I have always considered The Urantia Book nonpareil among spiritual books,but after many years of study, it seems different in some respects from the book I read for the first time. I am sure that my experience is not unique. I see our relationship to the book as going through stages similar to those of a romance.

The first stage we experience is likely to be infatuation. We only have eyes for the beloved. We perceive no flaws in the beloved, we want to spend all our waking hours with this other. It's almost as if we are trying to merge with this other, as if this other is the missing half of ourselves. But this stage eventually passes and we begin to see the beloved as "other." We begin to compare our thoughts, beliefs and feelings with those of the other. And we may be unhappy when we discover that the other's ideas, thoughts and beliefs don't always agree with our own. We may be willing to overlook the differences and subsequently decide that the other is someone with whom we wish to build a long term relationship, or we may decide it's best to move on. We may enter a long term relationship with the other, such as marriage. Everything may go well from then on, unless we find that something about the other becomes so objectionable to us that we can no longer tolerate it. This may lead to alienation and even divorce. Now of course it's best not to push an analogy too far, but I do observe similar phases in some peoples experience with The Urantia Book.

Some people who encounter The Urantia Book for the first time become almost obsessed with it. They feel that they must go out and convert the human race to this book. But eventually reality usually sets in and they have to settle for just getting a few friends to look at the book. Unfortunately, their friends' reactions may negatively affect their perception of the book. Or they may study the book for years, and not devote a lot of thought to some parts of it until one day they decide some concept strikes them as unacceptable. I have found the treatment of one subject by the authors disturbing for a long time.

The subject is eugenics. The word is only mentioned once in the book, on p. 1220 where the authors tell us: "Civilization is in danger when youth neglect to interest themselves in ethics, sociology, eugenics, philosophy, the fine arts, religion, and cosmology." I find it odd to include eugenics with the other subjects listed. After all, unless you breed animals, develop new strains of plants, or major in biology, you would be unlikely to study this subject in depth. Is this information in the book derived from human sources?  The authors of The Urantia Book informed us that numerous human sources were used in the book. Drs. William and Lena Sadler were both quite interested in eugenics and Dr. William Sadler wrote several books on the subject.

• The authors informed us that they used the thoughts and ideas of many human authors. Did they use some of Dr. Sadler's thoughts or the ideas of some other person who wrote about eugenics?

• Perhaps we ought to take more interest in human eugenics, but unfortunately the operations of the Third Reich in trying to breed the super race and eliminate others tinged human eugenics with an unsavory reputation. Many people regard the subject with a great deal of suspicion. Now it may be true, as one wag has said, that the human gene pool needs to be chlorinated to rid it of undesirable growths, but there is often a great gap between recognizing a need and being able to take care of it. This is especially true for issues that are so politically and socially sensitive.

I am not pleased with the authors attitude about our duty concerning eugenics. We are informed on p. 585: "These six evolutionary races are destined to be blended and exalted by amalgamation with the progeny of the Adamic uplifters. But before these peoples are blended, the inferior and unfit are largely eliminated. The Planetary Prince and the Material Son, with other suitable planetary authorities, pass upon the fitness of the reproducing strains. The difficulty of executing such a radical program on Urantia consists in the absence of competent judges to pass upon the biologic fitness or unfitness of the individuals of your world races. Notwithstanding this obstacle, it seems that you ought to be able to agree upon the biologic disfellowshiping of your more markedly unfit, defective, degenerate, and antisocial stocks."

Now it would be nice if the authors would speak a bit more plainly at times. It's a bit hard to know what they mean by "biologic disfellowshiping." Do they mean sterilization, eradication, or sending the "degenerates" off to a remote desert island?

Sterilization or eradication would be a problem for many people in our culture. To fellowship is to take a person into one's social group or church. I was unable to find "disfellowship" in any of the dictionaries I checked, but I assume that to disfellowship is to eject a person from your group or church. The intended meaning seems vague to me, but perhaps as in other places, the authors are being deliberately vague--an annoying habit they have.

On p. 839 we are informed that regarding racial improvement, Adam and Eve were: "..quite dismayed.  They could see no way out of the dilemma, and they could not take counsel with their superiors on either Jerusem or Edentia." Later on this page: "But on Urantia such a project seemed just about hopeless."

The authors have admitted that we don't have the celestial staff competent to pass judgment on such issues, and I doubt that we have the will or the capability to make such judgments. Yes, the Life Carriers could advise us, but apparently, they aren't permitted to contact us. We seem to be on our own. Laying a task on us that Adam and Eve, despite all their training, felt was hopeless seems unfair to me.

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The authors are fond of the word "degenerate" and have used it in many places as in the following: "The church, because of overmuch false sentiment, has long ministered to the underprivileged and the unfortunate, and this has all been well, but this same sentiment has led to the unwise perpetuation of racially degenerate stocks which have tremendously retarded the progress of civilization."

Who are these degenerates that we are supposed to control? Typical are comments of this kind: "That contemporary cultural society is a rather recent phenomenon is well shown by the present-day survival of primitive social conditions; among  backward peoples there may be observed something of the early group hostility, personal suspicion, and other highly antisocial traits which were so characteristic of all primitive races; remnants of the nonsocial peoples of ancient times bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the natural individualistic tendency of man cannot successfully compete with the more potent and powerful organizations and associations of social progression; these backward and suspicious antisocial races that speak a different dialect every forty or fifty miles illustrate what a world you might now be living in but for the combined teaching of the corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince and the later labors of the Adamic group of racial uplifters." (764)

Are these the groups that are supposed to be "biologically disfellowship?" It seems to me inappropriate for highly placed spiritual beings to use such unkind words.

Perhaps the authors have identified the degenerates for us in Paper 72, "Government on Another Planet."  It seems to me that the authors included this paper in order to give us a model of what to strive for, at least in the short term. I seem to hear them saying,, "Look here, look at how these people have advanced. Go and do ye likewise."

But they realize how distasteful one aspect of their model is: "The methods of this people in dealing with crime, insanity, and degeneracy, while in some ways pleasing, will, no doubt, in others prove shocking to most Urantians. Ordinary criminals and the defectives are placed, by sexes, in different agricultural colonies and are more than self-supporting. The more serious habitual criminals and the incurably insane are sentenced to death in the lethal gas chambers by the courts. Numerous crimes aside from murder, including betrayal of governmental trust, also carry the death penalty, and the visitation of justice is sure and swift." (818). The people of this other planet view the mentally disturbed as "defectives." If they're very disturbed, just execute them. Problem solved. But "degenerates" and "defectives' have somewhat different meanings.

One of the definitions of degenerate in The American Heritage Dictionary is: "Having fallen or descended to a state below what is considered normal or desirable, esp. in mental or moral quality." Well, that covers a multitude of sins! Now all we have to do is decide what we mean by "normal" and "desirable."  Sounds like a real minefield to me. I doubt that we're qualified for the job of setting the boundaries of normal and desirable and of selecting those who fall outside these boundaries.

But after I've said all this, I concede that at some point we need first to control the quantity of people on our planet, and then second to consider how we can improve the quality of the human race. There are those who prey on the unwary and defenseless in our world.  There are those who would destroy all that which is good and noble if they were able to do so. If such tendencies are hereditary, it would be excellent to eliminate these genes from our gene pool. It seems to me what we need from our celestial supervisors isn't a whack on the head for not living up to their expectations, but rather some useful guidance. Better yet, send us those wise enough to lead the effort to improve our gene pool. How about a replacement Adam and Eve?

Ironically, we are on the verge of being able to control heredity through gene replacement therapy.  The human genome project is trying to identify all the genes that control our heredity. When this is eventually completed, we will have either found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or opened Pandora's box, depending on your view of the situation. But having the ability to control heredity does not diminish the ethical and social issues of eugenics. We must still answer the difficult questions of value. Which genes shall be preserved; which shall not?  How many otherwise good people are led astray by a bad environment?  Are we not obligated to do what we can in improving the environment in which children are raised before we embark on a eugenics improvement program?  And once we decide to improve our gene pool, how can we convince those who disagree with this concept that it is not just desirable but may be crucial to the survival of civilization on this planet?

And for the next revelation, could you spiritual supervisors (or whoever does the editing) arrange for some kinder, gentler language, and some helpful guidance? Please?

Dick Bain, USA.

[My thanks to Matthew Block for the following list of Dr Sadler's works on eugenics:

"Long Heads and Round Heads." (1917),
"The Race Decadence." (1922)
"Truth about Heredity." (1927),
"Theory and Practice of Psychiatry." (1936). One chapter.

Matthew suggests reading Mark Haller's book, "Eugenics," to get an idea of what other writers were writing about eugenics at the time of the receipt of the Urantia Papers.]