TIME BOMBS II
by Ken Glasziou

 The first article on "Time Bombs" appeared
in Cosmic Reflections vol. 2 (2) along with the
subtitle of  "How to prevent the URANTIA Book
from becoming a fetish." The article was re-printed
in "The Science Content of The URANTIA Book"
and is available from the Brotherhood of Man
Library. This first article considered the reasons why
apparently inaccurate material, mainly relating to the
science content of the book, appeared alongside
prophetic material that could make the book self
authenticating for anybody prepared to calculate the
odds against selecting correct answers through
random guesswork.

 The first article concluded with a statement
of admiration for the skill and wisdom of the
revelators in preventing the book from becoming a
fetish item. However there is an entirely different
class of material in this strange and wonderful book
to challenge the credibility of its adherents. Again
we must ask why is it there, for even if totally true,
the book appears to have gained nothing by
including some of this material. For other material of
the same nature, those with the necessary
knowledge and foresight might acknowledge the
wisdom of the comments or proposals while having
serious misgivings about their timeliness.

 Imagine yourself as a gifted orator, totally
dedicated to the dissemination of the message of
The URANTlA Book, standing before an audience
of thousands who are enraptured by your utterly
convincing account of why they should embrace the
fifth Epochal Revelation. Question time arrives. A
voice from the audience asks you how Ratta, the
mother of the invisible infants who became parents
of the secondary midwayers, located these invisible
children when she mislaid them. You may have been
prepared for such questions, but your audience is
stacked with hostiles, determined not to let you off
the hook. So the demand comes to explain who and
what are secondary midwayers. Does the book really
say that every fourth child born to Adamson and
Ratta was invisible? Does it really say that the
invisible midwayers needed only electricity for
nourishment? And at mealtimes, did the mothers of
midwayer babies plug them into the mains or were
they battery fed?

 Now the revelators could quite easily have
avoided telling us about the origin and the
extraordinary properties of the secondary midwayers
and the book would have lost nothing at all by the
omission. So why is It there?

 If you talked your way out of the first
situation, try another. Imagine that your skills as an
exponent of the wonders of The URANTIA book
have earned you an interview on a top-rated, prime-
time television show. This is your chance to bring
the book to the attention of an audience of millions.
Your host directs your attention to page 590 of the
book from which he reads:

 "These enormous birds are able to carry
one or two average sized men for a nonstop flight of
over five hundred miles. On some planets these
birds are of great service since they possess a high
order of intelligence often being able to speak many
words of the language of the realm. These birds are
most intelligent, very obedient, and unbelievably
affectionate."

 Your interviewer makes the observation that
two average sized men would weigh in the vicinity
of 300 pounds, and asks that considering the
anatomical specialization of the bird family to
provide the aerodynamic efficiency necessary for
muscle powered flight, including their remarkable
bone structure to achieve both strength and
lightness, do you really expect us to believe that
these birds could get off the ground with a payload
of that size, then carry it nonstop five hundred
miles? You mention the discovery of fossil bones in
Brazil, of the very large but extinct giant teratorn
having a wing span of thirty five feet, and feel fairly
satisfied, though you may have to admit that it could
be necessary for the bird to leap from a very high
cliff in order to get airborne. You are then reminded
that excessive over design is uncommon in nature,
and would not an affectionate, talking, bird aerobus
combination be more suited to a comic strip than a
serious book on religion?

 No matter what the degree of plausibility,
evasiveness, and cleverness you use to retain your
credibility, the next comment from your host is
going to be, "We note that a giant size Adam and
Eve were supposed to use these birds to fly around
their Garden of Eden. Surely you don't expect us to
be that gullible?"

 Again, there was no obvious reason for the
revelators to include this materiel even though it
may be the gospel truth. So why is it there?

 Let us assume that you learn to evade such
situations with a diversionary joke or two. You get
an invitation to address an audience in Australia
where there is much missionary zeal being generated
around The URANTIA Book. You take it as a good
sign that there are some aboriginal Australians in
your audience and you deliver your most eloquent
address on the love of God,...on the brotherhood of
all men, on the true nature of love, about wanting
the highest cosmic good for the one who is loved,
and about Jesus' injunction to love one another as he
loved us. You have the audience exosmosing in an
emotional frenzy of brotherly love. Tears are
streaming down the faces of many. Amidst all of
this, a tall, elderly, dignified gentleman, black of skin
and white of beard, stands up and reads from a scrap
of paper.

 "On page 764 of this book from which you
preach, it describes my people as miserable remnants
of primitive, backward, suspicious, and anti-social
leftovers from a fictitious golden age. My people
have fallen victim to the white man's gifts of the
welfare handout and of alcohol. They desperately
need the Jesus of The URANTIA Book. But how
am I going to teach them from a book that so
condemns them?"

 Have you ever wanted to fall through the
floor? The URANTIA Book would appear to lose
nothing if it had avoided nominating specific groups
when describing the `primitive' races that are still in
existence, So why is it there?

 Let us now take a glance at more of such
material that can be used to discredit the book and
to embarrass those who go public. From page 770
we read:

 "The subnormal man should kept under
society's control; no more should be produced than
are required to administer the lower levels of
industry, those tasks requiring intelligence above
the animal level but making such low grade
demands as no prove veritable slavery and bondage
for the higher types of mankind."

 And from pages 812 and 818, and referring
to a society on a neighboring planet that may serve
as an example of progressive development:

 "The feeble-minded are trained only in
agriculture and animal husbandry, and are
committed for life to special custodial colonies
where they are segregated by sex to prevent
parenthood, which is denied all subnormals. These
restrictive measures have been in operation for
seventy five years; the commitment decrees are
handed down by the parental courts."

 "These people are passing out of the
negative into the positive era of law. Recently they
have gone so far as to attempt the prevention of
crime by sentencing those who are believed to be
POTENTIAL murderers and major criminals to life
service in the detention colonies."

 Imagine yourself trying to defend this
material from our book before a human rights
commission from the United Nations! The full quota
of all kinds of "Time Bombs" material is perhaps one
tenth of one percent of the total content of The
URANTIA Book. It could easily have been omitted.
The remainder of the book testifies to the super
human intelligence and wisdom of its authors, so it
cannot be an oversight, it must be there for a reason.
One such reason is that the authors intended that the
book and its teachings should be neither an object of
worship and veneration, nor should it be
disseminated by means of high powered advertising,
by public missions, by charismatic preachers, nor by
money grabbing charlatans. Rumor has it that
instructions were given to study the book for 100
years. Perhaps the rumor is right! Or is there some
other explanation?

(This article has no single author, being a summary
of opinions expressed in many discussion groups)

Produced and edited by Ken Glasziou.