perception of itself within this new model of the universe and undergo changes in the personal concept of his origin, purpose, and destiny. The URANTIA Book uses its cosmological framework to help draw individuals out of their isolated, and often lonely, inner world. It gradually and gently induces the self to effect changes in the religious life, the inner life, where the creature can establish a meaningful relationship with the Creator.
Jim McNelly
Kansas City. Missouri
“All religions teach the worship of Deity and some doctrine of human salvation. The religion of Jesus is salvation from self, deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.” (UB 5:4.5)