nebadonomega wrote:
I guess my main problem is that the scientific information provided is still as of yet unproven. You just have to read it for yourself. Its
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urantia_BookThe critical views section is what killed me. Is there anyway someone can help me get my faith in the Urantia Book back?
Hi Nebadonomega. I find the Wikipedia article informative (as it should be), not negative. And the 'scientific criticism' isn’t catastrophic either.
The examples of criticisms regarding the science in The Urantia Book presented in the Wikipedia article are certainly not hard evidence against TUB:
Quote:
The described formation of the solar system is consistent with the Chamberlin-Moulton planetesimal hypothesis.[2] Though popular in the early part of the 20th century, by the early 1940s it was discarded by Henry Russell's argument that it was incompatible with the angular momentum of planets such as Jupiter.[3] The currently accepted scientific explanation for the origin of the solar system is based on the nebular hypothesis.
If we do not even understand/know how our universe 'originated' (see the quote below), then any scientific claims about the formation of the solar system based on the big bang theory can’t be correct.
Quote:
The age of our universe is stated to be more than 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) years old and the universe is said to periodically expand and contract—respire—at 2-billion-year intervals. Current observations, however, suggest that the true age of the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years. The big bang theory is not supported.
I don’t think the big bang theory is correct. Everything in our material world is vibrating and oscillating, so how can de universe just be exploding? Moreover, the rate of expansion of the universe is currently accelerating. Astronomers/cosmologists even had to invent the concept of 'dark energy' to explain this fact. I think Einstein’s so called 'cosmological constant' (introduced to correct 'general relativity theory' to account for observed universe expansion), may not be a constant but a variable. And recent observations suggest that the universe is much older than 13.7 billion years: http://forums.truthbook.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3548, which invalidates the big bang theory.
Quote:
Some species are said to have evolved suddenly from single mutations without transitional species. The theory originated with Dutch botanist Hugo De Vries, but was short-lived and is not now supported.
Actually, the modern academic consensus is that the biological evolution of a species proceeds in short bursts of genetic change followed by long periods of relative genetic stability. And, remarkably, the Wikipedia article doesn’t mention the '48 chromosomes issue' (which is explained here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3196&start=15). One explanation for the fact that humans have 46 chromosomes instead of 48 (like all other big apes) is that somewhere along the path of human evolution 2 of our 48 chromosomes fused with 2 other chromosomes to produce 46 chromosomes. If this is what makes us distinctly human, then it must indeed have been a sudden (discrete) evolutionary leap.
Quote:
According to The Urantia Book, multi-colored human races originated suddenly in one generation and in one family, producing brothers and sisters that variously turned blue, yellow, red, green, orange, and indigo when exposed to sunlight. Their offspring subsequently favored the parent color. Later, Adam and Eve produced a violet race. In the book's account, the blue, yellow, and red races were considered "primary", and the green, orange, and indigo "secondary". The green and orange races were driven to extinction, and the rest mixed over time. Modern evolutionary theory does not support this account.
That is true, but neither does "modern evolutionary theory" disprove the possible existence of multi-colored ancient human races. So, this doesn’t invalidate The Urantia Book.
Quote:
The book repeats the idea prevalent at the time of its origin that one side of the planet Mercury always faces the sun due to tidal locking. In 1965, radio astronomers discovered that Mercury actually rotates fast enough for all sides to see exposure to the sun. In the same passage, the book states that tidal friction will slow the rotation of a planet or other orbiting body "until axial revolution ceases". However, current understanding is that revolutions do not cease, but stabilize such that the time to complete one revolution will become equal to the time needed to complete an orbit.
I don’t quite understand this. It seems to me that if the time it takes a planet to complete one axial revolution equals the time it takes to complete one solar orbit, then one side of the planet will always face the sun.
Quote:
The book says that a solar eclipse was predicted in 1808 by the Native American prophet Tenskwatawa. The eclipse was actually predicted in late April 1806 and occurred on June 16, 1806. However, the revision committee of the book changed in 2008 the date of the prediction to 1806, because it was believed it was a keystroke mistake in the transcription. [4]
So, this is probably a transcription error..