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RECONCILING URANTIA BOOK COSMOLOGY WITH MODERN ASTRONOMY

"It is important first to gain an adequate idea of the physical constitution and material organization of the superuniverse domains, for then you will be the better prepared to grasp the significance of the marvelous organization provided for their spiritual government and for the intellectual advancement of the will creatures who dwell on the myriads of inhabited planets scattered hither and yon throughout these seven superuniverses." (15:0.3)

As an astronomer and long time reader of the Urantia Book, I was long puzzled by an apparent disconnect between the language of the Urantia Book and my beloved avocation of revealing the Universe to the public through a telescope. But I was also compelled by this enormous vision of an inhabited cosmos among the galaxies I'd come to know so well through observation.
I had become convinced that the language of science as used in the cosmology of the Urantia Book was as poetic as the traditional language of a God in “the Heavens”. The Urantia Book’s God among the Galaxies is portrayed as a loving First Source with many celestial associates inhabiting the numberless worlds of Hubble's then newly revealed Galactic Universe. But, I gradually discovered passages that made it clear that the Urantia Book story of Astronomy was simply phrased in the language in use at the time of the 1920’s. My language and understandings of the 21st century simply had shifted from those times of the early 20th century and had distorted my ability to perceive what was being said. My task then became one of reading the Urantia Book thru the eyes of a much earlier time. With some amazement, I began to see that the Urantia cosmology actually told a story suggestive of a physical Universe that only now we’re beginning to comprehend.

This talk is an attempt then to encourage Urantia Book readers to let go of the “baggage” of modern understanding and return to the meanings of language and science in use at the time the Urantia Book was written.