Talk:The Urantia Book

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[edit] What direction is this article going in?

As I review the development of this article, it seems to be going in the direction of becoming an online training portal to foster belief in the Urantia Book, rather than an encyclopedia article on the Urantia Book.

This seems to have begun around 23 August, 2005. A lot of effort has gone on in this direction. Richiar 01:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Richiar,
Welcome here, thanks for the comment. I think most who know the UB topic recognize it's not realistic for one article to adequately cover it and that some framework for a series of articles will likely come about as time goes by. It's true this will lead to it being a "portal" of sorts about the book and its concepts, but I wouldn't take that as being problematic on its own so much. As you look at the way other religious movements are documented on wikipedia, say Scientology to pick one example, you see that they are essentially portals to information about those belief systems. It is a real problem though, as you point out, if the slant in the articles is to "foster belief". This UB article has seen its fair share of attempts to do that and you identified a date when there began a noticeable increase in that activity. A couple of fairly pro-UB believers -- who tended to work in tandem and maybe knew each other already outside of wikipedia -- started to reshape the article on that same day to minimize and even eliminate criticism and use more laudatory, promotional language about the book. There were 5-6 months of sustained activity and back and forth about the language and overall intent of the article with them and other editors. That sort of "dynamic tension" is inevitable and I think it led to healthy dialogue and many improvements. (For example, from my perspective, the constant challenges to the "Criticism" section led it to be more detailed, better written, and better documented as verified against published sources.) I hope Hanely is able to find the time to come back some day. By what I can tell 69.137.116.242 (who signed posts as "Anonymous" in archived discussions) is the same person as 68.52.225.175, who then signed up as "Sweet Bear", you can see her recent activity in comments above.
As a newcomer here, if you've read the current article and feel that a neutral point of view isn't maintained somewhere, it's useful if you could point that out so the wording can be reconsidered and improved. Or you can even try out some edits on your own. See Wikipedia:NPOV for the wikipedia policy on how points of view should be presented.
In the archives you'll find a range of opinions about possible directions to take for the article and potential side articles. New ideas are always welcome. My current view of the near-future direction for this article is that the "Cosmology" and "History and future of the world" sections are worthy topics for treatment in side articles. I would like to see a strong "summary style" write up of those and the current text used to seed the side articles. I've thought about doing that in the next month if time permits. I'm also interested in other people's opinions about directions to take.
Thanks. Wazronk 02:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Well said Wazronk, please help us find a neutral point of view Richiar. Every new mind that gives an opinions helps us find it bias. Do read the talk archives, as they contain a wealth of opinion, and please be specific. Most of the improvement in this and other articles come from people discussing specific passages from the article and coming to a consensus on how to improve it. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 02:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I am reviewing the archives and learning more about how to ::: use the Wike tools before I add anymore comments. This is nearly overwhelming. It will take
me several more days before I am at a place where I feel I can respond. Richiar 22:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm reading thruogh the archives-this is really taking a lot of time to digest. I will
have to make this an ongoing effort as I try to fit in to the effort here. Thankyou
Wazronk for for your kind and helpful comments. I will have to slowly get involved due
to the massive piece of effort this topic is going to require. I am reading your post
of Dec 14 again. I had an initial negative reaction to going to the overview section,
and clicking on one of the chapter titles, and thinking that there would be a little,
consise overview. Instead, it was a direct link to the verbatim chapter itself. I felt
like I opened up my closet door and got run over by a train. As I've said previously
though, I am a newcomer to this endeavor, and can see that it is in the construction
phase, and I don't know who has done what, or for what reason, so I am still trying to
familiarize myself with the article and discussion, and mostly withholding comment until
I get a better grasp of things. And I am trying to learn how to use these wiki tools.
I think this learning phase for me is going to take much longer than I anticipated, so
my participation will have to come along in a gradual manner. I have reviewed the
Scientology section, as well as the Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity sections a little bit.
My first impressions are that we could use them as examples, and I think you've made that
point yourself too. I'm wondering about how the UB topic can best be served, and it
occured to me that a series like Scientology has may fit in well. That would include a
category and page format, and could handle the many digressions quite well. I will have
to come back and make more comments, as this posting is getting too long. Richiar 20:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


Expansion of the History and Future of the world stub:

Additions are from Paper 35 sec. 9 and Paper 52 sec. 1-2.Richiar 01:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Further additions from Paper 51 sec. 1 and Paper 52 sec. 3 Richiar 09:18, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Further additions from Paper 52 sec. 4.Richiar 15:44, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm adding more to the History and Future section for now, and making notes here so everyone can keep tabs on what I'm doing. Just added section on Post-Bestowal age from Paper 52 sec 5. I would like to personally have this seciton of discussion be about "What direction the article is going in", so I may put in explanations of my editing in a new section. I will be doing some minor word improvement and organizing too. Richiar 23:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

- - -

Here are a couple of thoughts for expanding the history section: put in material on the history of the solar system and universe and history of living things chpaters 57-63, which leads into the part about the planetary prince and the stages which are currently written.

I'm wondering about blending the current Adam and Eve section into a bigger section which might include chapters 50-54, 66-67, 74-76. This would blend the Lucifer rebellion, planetary prince, and Adam and Eve, maybe in a linked article. I think they kind of go together thematically. Richiar 04:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I just saw this comment... History of solar system is possible to expand upon, yes. I think a broader history of the universe likely would be a more natural fit under the "Cosmology" topic.
On blending the three stories together, I think thematically you'd also have to keep in mind that the Melchizedek and Jesus stories also are linked and are a continuation of them... Stylistically, it might be easier on readers to have all as distinct sections. The large edit I made is along these lines, see how it looks to you. Wazronk 22:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
After some reflection about combining those three sections of Adam/Eve/Lucifer/Planetary Prince, I was trying to think of how to add it to the history, but couldn't come up with a way to do that. I like what you added, and the rearranging seems to have moved the article forward. A lot of fine work there, thanks for that !! The proposal box for a separate section: I didn;t quite get that. What would the separate section be? Richiar 05:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Not a separate section actually, but a separate article, in this case one to cover the "History and future of the world" topic. I think the details about the topic are good to have but probably it's a bit much to all be in this main article. See Wikipedia:Summary style for more on splitting a large article into multiple articles. Wazronk 02:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to add Hinduism section and Image of Universe

I am proposing the addition of a section on the comparison of the UB with Hinduism: I already have it written (at least the first draft). I don't want to add it without any discussion or consensus.

Also, it mignt be nice to have a picture of the universe with all the subuniverses. There is one that is out there. Has anyone else seen it? And does anyone think it would add to the article? Richiar 01:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Good to hear about the potential for a Hinduism addition. One thing people will be interested to know about with a "Comparison to Hinduism" section would be the published sources that the comparison is coming from. On wikipedia, one of the central policies is that everything added to an article needs to be verifiable as coming from an outside reliable source, see Wikipedia:Verifiability . (That is one of the most important pages on wikipedia to read as a new user, along with Wikipedia:NPOV and Wikipedia:No original research.) Are you working off comparisons made in the UB itself or are there additional book(s) and / or article(s) to go by? I'm the one who added the current "Comparison to Buddhism" section and only had UB as source, that can be how it goes. Another thing to be careful about is that if you know Hinduism and you know the UB, unfortunately you can't on your own compile a personal comparison between the two, as it would constitute original research. What other editors will be looking for are published outside sources that directly make any comparisons to be added to the article. It can be a not quite clear distinction when first getting involved with wikipedia but feel free to ask any more questions.
About a visual for the UB model of the universe, it has crossed my mind in the past that that would be valuable addition to the article if a good one that is free for use can be found. The article to me lacks good visuals after the Earth photo at the top. For info on adding images, the articles Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Image copyright tags are good to read. Thanks. Wazronk 03:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Too bad the book is not illustrated. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 03:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The Hinduism section I was thinking of would be solely from the UB, I know of no outside
sources on that issue. I would not be compiling my own composition. After reading through
Archives 1, I am putting this idea on hold, as the proposal was made a while back to
make the UB a portal. There are so many topics that deserve attention, that I am now
favoring the move towards portal status. I am confused however, as there are portals
and categories, and subcategories. So the whole issue of formatting seems to me to
be more proper to address right now. Also, I haven't even started reading Archives 2.
Maybe I should wait for Jerry Bruckheimer to do a movie "Urantia Archives 2".Richiar 00:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another Idea

Hey everyone: I have another idea. What do people think about starting a WikiProject here? And also, what about archiving this page?Richiar 18:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Good idea with the archive. Don't know much about projects. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:15, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I did a quick review of Wikiprojects: my initial impression is that it might be difficule to
sustain independently. Maybe we could join another in the Religion Project or Spirituality
project, but it seems that would require interest among a number of editors here. I think
I'll get to work on expanding whats here for now, maybe work on the sections Wazronk is
working on.Richiar 18:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Explanations about additions

I expanded the History and Future stub. I selected information which seemed to fit in a general way, without getting complicated, which was hard because of the material. I tried to use more simple language if I could think of it. I couldn't put everything in, and just tried to make it interesting without "stepping on any toes". Richiar 00:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Richiar,
Great job. Thanks for expansion of this section, yes it sure is a challenge to keep summaries of the material manageable and simple. There are so many details. I just went through and fixed some small typos I happened to see and such, flipped some paragraphs around. I followed TUB's style and also changed a few capitalizations to lower case ("Bestowal Son" to "bestowal Son", "Light and Life" to "light and life").
Right now the section gives a good overview of the overall scheme of progression and it summarizes paper 52 well. A thought is that it probably will be necessary to have more tie-ins to the "Urantia"-centric perspective also. Maybe one way to put it, it is like paper 52 is a kind of scaffolding or skeleton for the topic "History and future of the world"... We also have all of "Part III" to contend with! I added one small example of what I mean in regards to the "pre-planetary prince stage" .... that "on Urantia it was especially prolonged and brutal."
Maybe pointing out another thing will demonstrate this. In the course of describing all the stages, there is the paragraph now about the "Post Adamic" stage and Adam and Eve, then the run down of the stages continues. But then there is a separate section "Lucifer rebellion" followed by "Adam and Eve" a second time. To me Adam and Eve should be covered in one place instead of two. I think one thing that might be valuable is to add more subsection headers. For instance we can create a "Primitive humans" subsection before "Lucifer rebellion" and place the "pre-planetary prince" material there (with additions of specifics about Earth). Create a "Jesus of Nazareth" section to include the "post bestowal" information and specifics about him. Create a "future of humanity" section after the jesus section that tells about the magisterial and teacher sons and the progression to "light and life". Just some ideas. Wazronk 03:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits, they did improve my comments. I'll have to re read your posting and reflect on it, I'll get back to you. Richiar 04:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

OK: 1) I agree about "tie-ins" to the Urantia-centric perspective 2) agree with the scaffolding idea 3) Part III-yes 4) Lucifer Rebellion and second section of Adam and Eve-agree that we don't need two sections of Adam and Eve here. For me there is a nice flow to the planetary stages section, and it seems to fit in aesthetically and thematically with the general article on TUB (I never heard of these initials until I came here). It seems the Adam & Eve section might be better (in my thinking) in some side article, or have an internal link: but thats just a surface impression I have right at this moment. I will need to read the article several more times to let this get more clear in my mind. 5) Agree with more subsections, but I'm trying to visualize what would be included in a general article, and relating that to a series or category page, with side articles, which can also connect, perhaps into the religion portal?? But thats getting ahead of things a little bit. 6) Somewhere in the religion section, I think in the Christianity section, there is a Jesus category or Jesus article , thats gone inactive. I would like to develop themes for the general article that could relate directly into the expanded view of Jesus brought about by TUB. (For instance: the teachings of Jesus are related to the fifth planetary stage in the section we are working on now-maybe why he seems so peaceful in his attitude-he's a stage 5 kind of guy, and we're still a stage 1 planet).

Back to 5): it might be a good idea to just add somemore headings and work on them, just to get them out on paper, then come back to rearranging and considering side articles down the road a little.

I'm forseeing that the general article will be like a root for all these different directions to go in, if I can just get focused on the central themes that would work for the main article. Richiar 02:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Richiar,
I like how you're thinking ahead a few steps about ways to evolve the article. I agree about the general article becoming a root that can point to the other directions and side articles that are possible. One thing I always try to be mindful of is information overload for readers of the article and anticipating what are the main, top-level topics that would be of most importance in this root article. See Wikipedia:Article size and Wikipedia:Summary style if you haven't come across those yet.
As we develop the "History and future of the world" topic more, I'm kind of looking at the section as a whole as being worthy to spin off into a full article. I agree with bulking up the section right now in the main TUB article (although for a short time it might be "information saturation" for the average person who comes across this article). You suggest the Adam and Eve topic being spun off and I think that's quite a realistic future development, although I tend to think it would be more natural of a step after "History and future" is its own article, with an "Adam and Eve" subtopic within it that grows beyond the scope of what's realistic in size there.
I agree that the presentation of the planetary stages is a useful one. I've wondered about what would be the best way to order the chronology for the "History and future" section though, since I see two ways of going about it. There is the chronology of the "typical" way of planetary growth that TUB describes, and that seems to be how your recent additions have gone, tracking with the list that was pulled from paper 52. Another way to order the chronology is to follow how the "Urantia" history has gone, which deviates quite a bit from the "standard" way. For a few reasons I think it might ultimately be better to go with the order of chronology which tracks with the way TUB describes "Urantia" history. First, the title of this section is "History and future of the world" so in that respect to me it makes a little more sense to put the focus on the specifics of Urantia-centric chronology instead of the generic, "typical" chronology. Second reason is that I think it would be of more interest to the average reader of the article to see the story of the world from the Urantia Book perspective instead of the hypothetical ideal story of development. Makes it more grounded and immediately relevant.
I've made a rather large edit to restructure things to show how I'm thinking and add more Urantia-centric details along with the extra subsections. Added a stub for the Melchizedek story in addition to the suggestions I posted above on January 9. Let me know how things look to you. Wazronk 22:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I revised the Overview section: I didn't hear any objections. I removed the chapter links which seemed to clutter the section. The themes of the overview can be elaborated in some fashion, somewhere. I tried to keep most of the internal links in the narrative, and will go back to work on that some more. I left out the history link: I didn't think it really contributed to anything, but it could go back in if someone wants it. Richiar 07:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A suggestion about external links in the overview section

Hi,

I want to say, first and foremost, that I'm very impressed with the friendliness and cooperation among the editors of this article. I know very little about the Urantia book, and wouldn't want to make significant changes to a mature article, but I think the article could be improved by limiting the number of external links in the overview section, especially to specific papers. According the the Manual of Style (see also WP:EL), these should be kept in a section at the end of the article anyway. Besides, keeping in mind that the typical reader simply wants general information about the work, specific articles need not be introduced at all in an overview, and, I think, would be only more appropriate later in the article, and only then for explaining the contents, themes, etc. in greater depth.

—Antireconciler ◊talk 22:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there !! Thanks for coming in here. I joined in Dec.; there have been some conflicts that are in the Archives. I do have a fair background in the book, but the point is for people such as yourself to read it and come away with a fair understanding of it without having to become a "Urantian". I hope you return from time to time to check on the progress. I had the exact same reaction to the overview that you did, and I still do. I do want to re do the entire overview section, it is something I will get to down the road a ways. Thanks. Richiar 06:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi Antireconciler,
Thanks for your comments, first impressions like that are valuable to read. The links have drawn comments a few times now from people new to the article saying that they're too much, and like you point out the Manual of Style and WP:EL don't support the strategy. I'd favor them being cut back and replaced with brief summaries. Perhaps the links to table of contents would still be appropriate. Richiar, I'll see if I can help with re-doing it. The article has developed quite a bit since "Overview" and links were originally added. There are now quotes in the article and links are given to the relevant papers, which I agree is a more natural way to point to relevant info.
If there are any other first impressions to share I'd be interested in hearing them. Thanks again. Wazronk 02:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
On the overview section, I liked the last sentence in each paragraph, and thought they were helpful. I am thinking about what to do with the overview section thematically, and think I will add comments to the discussion page as they come to me. I don't have the skills yet to rearrange all the links, so will have to leave that up to someone else, such as yourself. Regards.Richiar 18:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Good example. Somehow while entering my remarks I got this box thing above. Richiar 18:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Assuming you'd like to get rid of it, I've taken care of it by taking out the space you typed in before your paragraph. Wikipedia thinks white space at the beginning of paragraphs means you want that text put into a box. It's a wiki short-cut version of the <pre> tag. —Antireconciler ◊talk 05:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


Example of a modification of the overview section:

The Urantia Book consists of the following:

• Table of Contents

• Foreword

• Part I: The Central and Superuniverses

• Part II: The Local Universe

• Part III: The History of Urantia

• Part IV: The Life and Teachings of Jesus

The Foreword is in outline form and is presented as a guide to the terminology used throughout the rest of the book, introducing explanations for concepts and words that are developed in greater detail with later papers.

Part I consists of 31 papers regarding "The Central and Superuniverses". Through the presentations of these papers, Part I addresses what are considered the highest levels of creation beginning with the concepts of the eternal and infinite God.

Part II consists of 24 papers which are dedicated to an array of subjects pertaining to "The Local Universe". Part II expands on Part I and presents narratives on the inhabitants of local universes and their work, as it is coordinated with God’s plans in the larger schemes of creation.

Part III consists of 62 papers and compiles a broad history of the earth titled, "The History of Urantia". Part III presents a story of yet further examination and explanation of the origin, history, purpose and destiny of the Earth and of its inhabitants.

Part IV consists of 76 papers and narrates "The Life and Teachings of Jesus." Included are papers on details about several preaching tours (1, 2, 3, 4), miracles (1, 2, 3, 4), crises (1, 2), and events that led to the crucifixion, death and resurrection. It continues from there with papers on Pentecost and finally, "The Faith of Jesus". Part IV illustrates many of the concepts presented in the first three parts through the story of Jesus' life.

Maybe that isn't the final form that one would want, but I thought the wording was much improved by simply removing the links. What do people think? Richiar 06:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Much improved. Well done! ^_^
—Antireconciler ◊talk 08:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, good clean up. I just went a little further, it seemed to me it wasn't necessary to reiterate the title of each Part at the beginning of each of the paragraphs, so I re-wrote that a little. Also, the numbers like "(1, 2, 3, 4)" no longer meant anything, since they were only there for the links, I've removed them. Wazronk 21:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright information for a Wikisource TUB, and news from lands afar

Two and a half years ago (this article was a baby!), 141.150.246.218 wrote, "In 2001, the Urantia Foundation lost a court decision concerning the book's U.S. copyright, and the text of the original English version is in the public domain" but s/he didn't cite a source, and the sentence has remained in the article nearly unchanged since then. I was wondering if any of you knew where this information came from, or of a reliable source containing it. If not, I can go dig around in the library for it, but I thought I'd ask here first. If we can get a reliable source, it opens the way for hosting a copy of The Urantia Book at Wikisource, which some of you might be interested in. There are a lot of online copys, but really, what isn't better wikified? (And who needs external links at that point?)

I also wanted to comment again on how open the atmosphere is here. You see, the article I've focused on for most of my time at Wikipedia is A Course in Miracles. Although I know only the most basic elements of The Urantia Book, the parallels between the books the articles are about and the articles themselves are just striking. Both books head religious/spiritual systems which have very similar core ideas and yet are marginal enough that the articles about these systems can't (or at least have yet to) find the protection of a WikiProject, or at least a large enough number of interested (and knowledgeable!) editors. Both articles also have long, dynamic histories characteristic of articles about easily misunderstood (i.e., spiritual) material that lack an established popular interpretation. When I look at The Urantia Book article, it looks very similar to A Course in Miracles, six months, and over 700 edits ago. Both articles are/were long, juicy, well-informed, and have more or less warm and welcoming editing atmospheres. The article, A Course in Miracles, changed though, and I won't bore you with an account of how this occured, but you can see that the current, stable (!) article A Course in Miracles has become stable by adopting a kind of citation naziism that rules out even the most basic inferences on an editor's part as "original research". That the article contains more than a page of information now was only acheived by merging the only another significant article on the topic into it, and yet it's become a useless fact repository par excellence. I have no intention of bringing another article's woes here. Actually, that's the opposite of my intention. The exact opposite. I can only say "take it for what it's worth" because I don't know. You should be the judge of that.

—Antireconciler ◊talk 07:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Antireconciler,
For the authoritative source on The Urantia Book being in the public domain, the actual US Court of Appeals decision of Michael Foundation v. Urantia Foundation is on the web here. The arguments hinged on whether Urantia Foundation really held the copyright (they thought they did and had been litigating to enforce it). The appeals court upheld a jury decision in the plaintiff's favor that the book wasn't commissioned to be written and wasn't a composite work, therefore copyright wasn't UF's, instead from a legal perspective the book was considered a unified work by a single author, the so-called "Conduit", or "contact personality". Since this individual died by 1983, the book's copyright passed to his heirs, and though UF filed a renewal of the copyright in 1983, only the heirs could do this and UF's renewal was found to be invalid. Since the heirs didn't renew the copyright, the book went into the public domain in 1983. With a few google searches I also found a useful timeline about the litigation with an abundance of links, see this page. The book for sure is in the public domain (in English -- translations are copyrighted as far as I know) and so it should be no problem to put it into wikisource.
Since you brought up the ACIM article, I took a look at it for the first time in a while, what a difference since the last time I was there! Hopefully some of the details now missing will be possible to resurrect and link to sources. It's not completely by chance that the ACIM article six months ago resembled this article, an editor brought it to people's attention here sometime during discussions now in Archive 1. I think we already coincidentally had a division of this article roughly into "Tenets / Comparisons to other religions / Criticisms" sections like that ACIM version, but it was useful to borrow some of the wording from the headers. I hadn't heard of ACIM before then and haven't read it but did download a copy since it came up in the discussion. From my skim of it I remember there being general similarities in concepts, and from reading the article it was remarkable the similarities between the "movements" of followers as I understand them. The styles of the books weren't as similar, ACIM's tone to me was more conversational and loose, TUB on the other hand quite verbosely encyclopedic. I don't know ACIM well enough to comment on its internal consistency and how easy it might be to get into serious disputes about meanings of its content, but an advantage with TUB to me is it maintains internal consistency. This doesn't prevent misunderstandings, but everyone laying out their sources has been fruitful in reaching consensus.
This article hasn't seen a nazism sweep to add citation links to every little comment and sentence, but it has been hawkishly picked over very much in terms of ensuring verifiability because of lengthy disputes about NPOV. (Right now the atmosphere to the editing has calmed down but there have been strong clashes of opinion, as Richiar said.) If someone would come by with the attitude of insisting on citation links for every little comment, the content of the article would remain intact pretty much as is, I'm sure. The article is based on the four books in the Reference section (mostly from TUB itself and the Gardner book) and a little from some articles outside wikipedia that are external links. Wazronk 21:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi Wazronk,
Thank you for finding that information. I suppose I was too quick to give up on finding a good online source.
Also, I found your comments enlightening. If anyone (I include myself here) really took the time to improve the ACIM article, the secondary sources aren't so poor that the article couldn't but be helped in the end by the strong verificationism prevalent there. Really, someone just needs to take the time to weed through the misinformation among the secondary sources, and similarly among the editors. I have no excuses here, and surely I will work on it as I can. I want to pardon my earlier comments, for that sake.
I know this isn't a forum for general discussion about an article's subject, but I linked TUB and ACIM because I know of TUB's reputation for self-consistency and for its effort to dispel ideas about the hiddenness of God. ACIM shares this with TUB, and it is enough to guarantee near-identical systems (despite how cooky TUB looks on the surface). If ACIM is easily misunderstood, it's only because it takes rather ordinary terms and turns them into ultra-technical nexuses of meanings because it collapses a myriad of seemingly different concepts and ideas into the same basic repetitive mold (this is what it means to simplify, after all), whose parts get simple names like "guilt", "sin", "God", "Atonement", "error", "will", "miracle", "special", and so on. It makes it much more difficult to confuse yourself while reflecting upon yourself or upon God, because you know what the relevant words mean a thousand different ways (which is a good criterion for consistency). So, an editor or reliable-secondary-source can rattle off a quoted passage by itself in isolation, and it will sound entirely commonplace (so they will think themselves the master over it), but the whole depth of it will be lost on him or her, especially because at least half the time the terms take on the exact opposite connotations in or normal speech because they're so frequently used in upside-down ways. Of course they are, or who would bother seeking the answers to their questions about themselves and about God by reading a book? Who would need seeking?
Anyway, thanks, and take care, —Antireconciler ◊talk 04:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi. I have been over in the philosophy section, monitoring a rather vicious war over defining philosophy. There seems to be a semblance of rationality beginning to appear there, with the intervention of a couple individuals, and a workshop approach. You might want to contact User:FT2 and get (her??) to take a look for you. By the way Antireconciler, thanks for getting me out of the box. :) Richiar 06:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations using footnotes

I thought it might be useful for the article to switch to the Wikipedia:Footnotes system for referencing. The article covers a lot of ground now, and sometimes questions have come up about whether specific bits of information are accurately verified (eg the question of the big bang vs tub cosmology) or whether sources are actually being used (eg the recent deletion of the gooch and house books from references). I've done the conversion and hope it suits people. Wazronk 21:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Length of page; focus in intro

First, I'd like to second the motion to write a new article on "History and future of the world" and shorten the section here to a summary. This article is more than twice the recommended length.

Second, though it may be difficult, I think more effort should be made in the introduction to situate the book and summarize its orientation. Is it "a new age spirituality with many beliefs in common with Christianity but inclusive of other religious teachings"? I'm not familiar with the book myself. Something that would orient the reader might be helpful. -DoctorW 04:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm kind of in agreement with both your statements, I'm just gathering myself to get back and see what to do next. There has been some elaboration and rearrangement of the History and Future section. I think the language could also be simplified, but how to do it and keep the information is kind of tricky. Maybe having someone unfamiliar with the book could help simplify it. Add somemore thoughts. Richiar 05:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
A difficulty with situating the book is that POV plays a large part. Antireconciler made the comment about the "lack an established popular interpretation" and I agree. Various people will say "new age", "gnostic", "revelation", "metaphysics", "occult". There is a strong affinity to Judeo-Christian traditions but also large points that diverge. References don't seem to point to a clear, satisfactory categorization. Wazronk 16:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism: Scientific, Religious and Philosophical

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if there might be a better way to organize the Criticisms and possibly the Comparisons. In a recent attempt to bring some balance to a couple of scientific controversies concerning tidal locking and solar eclipses, I came to realize the framework needs some attention. I don't believe that it will be sufficiently scalable as the criticism heats up.

I do believe this article will invite or stimulate the passionate. I hope we can build some more structure that is sufficiently resilient to withstand vigorous debate.

I would suggest that, since the UB maps things, meanings and values to the intellectual disciplines of science, philosophy and religion, we might adopt that model. In other words, I would ask you to consider using these three subtopics under both the Comparison and Criticism headings.

Do you think it could work?


BobKalk 07:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I think that might be a good way to consider organizing the whole article, not just the two headings you are looking at. I have been looking at breaking up the article into subarticles, which has been brought up before by others: at the momemt, I'm still trying to familiarize myself with the talk page archives, and the history of changes with the article. You might want to just proceed and see how it looks. I'm holding back for now until my thoughts clear a little more. But I like the suggestion of the three divisions you mention. Richiar 03:19, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Bob,
Welcome to wikipedia and thanks for the suggestions to the article. I've returned the article back to an earlier state and hope you won't take that the wrong way. There's plenty of improvements to make and the more contributors the merrier. It's just that the statements you included in the science criticisms section have been brought up in the past, have been investigated a great deal, and it has turned out they haven't panned out.
On the rotation of Mercury, see this discussion for more. About the Tenskwatawa eclipse, have a look here. If you want to go into more detail about these topics let me know.
An important concept with wikipedia is that material added to articles needs to be attributed to verifiable, credible sources. Please have a look at Wikipedia:Attribution. This also includes that personal, unpublished analysis of information from otherwise published sources can't be pulled together and included, as this is original research. For instance, you added that there were 3 solar eclipses in 1808, and you cited HMNAO. Yes, it's true that there were 3 solar eclipses in 1808. Yet in what way is that related to Tenskwatawa according to any published accounts? Did HMNAO publish anything about him and his prediction and place it in 1808? There were also any number of eclipses in 1807 and in 1809, why not say that one of these years is when Tenskwatawa's eclipse occured? From what I can tell you inserted the comment about 1808 to suggest to readers that there is a reason to think the eclipse he is associated with maybe occured in 1808. But none of the three eclipses in 1808 were even visible to Tenskwatawa or his followers. Also the eclipses were all partial whereas the one T. "predicted" was a total eclipse. And all historical accounts put the prediction and eclipse in 1806. See for instance Benjamin Drake's The Life of Tecumseh and of His Brother the Prophet.
I also would like one masterstroke of a solution to the inevitable differences of opinion an article like this one will generate but have my doubts that the change in structure will do that. I agree with you about the article inviting vigorous debate, it certainly has. The criticism section has seen probably more activity and back-and-forth than any other section in this regard. First and foremost though, the crucial key thing to these discussions is that verifiable, credible references must be brought to the table for suggested changes. In this respect, the structure to date has followed the lead of the references, and IMO I still feel that this is the most natural way to go.
I should add comments about how my revert also included the edits by Saitia. I did like some of the word changes and will try to add some of that back today or tomorrow when I have another chance. But there was a wholesale change to all the headers to capitalize them when this contrary to the wikipedia manual of style (see WP:STYLE). In many places italics were broken and it had left whole paragraphs accidentally italicized. Content wise, I also took issue with the soapbox statements that seemed like personal views and were not attributed to any sources. I agree with earlier comments by DoctorW and Richiar about trying harder to improve and clarify the lead paragraphs. I think the additions to the lead paragraphs didn't move things so much in that direction and to me there was a definite POV sense of asserting things were "revelatory" when that's not a universal consensus view and in fact is an extraordinarily small minority view. -- Wazronk 09:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi Wazronk,
I haven't had time to examine the Tenskwatawa material yet. I hope to gain a better understanding of that in the near future. I appreciate the references you provided with respect to the Mercury treatment, but I don't see anything resembling a consensus there. The "earlier state" you reverted to lacks the balance that others, and now I, have tried to achieve. I have no quarrel with Gardner's writings, his personal motives or his opinions. But in this case his analysis of the tidal locking issue clearly reflects bad reading. The fact remains that the authors never used the term "tidal locking," but described rather a process related to "tidal friction."
With respect to your assertion "the statements you included in the science criticisms section have been brought up in the past, have been investigated a great deal, and it has turned out they haven't panned out." I see no evidence concerning any investigation or any real attempt at consensus building with respect to the treatment of the subject matter. I read your statement concerning Mercury, and that reasoning may be satisfactory to you. But it is far from definitive. It may be enough for you that Gardner is a "professional writer." But it is unacceptable, even in a third grade book report, to misquote the source material. And I don't think agenda science qualifies as true science. If the book at the center of the controversy isn't represented with fidelity, then quoting policies concerning citations seems somewhat tangential.
BobKalk 06:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)71.252.25.74 06:07, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The Urantia Book says "tidal friction" causes revolutions of a planet to become "ever slower", acting as a brake until "one hemisphere always is turned toward the sun or larger body," and it offers the Moon as one example.
Definition of tidal locking from first sentence of its wikipedia article: "Tidal locking makes one side of an astronomical body always face another; for example, one side of the Earth's Moon always faces the Earth."
The state of being tidally locked is the stable end point after "tidal friction" has slowed revolutions as far as the physics allow.
So yes, tidal locking is exactly what Urantia Book is describing.
What you added into the article the other day was this statement: "A more careful reading of the Urantia Book reveals that the authors never used the term "tidal lock," but described rather a process related to "tidal friction." Mercury was offered as the example of a planet revolving "ever slower" whereas the moon was the example given "where axial revolution ceases.""
You do realize that Mercury's revolutions aren't slowing? And that the moon's axial revolutions haven't ceased? You actually are attributing two additional errors to TUB when before there was just the one cited in the article. You say that you don't see anything resembling a consensus but you (and the other person who raised this) haven't yet offered any source of published analysis to even begin a discussion about what to consider is more "balanced". So far it's only original research and basic science inaccuracies.
I've added a section below with more, including sources. Please cite published, credible sources for any analysis you would like that is new to the article. Wazronk 18:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Book" vs. "tome"

I have a feeling that some people might disagree with me. However, the word "tome" distracts the reader. It made me click over to the article on "tome" to find out what that really meant. The purpose of the sentence is to tell what the Urantia Book is, not to bring up side issues. There is nothing wrong with saying, "The Urantia Book is a book." Steve Dufour 15:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I like book, it is long enough to be a tome, but it is still a book and I think it is a less distracting word. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 15:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I had the same impression as you: once I looked up "tome" it made sense, but a smoother wording might be better. I'm still hanging back reading archives and gathering impressions, I'll be back to help with the article when I get through with that, maybe several more weeks for me. Richiar 15:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
The smoother the wording the better, especially in the intro. The change looks good. Wazronk 15:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I read through the archives a while back. I must say, I have never seen a talk page where people got along and made progress so well. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 17:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Some thoughts about the overall structure

I've been looking at this article and have begun to form some ideas about how the article might be taken from where it currently is. For the purpose of reducing the introductory article to a manageable length and to make it more readable and understandable what I'm thinking is this:

In keeping with the first paragraph of the introduction, the second sentence states that the Urantia Book is the "fifth epochal revelation". I think that could be a good organizing feature for the rest of the article. It seems like it would be appropriate then, for the article to elaborate on the 5 revelatory epochs, so that the phrase "fifth epochal revelation" is made clear.

The first sentence announces 6 topics: God, science, religion, history, philosophy, and destiny.

These two sentences are good. Using them as organizers might be a good way to proceed. The arrangement of topics might be placed in a different order.

Other thoughts:

1) The "History and Future of the World" section could be taken out and placed in its own subsection with further development

2) The "Future of Human Development" section seems good, and fitting for an introductory article, and could be kept with some editing for clarifying it

3) The "Lucifer Rebellion" section seems like it would fit better in its own subsection.

4) Re-write the "Adam and Eve" section, keeping some and putting other material in its own subsection

I'll let people consider these suggestions and see what they think. Richiar 18:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Richiar,
When you say "subsection" in points 1, 3, and 4, do you mean make the topics into articles on their own?
I think the 5 "revelations of epochal significance" could be explained somewhere. It seems natural under "History and future of the world". There is a neglected article The Fifth Epochal Revelation you probably have seen, it is another place where that would fit. Wazronk 19:10, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, leaving it as it is now is one way of doing it. Yes, I have seen the neglected article, and I'm glad to have that link as a further explanation of the phrase "fifth epochal revelation". I don't mean to say that I "insist" we proceed in this direction: rather, as I was looking at the article over the last couple of days, and comparing this article to some of the featured articles, there's a kind of elegant simplicity to them. I am trying to look at ways of finding that "elegant simplicity".
The idea of having more elaboration (in a balanced fashion) in the main article, either in lieu of, or in addition to, the link that is already there occured to me while I was thinking about things. Yes, I meant separate articles for 1, 3, and 4, rather than subsections. Yes, it could go into the "History and Future of the World", but I'm thinking of more direct elaboration (or as they say in philosophy-predication) of the initial categories presented in the opening two sentences. Richiar 00:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Elegant simplicity, I like that as a goal. I think we can get there.
You say: "It seems like it would be appropriate then, for the article to elaborate on the 5 revelatory epochs, so that the phrase "fifth epochal revelation" is made clear."
I agree with the aim to make clearer what is meant by revelation and fifth epochal revelation. One shortcoming to the introduction to me is that it makes no mention about how TUB is claimed to be written by spiritual beings rather than having a human author. This of course also relates to how it is said to be a revelation.
In terms of elegant simplicity, how about moving this phrase from deeper in the article into the introduction:
"The authors list the papers as the fifth revelation of "epochal significance" to humankind, the fourth epochal revelation having been the life of Jesus."
It directly places the significance of what is meant by an "epochal" revelation by linking it to what is already most likely known to the reader. There is an advantage in readability and comprehension with the simplicity of this over perhaps a more detailed review of each and every of the 4 prior ones. Additional material maybe to pull into the introduction from elsewhere in the article:
"The exact circumstances of the origin of The Urantia Book are unknown. There is not a human author associated with the book. It is written as if directly presented by numerous celestial beings appointed to the task of providing a new spiritual revelation to humankind."
With just these few sentences I think there will be accomplished a lot in terms of what is meant in terms of the book being a "revelation" and I think it would assist those like DoctorW who want to be oriented a little more to the book's perspective. Wazronk 03:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
And about the phrase "Fifth Epochal Revelation", I'm sure you've read my views on this elsewhere. It should be pointed out that this isn't in the book and is a slang phrase really. You mentioned in your first comment that in the second sentence the article "states that the Urantia Book is the "fifth epochal revelation"". This isn't quite what it says actually, it says more accurately and more NPOV that the book is "sometimes referred to...as the Fifth Epochal Revelation". To me there is a similarity to The Bible article, where in the introduction there is the comment: "The Christian Bible is called the Holy Bible, Scriptures, or Word of God." A good and worthwhile point to make in the introduction is about alternative, informal nickname titles, but I don't know as much that it is the most compelling of guidance to use for article structure.
On the "God, science, religion, history, philosophy, and destiny" list... It is a good one to go by. I think there is a decent amount of source material about the first 3 and those do get the most coverage in the article. The last three I don't know as much about secondary sources to use. You seem to follow philosophy, do you know of philosophy books that make use of TUB or reference it? I think the "history" in TUB likely will get comparisons to understood history some day but don't know about published, credible sources that have done that yet. Wazronk 04:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Although I've read through the Archives, they become complex and overwhelming, and I don't remember everyone's views. You might have to remind me from time to time, but I will keep reviewing them, too.
On the idea of expanding on the idea of revelation in the article: we could consider relating it to philosophy and religion and science, (it does this in the book, I'm sure everyone is aware), as well as relate it further to the 5 epochs. I know I presented a lot of ideas all at once, so I'm just letting people read these ideas and think about them. To work on these ideas while allowing the current article to remain stable, I opened a workspace here: UB workspace - - Richiar 18:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I do have a strong interest in philosophy, but am just a layperson. I don't know of any attempt by philosophy to address the UB, but a friend of mine teaches in the Philosophy Dept at the University in the city I live in (and he is a UB reader). I'll ask him if he knows of anything. Richiar 18:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tidal friction, Mercury, and the moon

Since this topic in the article as a science criticism has come up more than once in discussion I wanted to put together a summary of information and sources. In paper 57 of The Urantia Book, section 6, the second paragraph says this:

The planets nearest the sun were the first to have their revolutions slowed down by tidal friction. Such gravitational influences also contribute to the stabilization of planetary orbits while acting as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of the planet always turned toward the sun or larger body, as is illustrated by the planet Mercury and by the moon, which always turns the same face toward Urantia.

Here are some different statements and intrepretations / derivations people can take away from the paragraph, along with whether they're true or not.

  1. "Tidal friction acts as a brake on the rate of planetary-axial revolution, causing a planet to revolve ever slower until axial revolution ceases, leaving one hemisphere of a planet always turned toward the sun".... False. Axial revolutions don't cease in this situation, but stabilize to match the same amount of time needed to orbit the sun. It's a fundamentally inconsistent description of motion to say that both axial revolution would cease and one hemisphere would always be turned to the sun.
  2. "Mercury is an illustration of a planet that has slowed to the point where one hemisphere always faces the sun" .... False. Since Mercury revolves three times for every two orbits around the sun, all sides see exposure to the sun.
  3. "Before 1965, scientists believed that Mercury was a planet that had slowed to the point where one hemisphere always faces the sun" ... This is true.
  4. "Mercury's axial revolutions have ceased" ... False, Mercury revolves once every 58.6 days.
  5. "Before 1965, scientists believed that Mercury's axial revolutions had ceased" ... False, they believed Mercury revolved once every 88 days.
  6. "Mercury's axial revolutions haven't ceased, rather it's an example of an 'ever slowing' planet".... Not true, the Mercury 3:2 spin-orbit resonance is a stable equilibrium -- the planet's revolutions are neither slowing down nor speeding up.
  7. "The moon has slowed to the point where one hemisphere always faces the 'larger body' of the earth". Yes, true.
  8. "The moon's axial revolutions have ceased." False, the moon revolves on its axis once every 27.3 days.

Of the above, Gardner covers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8, and numbers 2 and 3 are what the article includes. Number 5 is obvious as a result of 1 but can be seen directly in the public domain 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (which also corroborates 3). Number 6 is from the Mercury (planet) article. Number 7 I'll bet everybody knew.

Interestingly, of the three things TUB can be interpreted as saying Mercury is an illustration of -- "ever slowing" axial revolution, "axial revolution ceased", "one hemisphere always turned toward the sun" -- all three of them turn out not to be the case. Wazronk 19:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmm. Thanks for pointing this out. And here all this time I was thinking it was the sun that went around the earth. !?? :) Richiar 17:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
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