In the name "dark body", was replaced with "black hole". Naturally, The Urantia Book uses the old terminology. Current theory has it that the source of novas and supernovas is the gravitational collapse of spent stars. For stars near the mass of our sun, the final result is the formation of a white dwarf with density such that a thimbleful would weigh about 1O tons. For stars more than about 5 times the mass of the sun, the result is a neutron star with density million tons per thimble.
During the final blast initiating neutron star formation, vast quantities of tiny uncharged particles, the neutrinos, are released. This does not happen during the formation of white dwarfs. For stars with mass certainly greater than 8 solar masses, perhaps as much as about 25 times that of our sun, the ultimate fate is contraction to a black hole of such enormous density that, once inside, nothing can escape its gravitational grasp.
The mother sphere of the Crab nebula is described as being the remnant of one such gravitational collapse. The existence of the tiny uncharged particles, the neutrinos, was not demonstrated until We now know that the neutron star which is the mother sphere of the Crab nebula is a pulsar, and that it gives off visible light as well as pulsed radio waves and X-rays.
During the 's it was realized that the Nordstrom-Reissner solution to Einstein's equations describing the gravitational field of a static electric charge allowed for a charged black hole, the theory of which was developed by Kerr and Newmann. However, in his book "The Universe" , W.
Kaufmann tells us that a black hole is not expected to possess any appreciable electric charge, and that astronomers neglect electric charge when discussing black holes. Kaufmann also tells us that although a black hole can have a tiny electric charge, it cannot have any magnetic field whatsoever. Quite recently, the idea that a black hole could not be highly charged has been reversed Price and Thorne, In describing the formation of our solar system, The Urantia Book p.
This description now aligns with most recent concepts regarding black holes. Here we are being told that black holes can be re-cycled, something that was not thought to happen prior to the publication in of Stephen Hawking's theory on the escape of virtual particles at the event horizon of a black hole. For any large black hole this is a very slow process that would certainly take 'ages upon ages' to occur.
Perhaps the use of the terms 'collision' and 'revivifying cosmic happening' refer to events such as is occurring with the recently discovered binary pulsar system termed PSR A. This consists of a neutron star that is stripping matter from a white dwarf. Presumably this could lead to the ultimate formation of a black hole that would radiate itself away by the Hawking process. There are many references in The Urantia Book to dark bodies many of which must be black holes. These are used by the Power Directors pages , to ensure gravitational stability for various systems, and for the control of energy flow.
At the time of receipt of the Urantia Papers in , if we had asked a panel of astronomers to estimate the chances that black holes and neutron stars really existed, the answer would have been virtually no chance. To the same question in , the date of publication of The Urantia Book, the answer would have been at least to one against. In , astronomers have been forced to accept that black holes and neutron stars are common place, highly charged black holes have gained respectability, and we have learned that black hole formation is not necessarily irreversible.
Once more, statements that may have been considered incredible and unscientific at the time of receipt of the Urantia Papers, have now come to coincide with up-to-date scientific opinion. The Urantia Book, pages , , ; Hoyle, F. Narlikar, "The Physics- Astronomy Frontier", p. Glasziou, Newsletter Vol. In the Glomar Challenger sailed for the Mediterranean Sea. Two scientists, Bill Ryan and Ken Hsu, were looking for evidence of the early history of the Mediterranean.
At a site miles east of the Strait of Gibraltar they drilled for a core sample. Around Urantia it was a time of mountain building and volcanic activity. The Mediterranean was connected to the Atlantic Ocean for a while by a channel across France so that the mountain peaks of that region stood above the water as islands in a sea. Later the Mediterranean connected with the Indian Ocean, but by 10 million years ago when the Suez was elevated, the Mediterranean was cut off from the oceans of the world and became for a time an inland salt sea.
As the scientists attempted to obtain a sample of the sea floor their drill bit became stuck. Upon retrieval they discovered the last section of their pipe filled with a strange type of gravel composed of only four components: Their find amazed the team. For a short time all the land was again joined except for Australia. Five million years ago the land connection between Africa and South America submerged and the Western Hemisphere became isolated much as it is today.
This time is usually called the Pliocene. The scientists obtained one thousand feet of core sample. The rock record revealed a time of rising alpine mountains and continental collisions. Other sites around the Mediterranean were sampled. Each time they found the bedrock covered with limestone, then gypsum containing shells of very small sea creatures. In their search for an answer to what this meant the scientists examined gravel in other places of the world.
For examples they found gravels in Death Valley, California, to be composed of a great variety of components, and they concluded these were washed down from surrounding areas. Gravels do not form at the bottom of a sea, however, and the Mediterranean gravels were different. They had never been washed down. They had occurred in place. The tiny animals were adults that had survived in an extreme environment, a stressed community.
Ile gypsum could have only formed through evaporation. The limestone could have formed from dried up oozes. The scientists had found evidence of an evaporative tidal flat with volcanic activity nearby. They found a record of a cataclysmic event near the Straight of Gibraltar. Then one-half million years ago the Mediterranean Sea retreated consequent upon the elevation of Arabia and the Sangik peoples of this time were able to reach Africa. The superior Sangiks migrated to northern more temperate climes, but the orange, green, and indigo races gravitated to Africa over this newly elevated land bridge separating the westward retreating Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean.
The scientists found that the rivers and rains that flow and fall into the Mediterranean Sea do not bring in enough water to match the evaporation from the hot sun. Their core samples showed areas of soils on the slopes, tidal flats along the margins, and in the middle Mediterranean, the last drill site in the center of the abyssal plain, the deepest part of the sea, they hit rock salt! They concluded that the very middle of the Mediterranean was at one time completely dry.
Moreover, they found over feet of salt deposits in places. Since it takes the evaporation of about 50 feet of salt water to form one foot of solid salt, they knew that even if the entire Mediterranean dried up there would not be enough water for the amount of salt they had found. Then the Sicilian land bridge submerged, and the Mediterranean became one sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean.
This great cataclysm caused the highest loss of life by flood in all of the world's history. To account for their theory that the Mediterranean had once been an inland sea, the scientists speculated on how the Mediterranean had been closed. They concluded that the Straight of Gibraltar had opened and closed throughout history. At once cutting off the Mediterranean from its western source and then suddenly, cataclysmally, breaking and exposing the relatively dry basin to the onrush of the open Atlantic cascading over a falls perhaps a kilometer in height.
The onslaught of water was so forceful it broke the sound barrier as it fell and washed away three million years of the rock record. At the same time the coast of the eastern Mediterranean was greatly elevated. Then on page we are told that during the earlier days of the violet race the Mediterranean trough was protected by the Gibraltar isthmus and the Sicilian land bridge, and early maritime commerce was established on these inland lakes.
The Nile delta was slowly rising along with the upthrust of the Saharan area and the shifting of the water-laden winds from the west to the north turned these once great pasture areas into barren desert. There was additional evidence to support the scientists' theories. When the Aswan Dam was being built in the late 's, a Soviet geologist named Chumakov was working on the foundations.
He found a deep notch right through the Nubian granite of the Nile valley. Although he did not understand the mechanism at the time, he concluded that the Nile had at one time formed a great waterfall in the area. He deduced that the only way this could have happened was if the sea level of the Mediterranean had dropped hundreds of meters. After communicating with Ryan and Hsu, they came to an understanding of the dynamics of the Mediterranean: It was the only way to explain their findings.
They published their papers together. The Urantia Book details millions of years of geologic history for us in the section on the history of Urantia. Included in this detail is a record of the Mediterranean basin before and after it was inhabited by man. We are instructed of its connection to the open oceans and of its periodic isolation. We know the land was elevated then subsequently submerged and deluged as the water receded and then returned. It is a wonderful history, full of long eventless periods punctuated by cataclysmic occurrences and highlighted by gradual changes.
This history is important to us and this importance is only now being understood. Twenty years after their original findings Bill Ryan and Ken Hsu are completely convinced that the Mediterranean has not always been as it is today. Although there are still many skeptics, they know this region has shown historic periods of deep open sea, inland salt lakes, shallow tidal basins, and barren salt and sand deserts.
They understand that the sea level has risen and fallen along with corresponding parts of the continents and land bridges. They believe these geologic changes have happened many times over the past and that they might even happen again. What these scientists do not yet know is that they have unwittingly helped to confirm a documented history of this region that was written even before the tools to complete their deep sea survey had been developed. And although we do not need their findings, their theories, and their speculations to maintain our belief in the fifth epochal revelation, it is work by people such as these that increases our understanding and our awe of the great knowledge and wisdom of the presenters of The Urantia Book.
Frank Wright in "Pursuit of Wisdom" Vol. The Urantia Book contains much scientific information. Since its publication some of this data has been discovered and confirmed and some has not. It gives me an indescribable feeling when I read something in the book that has since been shown to exist by way of the scientific method.
Even when the short term interpretation of some data does not align with the explanation given, the book proves over and over again that its authors are privy to a range of information that would revolutionize science as we know it today. This small statement might go unnoticed to someone not familiar with cosmology or astrophysics. But to someone trained in these fields, this information, coming as it did in and published in , is revelational.
Before most scientists assumed that interstellar space was without heat. It was believed that space existed at a temperature of absolute zero. Absolute zero is the temperature of an object whose molecular motion is at a minimum. Molecular action does not cease at this coldest possible temperature degrees Celsius, degrees Fahrenheit, or 0 degrees Kelvin , but kinetic energy, the motion of matter, can go no lower as we know it.
It was also widely believed that space was empty, although complex molecules have subsequently been discovered in deep space. The Urantia Book states on p. The scientific world began to discover traces of infrared radiation, heat, in unexpected areas. In while working at Mt. Wilson, Dunham and Adams discovered puzzling interstellar absorption lines. After analysis of their data, it was suggested that the molecules observed were being kept at a temperature of 3 degrees Kelvin.
This theory seemed too simple to be taken seriously at the time. The data lay dormant for 25 years as the technology of astrophysical instrumentation progressed. In Gamow and associates, from John Hopkins, suggested a vestigial cosmic radiation bath might still persist if the universe had an explosive origin. They found an excess noise corresponding to radiation at a temperature of about 3 degrees impinging on Earth from all directions. In Penzias and Wilson were awarded a share of the Nobel prize in physics for their discovery of this microwave background radiation. To explain this mysterious background radiation it was postulated that this evenly distributed low-grade space temperature was a remnant of the Big Bang.
It has since been used as the main evidence to support this theory. It is even used to trace the cosmos back to the very first milliseconds of the universe's existence! Of course, The Urantia Book seems to indicate that there was no Big Bang, and the very latest measurements of the cosmic background radiation do not fit the theory either. It seems that the scientists have predicted the measurements of the cosmic background radiation to form the roughly bell-shaped curve of a blackbody radiator when graphed.
Deep space should act like a blackbody, a perfect absorber or emitter of radiation. However, before only part of the spectrum of this background radiation had been measured. All of the measurements had been made on one side of the curve as the atmosphere blocks out shorter wavelengths and the Earth itself radiates profusely and swamps the subtle cosmic signal. So the other side of the curve had been conjecture for 25 years. It was just assumed that this side also fit the blackbody curve.
In , two scientists finally succeeded in measuring points on this unknown side. Their findings are causing trouble for many of their colleagues. They do not fit the blackbody curve. They are about IO percent higher than expected. So New conjecture has arisen to account for this irregularity. It will take cosmologists some time and more work will need to be done to confirm the recent findings. The next few years should prove interesting as New data from this area is collected and analyzed.
It is more than coincidence that the latest scientific evidence does not support popular scientific theories like the Big Bang. For now, it is sufficient to say that the latest evidence does support the information given in The Urantia Book. Frank Wright in Pursuit of Wisdom, Vol. Physical Science with Modern Applications. Assuming no trickery, a coin toss has only two possible results. Despite our prejudice to the contrary, what happened on the previous trials has absolutely no effect on the outcome of the next trial. So if I lose four times in a row, the chances on the next trial are still even.
Many a hopeful gambler has been bankrupted by assuming the contrary. In such cases the odds are easily calculated. To win twice in a row, there is one chance in four, to win three times in a row, there is one chance in nine, and for four in a row, it is one in sixteen. Those with some mathematical knowledge will recognize that the odds are one in 2 raised to the power equal to the number of trials — i. If there are six alternative results, as with dice, then the chances of achieving the same result twice in a row are 1 in 62, that is 1 chance in 36, and for n number of trials it is I in 6n.
The examples given are simple, clear cut cases for which estimating probabilities is no problem. In cases where the amount of prior knowledge becomes a factor, then the difficulties are often quite subjective. For example, in the early 's or even 's, virtually all professional geologists on the North American continent would have rejected the concept of continental drift. By the period, perhaps fifty percent would accept it as highly probable, and by there would be little argument against the concept.
So, in being totally dogmatic about continental drift in the mid 's, the authors of The Urantia Book have not only gone against all professional opinion, but have gone even further by nominating the date of commencement as million years ago. This was done in spite of opinion by its proponents that the continental drift commenced only million years ago.
Current opinion is that both dates are approximately correct, the first break up occurring at about the time nominated in The Urantia Book, but that the land masses drifted back together again, then drifted apart approximately million years ago. There is no way to make a mathematical assessment on the probability of making the correct guess in the mid 's. In a subjective assessment, most of us would say 'extremely remote'.
In the case of the dates for the Star of Bethlehem, assessment is more straight forward. Allowing that we have chosen the year correctly, and no other information is available, we have to guess three independent dates for the same year. Hence we have one chance in 3 65 of getting the first date correct, one chance in of getting the next one as well, and one chance in of getting all three correct, which comes to one chance in 48,27, It so happens that the computer estimated dates are the same as The Urantia Book for two of the days and out by one day for the third.
It is not known which is correct; for two different reasons, only seconds may make the difference about which day is selected for the conjunction. A knowledgeable astronomer might have been able to reduce the odds somewhat of guessing these dates correctly prior to super computers becoming available, but the chances would remain in the order of one in many millions. Not all the information in The Urantia Book is correct, and this problem has been discussed earlier.
Undoubtedly some of the apparent errors are because of the mandate given to the authors in that they were not permitted to disclose unearned knowledge — with some exceptions. For those having virtually no knowledge of the mathematical theory of probability and knowledge of only basic generalities in science, it may help to consider the weighting to be given to the various apparently prophetic statements. If we read The Urantia Book statement about planetary atmospheres on Venus and Mars, we find we could make two guesses, each with three possible results.
So, with no prior knowledge being available, we have I chance in 3 of getting one correct, but only I chance in 9 of getting both correct. But this also means we have eight chances of being wrong compared to only one of being right. And of course in those instances in which there is only a one in a million chance of being right, we could have made , wrong guesses. In other words it is far easier to be wrong than it is to be right. At a time when scientists believed the whole universe was about 2 billion years old, The Urantia Book stated that our solar system commenced to be formed 4.
Present estimates for the age of out solar system are given as 4. What were the chances of guessing this correctly? The answer no chance. Many different authors have been involved in producing the Urantia Papers, ranging from exalted beings such as a Divine Counselor to much more lowly beings such as secondary midwayers. The degree of freedom allocated to individual authors is indicated in the explanation given for the writing of the summary of Jesus' teachings at Urmia.
Here we are told page that neither the seraphim of the churches nor the seraphim of progress agreed with this account as prepared by three secondary midwayers. Obviously the seraphim thought that the account was in error, and in view of their status relative to secondary midwayers, perhaps we would have expected their opinion to prevail. Nevertheless the summary was permitted to stand. It may be advantageous to put ourselves in the place of an author given the responsibility to write one of the Urantia Papers. Imagine, for example, being a particle physicist having detailed and up to date knowledge of all advances in our field of expertise that have occurred since about Imagine now being transported back to and instructed to summarize the knowledge then prevailing in out field, but with the proviso that we must conform with the mandate given to the authors of the Urantia Papers.
Since one of our instructions is that we must not reveal unearned knowledge, it follows that we cannot even imply that any current theory may be wrong since this too can be interpreted as conveying unearned knowledge. Imagine too that we must put our own interpretation on the requirements of the mandate, because that appears to be the case for The Urantia Book — different authors certainly appear to have been permitted to interpret the provisions of the mandate in different ways.
It is only when we undertake such a task seriously that we even start to appreciate the difficulties faced by the authors of the Papers all of whom would have been aware of universe policy that we humans must find our own way to truth through personal experience. Presumably the authors of papers that include scientific material were not restricted to the use of published work only — particularly as it was customary during the 's for many quite famous scientists to consider that publication of their work was beneath their dignity.
In that period, ideas were often circulated in letters between individuals and whole theories could be gradually built up without any individual having any real right to lay claim to authorship. Then, as now, lots of ideas were also conveyed in discussion at seminars or presented at meetings of various societies. There is no reason to believe that use of unpublished work would have been denied to the authors of the Urantia Papers.
An example of what might have occurred may be gleaned from the statement on p. The scientific literature credits this discovery independently to two authors, one in the U. Bethe and the other in Germany von Weizsacker but their work was not published until , four years after receipt of the relevant Urantia Paper. Did the author of the Paper provide us with unearned knowledge?
The very fact that two geographically widely-separated authors published the same information at the same time may indicate that the discovery was ripe to be made, and that perhaps the general concept had been around for some time waiting for someone to put it together with the right pieces of evidence to be able to claim authorship of a published account. If this was the case, it could have been quite valid for the author of the Urantia Paper to class this material as earned knowledge.
On the other hand it is possible that the information was included inadvertently, or else it was thought to come under the heading of transient clarification of knowledge as defined in the mandate of page There are many instances of this kind of information becoming available in the Urantia Papers long before it became accepted by-the scientific community. Although some such cases may be a re-statement of unpublished material, there is much that does not appear to be in this category that would have to be considered as either an inadvertent disclosure or else coming into the category of information that transiently clarifies knowledge as per the mandate.
Whether or not this apparently prophetic material can increase confidence in the revelatory validity of the Papers depends on an assessment of the probability of an item of information being correct through guesswork, and mostly this cannot be done without a reasonable depth of knowledge of the subject involved and some knowledge of statistical probability theory. For some of us, the case for the revelatory validity of The Urantia Book has certainly been strengthened by such assessments. However, as well as numerous statements that appear to be prophetic, one can also find statements that appear to be in error; even some that could be interpreted as permitted error.
Without doubt The Urantia Book is a deep and mysterious book.
Possibly, some of the prophetic items to be discussed only became prophetic because scientists diverged from a pathway they were on when the Papers were written. Unquestionably the philosophy of the book is contrary to the expectation that it should be validated by its scientific disclosures, and in any case, the extraordinary manner of its presentation ensures that, in the long run, our acceptance of its revelatory status and its ethical, moral, and religious teaching really is dependent upon our personal experience of the God-within-us.
The problem of what constitutes proof is an ancient one, but perhaps more understanding has been gleaned in the last century than during the previous several thousand years.
However, the quite remarkable work that has accumulated is almost all couched in the obscure language of logicians, in particular mathematical logicians, and since most of us do not like their conclusions anyhow, very little of the results of their work has penetrated even into academic circles. A great deal of the work by these logicians has been concerned with the development of a formalized language that is both precise and adequate for the expression of any mathematical concept.
The importance of their work for science is obvious, because mathematics is the very basis of all science and much else besides. However, the results of their work have been devastating for our aspirations to attain to an absolute knowledge of the universe. The first major crack in what appeared to be watertight sets of axioms basic to mathematics came from the work of Kurt Godel in , who showed that for any consistent axiomatic theory that was adequate to describe elementary arithmetic there will always be statements that can neither be proved nor disproved from its axioms First Incompleteness Theorem.
Worse still Godel's Second Incompleteness Theorem showed that the notion of consistency is destined to remain forever elusive. After the initial shock, academia settled down to sweep Godel under the carpet by promoting the notion that incompleteness did not affect 'real' problems. Support for this view grew because Cantor was able to formulate a very general mathematical framework of set theory that appeared to serve as a foundation for all mathematics.
This comfortable state of affairs continued until when Paul Cohen did to set theory what Godel had done to the earlier axiomatic systems. No recovery has since been made from the second shock wave, and Cohen's initial discovery has been followed by the application of his method method of forcing to show the undecidability of a great many classical unsolved problems of mathematics.
It is now generally agreed that the illness is terminal. Undoubtedly this exposition is tedious to many, probably most, readers. However it is not necessary to digest its content other than to recognize that the finest mathematical and logical brains among us have not been able to provide rigorous proof of even the axioms of simple arithmetic. Hence the lesson for all of us is that we are exceedingly naive about what constitutes proof, and we very much need to'hone our critical faculties in regard to what we accept as fact, or the opinions we promote to others as conclusively proven facts.
The Urantia Book has provided us with much wisdom on this topic. The Papers arrived at a time when our mathematicians considered that their discipline was the most rigorous of all, but Paper , p. This Paper reminds us of our need for searching and fearless self-criticism, and a greater awareness of the incompleteness and evolutionary status of our knowledge. It also makes the comment that we are often too self-confident and dogmatic. We might note from the above quote that both science and religion are predicated on assumptions' which, though sometimes almost infinitely less rigorous, are nevertheless kin to the axioms of mathematical logic.
Behind any opinion that we put forward, there is always a set of unstated assumptions axioms upon which the validity of our opinion is dependent. It is up to us as individuals to assess our own attitude to that claim. Many of us accept it without reservation. However even those who do likewise must still differentiate between those parts of the book that are authoritative revelation and other parts that have been given to us to help coordinate our present endowment of knowledge, which is, of course, somewhat elementary and partial.
Much of the science component of the book is merely a coordinating statement on the status of scientific knowledge as it stood in the early 's and much of the science that we find in the book has since been superseded. Some, however, appears to be both prophetic and extraordinary. The Urantia Book does not specifically differentiate its revelatory passages, and it is incumbent upon us, as individuals, to recognize revelatory authority when we see it.
For example, when the Book attributes to Jesus himself, the statement that our souls have not had previous existences, it seems inconceivable that we can do other than accept it as revelatory knowledge. Either we must accept it as such or else we must reject the claim of the Book to be revelatory. In such an instance, proof is not involved. But though we may be able to find a thousand or more intellectual arguments to support the revelatory claim of the Book, in the final analysis, acceptance is not dependent upon that elusive entity we have termed 'proof but is an act of faith contingent upon personal experience of the God who is our Father, and his Son who is our Creator and our Master — and yet also our brother.
The Urantia Book informs us that we all have the necessary gifts to lift us above and beyond the confusion of our materialistically-dominated thought processes because of certain inherent assumptions that are integrated into-the human mind as gifted to us via the mind circuits of the Infinite Spirit. Again this is revelation, proof is irrelevant. Our willingness to accept these gifts and to believe them has the direct result that we live lives led by spirit, motivated by truth and dominated by love p. How can we know when we are spirit-led?
And thus commences the personal journey that the Book is really all about, the journey that is initiated in the mortal state and which leads ultimately to the very presence of the Father. In the following sections of this exposition, material will be presented that is difficult to account for excepting by the hypothesis that the authors of the Urantia Papers had access to sources that were not available to ordinary humans at the time of their receipt in the mid's.
This date has been selected rather than the time of first publication of The Urantia Book in , on the grounds that we, the editors of this exposition, all have had personal knowledge of people who were members of the Forum, the group that studied the Papers prior to publication in book form, and have total confidence in their assurance that the Papers as published were as received. However, in most instances it would make no difference if was used as the starting point. The Urantia Papers were received in and published in book form in Many of these items have since been found to be either correct or to now coincide with current scientific opinion.
The probability of achieving this result through random guesswork is virtually zero. In the section covering the life of Jesus, more than specific dates have been assigned a particular day of the week. Our calendar has changed considerably since those times such that it would be a Herculean task to attempt to correctly assign the day of the week to a particular date without the aid of a computer.
Even with a computer, this is still an onerous task. Matt Neibaur has done this for eight different dates and found that in each case The Urantia Book has named the correct day of the week for those dates. From the broader perspective, there will be no Almighty apart from the Supreme, no Supreme apart from the Almighty. The Infinite Mind is the function of the Infinite Spirit; the cosmic mind, the ministry of the Seven Master Spirits; the Supreme Mind is in process of actualizing in the co-ordination of the grand universe and in functional association with the revelation and attainment of God the Sevenfold.
Clean - The Supreme Being. The Supreme Being With God the Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status — one must do something as well as be something. Relativity of Concept Frames If mind cannot fathom conclusions, if it cannot penetrate to true origins, then will such mind unfailingly postulate conclusions and invent origins that it may have a means of logical thought within the frame of these mind-created postulates. And while such universe frames for creature thought are indispensable to rational intellectual operations, they are, without exception, erroneous to a greater or lesser degree.
The understandings of truth, beauty, and goodness, morality, ethics, duty, love, divinity, origin, existence, purpose, destiny, time, space, even Deity, are only relatively true. Man must think in a mortal universe frame, but that does not mean that he cannot envision other and higher frames within which thought can take place. Of these only the absolute is unqualifiedly eternal, truly existential. Absonites and finites are derivatives, modifications, qualifications, and attenuations of the original and primordial absolute reality of infinity.
Finite creatures, high and low, may propound theories, and have done so, as to the necessity of the finite in the cosmic economy, but in the last analysis it exists because God so willed. The universe cannot be explained, neither can a finite creature offer a rational reason for his own individual existence without appealing to the prior acts and pre-existent volition of ancestral beings, Creators or procreators. The Absolute Basis for Supremacy But the fact that infinity is thus existentially present in these absolute associations in no way makes it impossible to realize new cosmic experientials.
We do not comprehend how the value of anything infinite and divine could possibly be increased. But we discover that meanings can be modified if not augmented even in the relations of infinite Deity. To the experiential universes even divine values are increased as actualities by enlarged comprehension of reality meanings.
Clean - Seraphic Planetary Government. Seraphic Planetary Government There were assigned to my command two hundred seraphic hosts — ,, pairs of seraphim, or 1,,, individual angels. The registry, however, shows 1,,, individuals; it follows therefore that ,, angels were absent from this world on transport, messenger, and death duty. On Urantia there are about the same number of cherubim as seraphim, and they are similarly organized. The angels, ably assisted by the midwayers, function on Urantia as the actual supermaterial ministers who execute the mandates of the resident governor general and all his associates and subordinates.
Seraphim as a class are occupied with many assignments other than those of personal and group guardianship. But the planetary government is unlike that of any other world in the Satania system, even in all Nebadon. This uniqueness in your plan of supervision is due to a number of unusual circumstances: The life modification status of Urantia.
The exigencies of the Lucifer rebellion. The disruptions of the Adamic default. The irregularities growing out of the fact that Urantia was one of the bestowal worlds of the Universe Sovereign. Michael of Nebadon is the Planetary Prince of Urantia. The special function of the twenty-four planetary directors. The more recent designation of the onetime incarnated Machiventa Melchizedek as vicegerent Planetary Prince. The Sovereignty of Urantia It was first delegated by him to a joint commission of Melchizedeks and Life Carriers, and this group functioned on Urantia until the arrival of a regularly constituted Planetary Prince.
Such a proclamation in surety and in principle forever settled the status of your world, but in practice the Sovereign Creator Son made no gesture of personal administration of the planet aside from the establishment of the Jerusem commission of twenty-four former Urantians with authority to represent him in the government of Urantia and all other quarantined planets in the system. One of this council is now always resident on Urantia as resident governor general.
It appears to c. Clean - Seraphic Guardians of Destiny. Seraphic Guardians of Destiny In past ages on Urantia, these destiny guardians were about the only group of angels that had recognition. The planetary seraphim are indeed ministering spirits sent forth to do service for those who shall survive. These attending seraphim have functioned as the spiritual helpers of mortal man in all the great events of the past and the present. They have ministered on Urantia since the earliest times of human intelligence. The Guardian Angels It was in recognition of this that Jesus, in speaking of the children of the heavenly kingdom, said: But since the bestowal of Michael, they are assigned in accordance with human intelligence, spirituality, and destiny.
Intellectually, mankind is divided into three classes: The subnormal minded — those who do not exercise normal will power; those who do not make average decisions. This class embraces those who cannot comprehend God; they lack capacity for the intelligent worship of Deity. The subnormal beings of Urantia have a corps of seraphim, one company, with one battalion of cherubim, assigned to minister to them and to witness that justice and mercy are extended to them in the life struggles of the sphere.
The average, normal type of human mind. From the standpoint of seraphic ministry, most men and women are grouped in seven classes in accordance with their status in making the circles of human progress and spiritual development. The supernormal minded — those of great decision and undoubted potential of spiritual achievement; men and women who enjoy more or less contact with their indwelling Adjusters; members of the various reserve corps of destiny.
No matter in what circle a human happens to be, if such an individual becomes enrolled in any of the several reserve corps of destiny, right then and there, personal seraphim are assigned, and from that time until the earthly career is finished, that mortal will enjoy the continuous ministry and unceasing watchcare of a guardian angel. Also, when any human being makes the supreme decision, when there is a real betrothal with the Adjuster, a personal guardian is immediately assigned to that soul.
You start out in your mind of mortal investment in the seventh circle and journey inward in the task of self-understanding, self-conquest, and self-mastery; and circle by circle you advance until if natural death does not terminate your career and transfer your struggles to the mansion worlds you reach the first or inner circle of relative contact and communion with the indwelling Adjuster. Clean - Personality Survival. Urantia is your starting point; here you and your divine Thought Adjuster are joined in temporary union. You have been endowed with a perfect guide; therefore, if you will sincerely run the race of time and gain the final goal of faith, the reward of the ages shall be yours; you will be eternally united with your indwelling Adjuster.
Then will begin your real life, the ascending life, to which your present mortal state is but the vestibule. Then will begin your exalted and progressive mission as finaliters in the eternity which stretches out before you. And throughout all of these successive ages and stages of evolutionary growth, there is one part of you that remains absolutely unaltered, and that is personality — permanence in the presence of change.
Personality is that quality in reality which is bestowed by the Universal Father himself or by the Conjoint Actor, acting for the Father. It may be bestowed upon any living energy system which includes mind or spirit. It is not wholly subject to the fetters of antecedent causation. It is relatively creative or cocreative. When bestowed upon evolutionary material creatures, it causes spirit to strive for the mastery of energy-matter through the mediation of mind. Personality, while devoid of identity, can unify the identity of any living energy system.
It discloses only qualitative response to the personality circuit in contradistinction to the three energies which show both qualitative and quantitative response to gravity. Personality is changeless in the presence of change. It can make a gift to God — dedication of the free will to the doing of the will of God. It is characterized by morality — awareness of relativity of relationship with other persons. It discerns conduct levels and choosingly discriminates between them. Personality is unique, absolutely unique: It is unique in time and space; it is unique in eternity and on Paradise; it is unique when bestowed — there are no duplicates; it is unique during every moment of existence; it is unique in relation to God — he is no respecter of persons, but neither does he add them together, for they are nonaddable — they are associable but nontotalable.
Personality responds directly to other-personality presence. It is one thing which can be added to spirit, thus illustrating the primacy of the Father in relation to the Son. Mind does not have to be added to spirit. Personality may survive mortal death with identity in the surviving soul.
The Adjuster and the personality are changeless; the relationship between them in the soul is nothing but change, continuing evolution; and if this change growth ceased, the soul would cease. Personality is uniquely conscious of time, and this is something other than the time perception of mind or spirit. Personality and Reality Such a divine gift is designed to function on numerous levels and in successive universe situations ranging from the lowly finite to the highest absonite, even to the borders of the absolute.
Personality thus performs on three cosmic planes or in three universe phases: Clean - The Adjuster and the Soul.
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The Adjuster and the Soul The morontia soul is the child of the universe and may be really known only through cosmic insight and spiritual discovery. Many of the Oriental as well as some of the Occidental faiths have perceived that man is divine in heritage as well as human in inheritance. The feeling of the inner presence in addition to the external omnipresence of Deity has long formed a part of many Urantian religions.
Men have long believed that there is something growing within the human nature, something vital that is destined to endure beyond the short span of temporal life. The savage associated the soul with blood, breath, shadows and with reflections of the self in water. The Chinese, however, recognized two aspects of a human being, the yang and the yin, the soul and the spirit. The Egyptians and many African tribes also believed in two factors, the ka and the ba; the soul was not usually believed to be pre-existent, only the spirit.
They taught that this guardian spirit remained with the mortal subject throughout life and passed before him into the future estate. On the walls of a temple at Luxor, where is depicted the birth of Amenhotep III, the little prince is pictured on the arm of the Nile god, and near him is another child, in appearance identical with the prince, which is a symbol of that entity which the Egyptians called the ka. This sculpture was completed in the fifteenth century before Christ. When an Egyptian of this period died, it was expected that his ka would be waiting for him on the other side of the Great River.
At first, only kings were supposed to have kas, but presently all righteous men were believed to possess them. One Egyptian ruler, speaking of the ka within his heart, said: I prospered thereby greatly; I was thus successful by reason of that which it caused me to do; I was distinguished by its guidance.
Many primitive peoples believed the soul looked out upon the world through human eyes; therefore did they so cravenly fear the malevolence of the evil eye. The Mind Arena of Choice Clean - Relation of Adjusters to Individual Mortals. Relation of Adjusters to Individual Mortals The love of the Sons in their ministry to the races is superb, but the devotion of an Adjuster to the individual is touchingly sublime, divinely Fatherlike.
The Paradise Father has apparently reserved this form of personal contact with his individual creatures as an exclusive Creator prerogative. And there is nothing in all the universe of universes exactly comparable to the marvelous ministry of these impersonal entities that so fascinatingly indwell the children of the evolutionary planets. Indwelling the Mortal Mind They are not organic parts of the physical creatures of the realms. The Thought Adjuster may more properly be envisaged as indwelling the mortal mind of man rather than as existing within the confines of a single physical organ.
And indirectly and unrecognized the Adjuster is constantly communicating with the human subject, especially during those sublime experiences of the worshipful contact of mind with spirit in the superconsciousness. These heavenly helpers are dedicated to the stupendous task of guiding you safely inward and upward to the celestial haven of happiness. These tireless toilers are consecrated to the future personification of the triumph of divine truth in your life everlasting. They are the watchful workers who pilot the God-conscious human mind away from the shoals of evil while expertly guiding the evolving soul of man toward the divine harbors of perfection on far-distant and eternal shores.
The Adjusters are loving leaders, your safe and sure guides through the dark and uncertain mazes of your short earthly career; they are the patient teachers who so constantly urge their subjects forward in the paths of progressive perfection. They are the careful custodians of the sublime values of creature character. I wish you could love them more, co-operate with them more fully, and cherish them more affectionately. They are delighted to contribute to your health, happiness, and true prosperity. They are not indifferent to your success in all matters of planetary advancement which are not inimical to your future life of eternal progress.
The Adjuster, while passive regarding purely temporal welfare, is divinely active concerning all the affairs of your eternal future. Clean - Relation of Adjusters to Universe Creatures. Relation of Adjusters to Universe Creatures As the personality of the human child expands for the struggles of evolutionary existence, so does the Adjuster wax great in the rehearsals of the next stage of ascending life. As the child acquires adaptative versatility for his adult activities through the social and play life of early childhood, so does the indwelling Adjuster achieve skill for the next stage of cosmic life by virtue of the preliminary mortal planning and rehearsing of those activities which have to do with the morontia career.
Human existence constitutes a period of practice which is effectively utilized by the Adjuster in preparing for the increased responsibilities and the greater opportunities of a future life. Today, the Thought Adjusters are, as it were, rehearsing the realities of the universe career in the evolving minds of human beings. Development of Adjusters There undoubtedly also exists an extensive system for retraining Adjusters of indwelling experience before they embark upon new missions of mortal association, but, again, we do not actually know. This additional training is made possible by the experience of having indwelt a human being, and it is always imparted before the Adjuster is remanded to the evolutionary worlds of time.
The perfection of the divinity of a newly formed Thought Adjuster does not in any manner endow this Mystery Monitor with experienced ministrative ability. Experience is inseparable from a living existence; it is the one thing which no amount of divine endowment can absolve you from the necessity of securing by actual living. Therefore, in common with all beings living and functioning within the present sphere of the Supreme, Thought Adjusters must acquire experience; they must evolve from the lower, inexperienced, to the higher, more experienced, groups.
They progressively acquire Adjuster skill and ability as a result of any and all contacts with the material races, regardless of the survival or nonsurvival of their particular mortal subjects. They are also equal partners of the human mind in fostering the evolution of the immortal soul of survival capacity. Thus, while you are in nature evolving inward and upward from man to God, the Adjusters are in nature evolving outward and downward from God to man; and so will the final product of this union of divinity and humanity eternally be the son of man and the son of God.
You should also recognize a certain functional classification — the self-acting Adjusters. A self-acting Adjuster is one who: Has had certain requisite experience in the evolving life of a will creature, eit. Clean - Mission and Ministry of Thought Adjusters. Mission and Ministry of Thought Adjusters Their mission is also that of elevating the mortal minds and of translating the immortal souls of men up to the divine heights and spiritual levels of Paradise perfection.
And in the experience of thus transforming the human nature of the temporal creature into the divine nature of the eternal finaliter, the Adjusters bring into existence a unique type of being, a being consisting in the eternal union of the perfect Adjuster and the perfected creature which it would be impossible to duplicate by any other universe technique. The infinite God is, as always, replete and complete, infinitely inclusive of all things except evil and creature experience.
God cannot do wrong; he is infallible. The infinity of the eternal God encompasses the potential for finite experience, which indeed becomes actual in the ministry of the Adjuster fragments that actually share the life vicissitude experiences of human beings.
Selection and Assignment We cannot explain the basis of Adjuster assignment, but we conjecture that these divine gifts are bestowed in accordance with some wise and efficient policy of eternal fitness of adaptation to the indwelt personality. We do observe that the more experienced Adjuster is often the indweller of the higher type of human mind; human inheritance must therefore be a considerable factor in determining selection and assignment.
But before ever they volunteer, they are in possession of full data respecting the candidate for indwelling. The seraphic drafts of ancestry and projected patterns of life conduct are transmitted via Paradise to the reserve corps of Adjusters on Divinington by the reflectivity technique extending inward from the capitals of the local universes to the headquarters of the superuniverses. This forecast covers not only the hereditary antecedents of the mortal candidate but also the estimate of probable intellectual endowment and spiritual capacity.
The Adjusters thus volunteer to indwell minds of whose intimate natures they have been fully apprised. Is the mind normal? What is the intellectual potential, the intelligence capacity? Can the individual develop into a bona fide will creature? Will wisdom have an opportunity to function? The prospects of reverential development, the birth and growth of the religious nature.
What is the potential of soul, the probable spiritual capacity of receptivity? Combined intellectual and spiritual powers. The degree to which these two endowments may possibly be associated, combined, so as to produce strength of human character and co. Clean - Origin and Nature of Thought Adjusters. Origin and Nature of Thought Adjusters The eternal Father is at one and the same time farthest removed from, and most intimately associated with, his planetary mortal sons. The fragment of God which indwells the mind of man is the absolute and unqualified assurance that man can find the Universal Father in association with this divine Adjuster, which came forth from God to find man and sonship him even in the days of the flesh.
Every mortal who is consciously or unconsciously following the leading of his indwelling Adjuster is living in accordance with the will of God. Eternal fusion of the Adjuster with the evolutionary soul of man is the factual experience of eternal union with God as a universe associate of Deity. The Adjuster is the living presence which actually links the mortal son with his Paradise Father and draws him nearer and nearer to the Father. From the arrival of the Adjuster to comparative full growth, about twenty years of age on Urantia, the Monitors are sometimes designated Thought Changers.
From this time to the attainment of the age of discretion, about forty years, the Mystery Monitors are called Thought Adjusters. From the attainment of discretion to deliverance from the flesh, they are often referred to as Thought Controllers. These three phases of mortal life have no connection with the three stages of Adjuster progress in mind duplication and soul evolution.
Origin of Thought Adjusters Clean - Universe Levels of Reality. Universe Levels of Reality These manifold existents and latents have been previously suggested in these papers, and they are now grouped for conceptual convenience in the following categories: This is the present status of the ascending creatures of the grand universe, the present status of Urantia mortals. This level embraces creature existence from the planetary human up to, but not including, destiny attainers.
It pertains to universes from early physical beginnings up to, but not including, settlement in light and life. This level constitutes the present periphery of creative activity in time and space. It appears to be moving outward from Paradise, for the closing of the present universe age, which will witness the grand universe attainment of light and life, will also and surely witness the appearance of some new order of developmental growth in the first outer space level. This is the present status of all experiential creatures who have attained destiny — destiny as revealed within the scope of the present universe age.
Even universes can attain to the maximum of status, both spiritually and physically. And that which is maximum, seemingly final, in the present universe age may be no more than a real beginning in terms of the ages to come. Some phases of Havona appear to be on the maximum order. This superfinite level antecedently follows finite progression. It implies the prefinite genesis of finite beginnings and the postfinite significance of all apparent finite endings or destinies. Much of Paradise-Havona appears to be on the transcendental order.
This level encompasses that which is of master universe significance and impinges on the destiny level of the completed master universe. This level implies the projection of experientials upon a supermaster universe field of creative expression. This level connotes the eternity presence of the seven existential Absolutes. It may also involve some degree of associative experiential attainment, but if so, we do not understand how, perhaps through the contact potential of personality. This level is pre-existential and postexperiential.
Unqualified unity of infinity is a hypothetical reality before all beginnings and after all destinies. There are a number of other ways of looking at reality from other-than-mortal perspective and from the standpoint of other universe ages. Thus it should be recognized that the concepts herewith presented are entirely relative, relative in the sense of being conditioned and limited by: Clean - Deity and Reality.
Deity and Reality The human mind, as it seeks to penetrate the eternity-mystery of the origin and destiny of all that is called real, may helpfully approach the problem by conceiving eternity-infinity as an almost limitless ellipse which is produced by one absolute cause, and which functions throughout this universal circle of endless diversification, ever seeking some absolute and infinite potential of destiny.
Nevertheless, we may attempt such a presentation, although we are fully aware that our concepts must be subjected to profound distortion in the process of translation-modification to the comprehension level of mortal mind. Nevertheless, the philosophic concept of the I AM does afford finite beings some basis for an attempted approach to the partial comprehension of absolute origins and infinite destinies.
But in all our attempts to elucidate the genesis and fruition of reality, let it be made clear that this concept of the I AM is, in all personality meanings and values, synonymous with the First Person of Deity, the Universal Father of all personalities. But this postulate of the I AM is not so clearly identifiable in undeified realms of universal reality. The concept of the I AM connotes unqualified infinity, the undifferentiated reality of all that could ever be in all of an infinite eternity. No qualification can be applied to the Infinite except to state that the I AM is.
The philosophic postulate of the I AM is one universe concept which is somewhat more difficult of comprehension than that of the Unqualified Absolute. The prereality, primordial, eternity situation may be thought of something like this: At some infinitely distant, hypothetical, past-eternity moment, the I AM may be conceived as both thing and no thing, as both cause and effect, as both volition and response.
At this hypothetical eternity moment there is no differentiation throughout all infinity. Infinity is filled by the Infinite; the Infinite encompasses infinity. This is the hypothetical static moment of eternity; actuals are still contained within their potentials,. Clean - Growth of the Trinity Concept. Growth of the Trinity Concept The ideas of triads arose from many suggestive relationships but chiefly because of the three joints of the fingers, because three legs were the fewest which could stabilize a stool, because three support points could keep up a tent; furthermore, primitive man, for a long time, could not count beyond three.
Three cheers are given the victor. The dead are buried on the third day, and the ghost is placated by three ablutions of water. Later on, the Persians, Hindus, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, and Scandinavians all had triad gods, but these were still not true trinities. Triad deities all had a natural origin and have appeared at one time or another among most of the intelligent peoples of Urantia. Sometimes the concept of an evolutionary triad has become mixed with that of a revealed Trinity; in these instances it is often impossible to distinguish one from the other.
Urantian Trinity Concepts This earliest Trinity concept was lost to the world in the unsettled times following the planetary rebellion. These teachings had not been wholly obliterated even in the times of Machiventa Melchizedek about thirty-five thousand years later, for the Trinity concept of the Sethites persisted in both Mesopotamia and Egypt but more especially in India, where it was long perpetuated in Agni, the Vedic three-headed fire god. Most of his disciples thought that the Trinity consisted of the three Most Highs of Norlatiadek; a few conceived of the Trinity as the System Sovereign, the Constellation Father, and the local universe Creator Deity; still fewer even remotely grasped the idea of the Paradise association of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
It is often difficult to distinguish between the triads and the trinities in the later Andite and the post-Melchizedek ages, when both concepts to a certain extent intermingled and coalesced. A later Indian conception was Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu. While the earlier Trinity portrayals were brought to India by the Sethite priests, the later ideas of the Trinity were imported by the Salem missionaries and were developed by the native intellects of India through a compounding of these doctrines with the evolutionary triad conceptions.
The earlier was Teac. Clean - The Reality of Religious Experience. The Reality of Religious Experience Subsequent to the bestowals of the Paradise Sons the liberated Spirit of Truth makes mighty contributions to the enlargement of the human capacity to perceive religious truths. As evolution advances on an inhabited world, the Thought Adjusters increasingly participate in the development of the higher types of human religious insight. The Thought Adjuster is the cosmic window through which the finite creature may faith-glimpse the certainties and divinities of limitless Deity, the Universal Father.
As natural religious experience continues to progress, periodic revelations of truth punctuate the otherwise slow-moving course of planetary evolution. Natural or evolutionary religion. Supernatural or revelatory religion. Practical or current religion, varying degrees of the admixture of natural and supernatural religions. Philosophic religions, man-made or philosophically thought-out theologic doctrines and reason-created religions. Philosophy of Religion It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest in the welfare of other men.
But since personality is unique — no two mortals being alike — it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the spirit of divinity which lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. And this diversity of the interpretation of religious thought and experience is shown by the fact that twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five hundred different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of the divine impulses emanating from the God spirit that indwells him, and therefore must such an interpretation be unique and wholly different from the religious philosophy of all other human beings.
Religion is primarily a pursuit of values, and then there formulates a system of interpretative beliefs. It is much easier for me. Clean - The Foundations of Religious Faith. The Foundations of Religious Faith His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction.
Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good. Assurances of Faith If any man chooses to do the divine will, he shall know the way of truth. What knowledge and reason cannot do for us, true wisdom admonishes us to allow faith to accomplish through religious insight and spiritual transformation.
Truth remains unchanged from generation to generation, but the associated teachings about the physical world vary from day to day and from year to year. Eternal truth should not be slighted because it chances to be found in company with obsolete ideas regarding the material world. The more of science you know, the less sure you can be; the more of religion you have, the more certain you are.
Science appeals to the understanding of the mind; religion appeals to the loyalty and devotion of the body, mind, and spirit, even to the whole personality. Clean - The Real Nature of Religion. The Real Nature of Religion But religion, as such, is not merely a moral movement, albeit the outward and social manifestations of religion are mightily influenced by the ethical and moral momentum of human society. The feeling of religious assurance is more than an emotional feeling. The assurance of religion transcends the reason of the mind, even the logic of philosophy. Religion is faith, trust, and assurance.
Religion is not the product of reason, but viewed from within, it is altogether reasonable. Religion is not derived from the logic of human philosophy, but as a mortal experience it is altogether logical. Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfactions while yet in the flesh.
These experiences are made available through the naturally ordained mechanism of mortal mind.
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It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. The divine nature may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind. Such religious experiences result from the impress made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind.
The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply.
Clean - Religion in Human Experience. Religion in Human Experience The fundamental problem with Neo-Darwinism according to Intelligent Design proponents—teleologists—is related primarily to random mutation. There are limitations of natural selection as well, but there are profound difficulties involved in the probabilities they point to related to random mutation. That Intelligent Design is focused almost exclusively on the mutation side of the Neo-Darwinian mechanism is commonly misunderstood. The probabilities of a small, random, beneficial change occurring are far better than the probabilities of a large systemic beneficial change occurring because the probabilities of a large change are prohibitive.
If you build complexity by small incremental changes and lock them in by natural selection at each step, the probabilities of each small step are added together to form a much lower overall probability of an entire system built over vast amounts of time. For a large systemic change that encompasses the equivalent of those several small random changes, to occur in one step, would mean that you multiply the probabilities of each distinct change required to achieve the probabilities of what would be a single large systemic change.
What we will see is that not only is natural selection inadequate to create complexity in the evolution of life, but it is especially incapable of creating complexity insofar as the origin of life. But, it gets far worse for materialism. The aspect of reality that produces the greatest degree of complexity over the shortest period of time is in the mind of humans. Explaining why this is the case, will be the most important focus of the paper. The origin of life is a separate study from Neo-Darwinism. Consciousness is also an unsolved problem but here again, materialists will tell us with the highest level of assurance, that they know that consciousness and all thought is reducible to brain chemistry.
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Rest assured materialist scientists are busying themselves trying to show that these seemingly scientifically intractable problems—these apparent limitations to material causes that nature may seem to have, are not insurmountable. The goal of the scientific enterprise is to describe or model all reality in purely naturalistic terms. The confidence they have that all phenomenon will be explainable in purely naturalist terms seems to have arisen from what they believe to have been the crowning achievement of science in the 20th century—the establishment of the Modern.
The ultimate goal of many materialist scientists is to convince us all that they, and only they, are the experts and more importantly that eternal annihilation is our ultimate destiny. Most materialists view reality—the universe—as a physically causally closed system that does not permit any outside influence. Classical physics seems to discount the possibility of an influence or interaction by some imagined immaterial agent or force. Classical physics was deterministic in theory and precluded the idea of free will and mind-brain interaction where mind is understood to be immaterial.
Therefore, materialists study reality under the assumption that natural laws govern all events, i. Methodological naturalism started out being a method of inquiry but has evolved to a wholehearted acceptance of materialism for the vast majority of academic scientists.
Is the universe casually closed? William Hasker Cornell University philosopher of mind says this about the causal closure argument as applied to substance dualism ,. This argument may well hold the all-time record for overrated objections to major philosophical positions. Tuffs University Philosopher Daniel Dennett uses the causal closure argument in his book, Consciousness Explained and regards it as decisive.
How then do they make a difference to what happens in the brain cells they must affect, if the mind is to have any influence over the body? By extension, quantum physics is an enabling theory for an open universe and therefore offers a denial of the principle of the causal closure of the universe. It should be noted that there are some interpretations of quantum mechanics that deny that nature is inherently probabilistic and view nature as deterministic nonetheless.
No mass or energy is necessarily required to determine which of the set of possible states a [quantum] wave function will collapse upon observation. Neither of these opinions has any rational basis in contemporary physics. The probability wave can perhaps best be thought of as an unrealized potential that materializes in a random, i. The probability wave is not really a physical wave, it is an abstraction, it just represents a known-probability distribution of the way a particle will materialize once observed.
How does nature decide on a particular result? No one knows; nature gives only probability. In quantum mechanics the position of an object is not independent of its observation at that position. The observed cannot be separated from the observer. A human observer does not appear to be necessary although some claim that a human observer is ultimately necessary. This is the subject of some heated debates. There is an uncertainty inherent in the properties of all wave-like systems—Heisenberg Uncertainty principle—that arises in quantum mechanics simply due to the matter-wave nature of all quantum objects.
It is a fundamental property of quantum systems. This fundamental property means that the universe may not be causally closed and further that there is no way for human observers to determine whether it is or not. The first step in understanding why it is implausible to suppose that Neo-Darwinism or any other purely materialist theory of evolution can account for the complex specified information exhibited by living organisms, is to look at the staggering complexity of living organisms revealed by current research.
We can then assess whether material causation can account for this complexity and if not ascribe it to agency causation—intelligent design. You will be hearing a lot about microbiologist Dr. James Shapiro in this paper, so let me introduce him here in full. They acquire information about external and internal conditions, transmit and process that information inside the cell, compute the appropriate biochemical or biomechanical response, and activate the molecules needed to execute that response. Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts.
Neither James Shapiro nor Bruce Alberts would claim that naturalistic process cannot account for these features of living organisms. But that is an assumption based on their materialist predisposition. Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than gms, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the nonliving world.
Since all biologic functions require proteins to carry out all essential function, assessing complexity in terms of proteins is a good place to start. In order to understand the role of proteins it is helpful to understand how they work in living organisms. Making light of, or being dismissive about, the complexity of life is not an argument; it is a tactic they use to diffuse what is a real problem.
A typical protein will have or more—often many more—amino acids in a string but some have less. The sequence of amino acids in a protein is somewhat specific, meaning that a few changes here and there will often render a protein non-functional, i. Proteins have various domains or subsets of functional segments that can be swapped and assembled like Legos. The following subsections briefly discuss the complexity of some of the key molecular complexes you saw in the animations in terms of protein composition. These molecular complexes support the essential functions in living organisms.
All the examples of molecular machines are subcellular, i. I cannot possibly come close to covering but a small tip of the iceberg of the complexity of these marvelous molecular devices. By way of example, there is an entire plus page book just on the Helicase—the molecular device that unwinds the DNA in preparation for DNA replication. A cell copies its DNA every cycle. Without the ability to copy DNA reliably there would be no life. There are a variety of types of DNA polymerase depending on the type of organism and they even vary depending on cell type.
These protein complexes work in pairs to create two identical DNA strands from a single original double stranded DNA molecule. DNA polymerase works with the Helicase and a variety of other protein complexes during the replication process. The error rate during replication is believed to be in the range of and , based on studies of E. There is a proof reading and error correction feature built into the DNA polymerase protein complex. The DNA polymerase is composed of two protein domains, a polymerase domain and a proofreading domain.
The polymerase domain is composed of three subdomains. There are perhaps as many as fifteen 15 different genes that produce DNA polymerase protein machine. The DNA Helicase continuously opens and unwinds the DNA double helix with a rotational speed of up to 10, rotations per minute, which rivals the rotational speed of jet engine turbines.
Here is an image of the DNA Helicase. The DNA Helicase is very complex. There is an entire page text book dedicated to describing its structures and functions. There are two large complexes and the rest are relatively small and unique to each type of polymerase. A typical mRNA that codes for an average protein takes about 20 seconds in a prokaryotic cell and about 3 minutes in a eukaryotic cell to transcribe.
Watch the animation at the link below to see this marvelous molecular machine in action. The spliceosome is perhaps the most remarkable molecular machines in the cell. The spliceosome has been described as one of " the most complex macromolecular machines known, composed of as many as distinct proteins and five RNAs ".
The small RNAs in each subunit are typically about to nucleotide base pairs long. Watch the animations at the link below to see this marvelous molecular machine in action. The animation above reveals this astonishing machine at work on the initial transcript mRNA. These introns need to be removed in a process called splicing. The spliceosome cuts out these non-coding regions and rejoins the exons, i. The Ribosome is highly complex molecular machine use to synthesize proteins from mRNA following transcription and splicing. The ribosome contains about eighty 80 distinct proteins and a variety of different RNAs.
So the ribosome manufacturers proteins and is itself composed of many proteins. By extension, this means that there is no way to build such an irreducibly complex system incrementally through Neo-Darwinian mechanisms. In all molecular machines there are many essential components due to the interdependencies between components. You can demonstrate irreducible complexity by conducting what are called knock-out experiments. Knock out experiments involve disabling a gene for a specific protein in the molecular machine to determine if the protein produced by that gene is essential to build the molecular machine or to allow it to perform its function.
Irreducible complexity is a specific instance, for example, of complex specified information as it applies to living organisms. One of the examples Behe used in his book was the bacterial flagellum. For a detailed description the flagellum and its operation refer to:. The genes were then duplicated and mutated and then coopted reused and gradually integrated to produce the new function—the flagellum.
More specifically they point out that ten 10 of the genes that code for proteins of the flagellum are also present in another molecular machine—the Type III secretory system—in the bacteria TTSS. The TTSS pump transports proteins across the cell membrane of bacteria. Therefore, it is possible that the TTSS system evolved and some of its genes all ten perhaps were duplicated and coopted for the flagellum. There are a few problems with this cooption theory. First off the flagellum has perhaps has many as forty 40 proteins, so you would still need to explain where the other thirty 30 came from.
Third, even if the TTSS system evolved first and its ten genes were coopted, you would still need to explain the TTSS system with its ten 10 new genes. With this type of story-telling using the TTSS system in the case of the flagellum, Neo-Darwinists have pretty much declared victory, claimed irreducible complexity to have been debunked and moved on.
The whole debate has been a long, detailed, drawn-out debate with nasty edge to it. My view is that the concept of irreducible complexity has not been debunked at all—not even close. I find the explanations offered by Neo-Darwinists to be cartoonish. That irreducible complexity has not been debunked is no doubt what renowned atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel was referring to in his book, Mind and Cosmos: For a good overview of the debate without a lot of the typical nastiness, refer the following video view to the Thus far we have been looking at complexity at the molecular machine level.
These devices are all subcellular. And many of the functions these molecular machines perform must have been in place at some level in the very earliest cells. I wanted to now take a look at a multicellular organ—the eye. In the Cambrian Explosion we see a vast array of complex new animal body plans with complex new features such as the eye. When looking at the complexity of a particular adaptation—an organ—such as the eye, the best way to think about it is to look at the number of new cell types, i. Ultimately what we need to know is how many new proteins and hence genes to define them are required for a new complex feature.
This will give us a rough sense at the complexity involved and the probabilities involved. This is difficult to do, but we can make an educated guess. But the educated guess would have to be based on the ratio of sequences of DNA that yield a viable protein vs the overall set of possible DNA sequences. The Neo-Darwinian accounting of the evolution of the eye is really not evidence, but rather a collection of imaginative stories. What science there is, is based on the most simplistic high level description of how the eye might have evolved at the gross anatomical level.
Trilobites appeared as part of the Cambrian explosion. From the diagram below you can see that there are at least seven cell types in the compound eye and they all have to fit together. It is not clear how many new proteins there are in each cell type of the compound eye. Clearly though, many new proteins would be necessary. Also, an eye would have no value at all without a way to transmit the signal to the brain. And the brain would have to be equipped with a way to process the signal to do something related to survival, that being a requirement of evolution by natural selection.
And the information content expressed as the number of new proteins an their complexity is one thing, but this is to say nothing about how all the various types of cells that make up the eye are arranged symmetrically and in a way to allow the eye to function. Moreover, what is often glossed over in Neo-Darwinian explanations of the eye is that the paleontological record of the Cambrian for example, indicates that there were many new animals and each new animal had a variety of new complex adaptations ranging from digestion, to locomotion to the senses including the eye.
It is hard enough to imagine how these various features could have been culled out piece by piece through mutation and selection but how natural selection acts on multiple disparate nascent features is a further problem that is unresolved. Clearly there are many proteins involved in the essential functions in living organisms. And in order to make these proteins many other proteins are required. It is a massive chicken and egg problem. But how would one gain a sense whether or not a process like Neo-Darwinism could create these marvelous molecular devices and features?
How could you quantify the complex specified information content? Since proteins are required for any biologic function, one way to gain at least some insight into the scope of the problem would be to determine how plausible or not it is for nature to find viable proteins by chance, i. To do this one would need to assess the ratio of DNA sequences that code for viable proteins to the DNA sequences that do not code for a viable protein.
It is analogous to asking: What is the ratio of the number sequences of say human text words that produce a meaningful sentence, versus those sequences of text words that are unintelligible or gibberish. Neo-Darwinists do their best to ignore it by claiming the powers of natural selection enable the process to skirt around any sort of improbabilities critics might throw their way.
But Neo- Darwinism is a tandem process with two necessary causes—mutation and selection. You need the raw material of change mutation prior to selection in the first place that produces a functional protein. Furthermore, the process needs to discover viable DNA sequences that lead to viable proteins at each step along the way otherwise they could not be selected.
Assessing the impact of the protein sampling problem is not an easy problem given the size of protein space number of combinations, 20 assuming most proteins have about amino acids [there are 20 different types of amino acids in living systems] , but there have been estimates. Mathematician Hubert Yockey found that the probability of evolution finding the cytochrome-c protein sequence which is only amino acids residues is about one in 10 To put that number in perspective, a target the size of a grain of sand in the Sahara amounts to about one part in 10 But this is a target for a specific protein albeit a protein of modest size.
In the early s, Robert Sauer professor biology at MIT, made an estimate on a protein of 92 residues that is a small protein, most are about amino acids, some are amino acids. Sauer calculated that the ratio of DNA sequences leading to viable proteins to those yielding no viable proteins to be 1 in 10 Biologist Doug Axe working at Cambridge University conducted the most recent study in Axe conducted a study to determine the significance of the sampling problem for a protein with amino acids.
The outcome of his research was that the ratio of viable to inviable DNA sequences is 1 in 10 In other words, for every DNA sequence that yields a viable protein, there are roughly 10 77 DNA sequences that do not. Obviously for a larger and more realistic protein with or more amino acids, the probabilities related to the sampling problem diminish significantly—become much less probable. Most functions in organism require multiple proteins aggregated together to form a protein molecular machine or complex.
We saw multiple protein complexes and machines are required for any essential cellular function.
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This means that you would add the exponents the 77 in 10 77 for the probability of each protein for any particular molecular device and for all the molecular. Adding all the exponents of all the proteins necessary to carry out any biologic function takes what is an extraordinarily daunting problem in probabilities to one that is hopelessly implausible.
The calculations above account for that. To put the number 1 in 10 77 in perspective, there are only 10 65 atoms in the Milky Way. Scientists have estimated that a total of about 10 30 organisms that have lived on earth since the origin of life and that there have been a maximum number of about 10 43 trials, i. Yet the Cambrian explosion, which is the period throughout which most animal body plans appeared, allows for only about 20 million years.
There is some debate about that, but were one to take the fossil record at face value, these creatures appeared instantly. Clearly, if this research holds up—if it is really the case that DNA sequences that yield viable proteins is so sparse in sequence space—there is no plausible way that any of the necessary proteins in life could have arisen. But there is one other possibility. Imagine a vast circle representing the space of all possible sequences of DNA for say amino acids.
That is an enormous space: Then imagine inside that circle, many dots each representing a family of DNA sequences yielding viable proteins. The question is, how tightly located are these viable sequences in the overall vast possible space? If they are tightly located, it is at least possible that, by a stroke of luck, nature could have hit the jackpot and found this isolated section of rich DNA- protein sequence space.
From there, incremental changes could have, some would argue, navigate around to the others. Doug Axe looked at this possibility and found that that is not the case. Proteins do not appear to be huddled together in a small sector in the vast sequence space where a lucky strike might yield a gold rush of proteins. The DNA sequences coding for viable proteins are dispersed throughout the sequence space. Therefore navigating from one viable sequence to another is highly improbable.
The depiction below shows several dots in a circle. In the analogy, the dots are the DNA sequences that code for viable proteins. The circle—all the empty space—is all the potential DNA sequences that yield nothing. The diagram is of course, just a depiction and not intended to reflect reality. The vastness of the nothingness is grossly understated given the limitations of computer graphics. Note that the dots are dispersed. This means that the DNA sequences between the large families of protein folds are very different.
Finding one does not mean you have hit a lucky strike and with a few changes in the DNA sequence could find the rest. In other words, areas of viable proteins are dispersed and could not be traversed by Neo-Darwinian mechanisms because there are vast areas of nothingness where no set of incremental steps—which have to be functional if Neo-Darwinism is true—could be taken to get from one dot the next.
Darwinists attempt to counter these poor probabilities by reducing the number of amino acids required in early proteins and assuming less specificity. And as always they invoke the magical mystical powers of natural selection. But selection is of little help if you cannot navigate from one viable protein to the next without a smooth pathway where each step is useful—more useful than the previous. And it appears to be the case that there is no smooth pathway from protein to protein throughout sequence space. Another aspect of complexity in living systems is the existence of codes.
There are no codes that are known to have been produced by natural processes. But this is a supposition based on materialism. You have heard about the DNA code. But there is actually more than one code. I will first discuss the DNA Transcription-Translation code since it is the best understood and well-known. What is the DNA transcription-translation code? It is the most essential process in all of biology. It is important to note that this is a code and not a template. There is a difference. A code involves an intermediary that allows for an unconstrained, one might say arbitrary, arrangement of things.
Proteins, you recall, do all the essential work in the cell and form the structures. A template would be a case where the physical structure of the DNA itself directly defined the arrangement of protein components amino acids. In the diagram below, if you look intently enough you will see that there is a transfer RNA molecule carries an amino acid on one end and matches a set of three bases to the messenger RNA in the protein assembly molecular machine called the ribosome.
So the sequences in the DNA indirectly create the sequences in the protein. It is a lot like a language. There are 4 blocks that form 20 different associations in groups of threes called codons which then map and match to a similar set of 3 components on the transfer RNAs. These 3 components define the 20 amino acids that are used in the concatenation of similar elements that form the proteins. I will talk more about epigenetics in the following section. This inhibiting of transcription disallows that sequence from being translated into proteins.
The sugar code or glycocode which is not part of the DNA, appears to play an important role in the development of multicellular animals. The research shows that they mediate cellular orientation, migration, and responses to regulatory factors during development. The sugar code is determined by a complex set of patterns in the sugar molecules on the cell surface—the cell membrane.
These sugar molecules can attached to lipids or proteins. Because of the complexity of the sugar molecule and the various forms that these molecules can take, the sugar molecules can carry high amounts of information on the cell membrane surface. In fact by some estimates the glycocode can convey far more information than the genome itself. The sugar code is interpreted by proteins called lectins.
There are also patterns of the three dimensional arrangements of membrane-associated proteins, lipids and carbohydrates in the cell membrane that appear to play a role in the development of multi-cellular animals prior to the initiation of the genetic regulatory networks. Electric fields emanate from the cell membrane during the embryonic stages of development and appear to provide information important to the spatial layout of a developing animal.
The inside of every living cell is electrically negative with respect to its external environment. That electric fields are involved in the development of multi-cellular animals is evidenced by the fact that perturbations of these fields result in abnormalities in, or a halting of, the developmental process.
Please view the video at the link below. It shows that electric fields—bioelectric signals—cause groups of cells to form patterns marked by differing membrane voltage levels. When a developing frog embryo is stained with a dye, the negatively charged areas shine brightly while other areas appear darker creating an "electric face. There are a couple of important general points to be made about these codes. These codes—like all codes—have a source and a target—a coder and a decoder.
This means that there is a reciprocal dependency. There would be no point to an encoding structure without the ability to decode.
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As we learned in the section in Complex Specified Information, the quantity of complexity is determined in part by dependencies and especially interdependencies. There is an obvious interdependency in a code by virtue of the need for an encoder and a decoder.
Moreover, importantly, and this is a controversial and contentious topic … since these other codes are involved in the defining the form of a multi-cellular animal during development and yet are not specified in the DNA they cannot therefore be part of the Neo-Darwinian process. Therefore, it would appear that there is good evidence, despite the outcry from ultra-Darwinists, that the DNA gene regulatory networks genetic algorithms or programs , once hailed as the secret as to how an animal is given its form because there was no alternative , does not completely specify the form of an animal.
This represents another unwelcome surprise for Neo-Darwinism. The subject is still somewhat unresolved, but the preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that the DNA does not entirely specify the form of an animal. Although it is true that DNA specifies the materials of a cell including all the components involved in these other codes, nevertheless, due to RNA splicing and editing processes that occur after transcription of RNA from DNA but before translation of proteins, DNA sequences do not fully specify the final functional forms of most membrane components.
Furthermore, the complexity of the information associated with the cell membrane that appears to account for some important architectural aspects of form of multi-cellular animals, is extraordinarily complex. And it is likely to be very specific. Therefore random changes to the information in the membrane are unlikely to be something that a purely naturalistic account of the evolution of life could subsume and is therefore unlikely to serve as a supplement for materialism as the Neo-Darwinian explanation falters.
As an interesting aside: And because of that you might be tempted to dismiss everything that they are saying. This second point I will address in the next section. Epigenetics and horizontal gene transfer also discussed in the next section are other viable reason for questioning the doctrine of common descent. My feeling is that the truth or falseness of common descent is irrelevant to the question of design in nature—teleology.
There are many details I have glossed over in this section. The effect of omitting these details is to have made Neo-Darwinism seem more plausible than it really is. For example, I have omitted any discussion of energy requirements for these molecular machines to do their work and I have not discussed the fact that proteins, in order to do anything, have to be folded in a precise three dimensional way.
In most cases proteins require another category of proteins called chaperones to do this. Some have claimed that if the protein folding process were entirely random, in other words not determined by physics and chemistry and unaided by chaperone proteins, that even a single residue protein could not find its functional conformation by chance given the entire history ofthe universe. Living systems clearly exhibit massive amounts of complex specified information and, it appears, not all of it is stored in the DNA.
Materialists claim that this complexity can be assembled by emulating agency causation in place of true agency-design-through natural selection along with random mutation. The next few sections of this paper evaluate the viability of that claim. Materialists believe that life is entirely mechanistic meaning that no true agency causation is required to account for it. Life simply emerged according to materialists, somehow. But there is no good theory as to how life arose from matter. There are plenty of theories but the whole endeavor seems to have come to an impasse.
The Urantia Book has this to say about the origin of life:. Clearly the statements in the Book are at odds with mainstream science. According to Michael Denton in Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis:. A Theory in Crisis I wrote: As a refresher, the following link is to an excellent video covering the essential functions of living organisms. The origin of life is confounding for a few reasons. First off, the complexity of life is astounding as you have seen. There are many interdependencies.
Every fundamental process requires multiple molecular machines which owe their existence to other molecular machines which often owe their existence to the first set of molecular machines among others. Secondly, unlike the evolution of life, which can claim a selection process to lock in incremental change and therefore needing only incremental amounts of random chance luck , the origin of life requires many, many enormously complex leaps of luck, chance arrangements of molecular components in just the right way, until a set of replication and translation molecular devices are created.
As evolutionary biologist Eugene Koonin comments:. Somewhat surprisingly, it is not as easy to find calculations on the origin of life. I suspect there are two reasons for this. First, the scope and complexity of the problem is immense. Secondly, in order to be motivated enough to perform such a calculation you would have to be trying to demonstrate either that some alternative theory of the origin of life is more plausible than another or that no alternative is plausible.
The former is of course the more common inhibiting factor because the primary alternative hints at divine intervention. Therefore most materialist scientists are not motivated to conduct a calculation that they suspect or know would be somewhat embarrassing. Those who embrace teleology on the other hand, such as Intelligent Design proponents, are highly motivated to determine these probabilities but have been hampered by the fact that the problem is so intractable. Earlier theories on the origin of life viewed the process as a purely chance event, a frozen accident in time despite its improbability.
Nowadays the thinking is based on self-ordering principles that can help the process along. The hope of self-ordering principles is that deterministic laws of chemistry and ultimately physics can be relied upon to aid the process. These are things such as bonding affinities.