tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (02/13/86)
By "modern" I mean this century. The book was written in the 1930's (or
was it the 20's?) by a person who, to his credit, has remained largely
unknown. The book claims direct revelation from God. The doctrines
are an attempt at reconciliation between modern ideas of natural science,
specifically evolution, and very orthodox Christianity. I have not read
the book, but I have read large sections that were posted to CompuServe's
Religion Forum over a period of two years or so by a particularly devoted
follower of the book. Eventually I stopped reading them, because they
bored me almost to tears. They were such unimaginative Christian
science fiction! Endless rehashes of the life of Jesus and the usual
belief-oriented doctrines of monotheism. Joseph Campbell has said that
there are two kinds of mythology, the classical kind in which myths arre
to be considered symboplic, instructive, and entertaining stories, and
the later monotheistic kind in which the most important thing about the
myths is that they are supposed to be absolutely true. The URANTIA book
is definitely in the latter category.
Furthermore, although I tried, I could get the person to discuss no
specific spiritual practices set forth in the book other than rudimentary
prayer and "listening to God". In practical, experiential religion,
usually associated with a mythology of the former type, we consider
religion worthless when so much is made of belief and so little of practice.
By my comments on the lack of respect for other religions in the book,
I was referring to conversations I had with this selfsame follower.
He was very nice in the way he told me that I was damning myself to
eternal torment by not being a monotheist. He only got angry when
I pointed out that this was an extremely offensive prejudice. From
the vehemency and repetition of his defense, I assumed that this was
a dogma of the book.
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
{sun,ptsfa,ihnp4,well,frog}!hoptoad!tim