A Brief Introduction to The Urantia Book

            "Gold is where you find it."  This was a motto of miners during the California Gold Rush of 1849.  They would find gold in unexpected places--and not find it in places that seemed likely.  Likewise, truth is where you find it. 

            A New Yorker cartoon showed a society hostess introducing two gurus to each other, each of whom was glaring angrily at the other.  She said, "And this is Swami [XYZ].  He, too, has found the truth of life."  The joke is offensive insofar as it makes fun of Indian teachers.  The point of the joke, however, is that often people become hostile to each other when they believe they have The Truth.  Spiritually-minded people should be one and remain one, even though their ideas may differ.

The religions of authority can only divide men and set them in conscientious array against each other; the religion of the spirit will progressively draw men together and cause them to become understandingly sympathetic with one another. The religions of authority require of men uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in the present state of the world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience--uniformity of destiny--making full allowance for diversity of belief. The religion of the spirit requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. The religion of the spirit does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration. (Paper 155, section 6, p. 1732)

            There is no official interpretation of The Urantia Book. The publisher, Urantia Foundation, wants to make sure that individuals always have the opportunity to interpret the book in the light of their own understanding and to discuss their interpretations in study groups and elsewhere. Individuals offer their own interpretations, but these must not take the place your own study of the book itself.

Truths Shared by Many Traditions

            It is often helpful to begin with what people may agree on.  Some truths are the common heritage of many religious traditions.

God is the Creator of the universe.

God is one.

God is personal.

There is a spark of the divine spirit within each one of us.

Human beings are all sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters, each one equally and infinitely loved by God.

Our lives can be based on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness.

The golden rule: Do to others as you want others to do to you.

Our growth in this life is a prelude to a wonderful eternal life.

God, the Trinity, Paradise, the eternally perfect creation around Paradise, and the evolving, perfecting creations that circle Paradise.

The beings and organization--personalities and material factors--administering our group of inhabited worlds.

The astronomic, geologic, biologic, anthropologic, sociologic, religious, and philosophic evolution of our planet.

Jesus' universe purpose in coming here; the conditions he faced; his development from infancy to adult maturity; his public career; a summary of intervening history with special focus on the 20th century and on Christianity; a religious and philosophic summary.

            The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings. First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said: "You, God, are alone; there is none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God were the universes made. The Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain." Only the concept of the Universal Father--one God in the place of many gods--enabled mortal man to comprehend the Father as divine creator and infinite controller.

            The myriads of planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by many different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return. . . .

            The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect."

            This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man's eternal spiritual progress.