HALF-BAKED

(PART I)

A RESPONSE TO

“THE ORIGIN OF PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN BELIEFS AS PRESENTED BY THE AUTHORS OF THE URANTIA BOOK”

by Lee Cook

The Soul That Sinneth

We begin with the first paragraph of Ms. Cook’s thesis:

The origin of the beliefs contained in the present-day Christian religion extends far back into history, back to the days of Andon and Fonta, the first two humans who were born 993,419 years ago from the year A.D. 1934. The Old Testament and the New Testament are replete with concepts such as sin, original sin, sacrifice, and atonement, beliefs developed by savage man over thousands and thousands of years and faithfully handed down from generation to generation, even unto the twenty-first century. These primitive concepts constitute the core beliefs of today’s Christian religion. [62:5.1] [63:0-3] [Paper 89]

Ironically, it is The UB that takes such “primitive” concepts as sin, salvation, and atonement and claims them as its own, albeit redefined in “modernized” terms. For example, The UB openly and admittedly redefines the meaning behind the word “sin”:

“There are many ways of looking at sin, but from the universe philosophic viewpoint sin is the attitude of a personality who is knowingly resisting cosmic reality. . . . Sin is a purposeful resistance to divine reality—a conscious choosing to oppose spiritual progress . . . .” (67:1.4)

And in Part IV of The UB, we learn from “Jesus” of the following “refined” definitions:

“‘Evil is the unconscious or unintended transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will. Evil is likewise the measure of the imperfectness of obedience to the Father’s will. Sin is the conscious, knowing, and deliberate transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will. Sin is the measure of unwillingness to be divinely led and spiritually directed. Iniquity is the willful, determined, and persistent transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will. Iniquity is the measure of the continued rejection of the Father’s loving plan of personality survival and the Sons’ merciful ministry of salvation. (148:4.3-6)

Note that the definitions for evil, sin, and iniquity are now assigned different levels of intent, at least according to Jesus of The UB. Evil is the unintentional outcome of our natural condition, or “animal urges;” sin is an intentional transgression, but not necessarily one that reflects an undesirable choice of lifestyle; while iniquity is an intentional, unrelenting lifestyle choice. Indeed, The UB does not argue that man commits sins, but how God views and deals with sin. Whereas Jesus of the Bible said that “‘whoever commits sin is a slave of sin’” (John 8:34), the Jesus of The UB assures us that “To be imperfect or partial in natural endowment is not sinful” (48:4.6) and “Men are, indeed, by nature evil, but not necessarily sinful” (148:4.8). It is these subtle shades of meaning that allow “Jesus” to remove man from the burden of sin. Jesus of The UB goes on to say:

“‘Neither does this inherent presence of potential evil mean that man is in some mysterious way estranged from the Father in heaven so that, as an alien, foreigner, or stepchild, he must in some manner seek for legal adoption by the Father. All such notions are born, first, of your misunderstanding of the Father and, second, of your ignorance of the origin, nature, and destiny of man.’” (ibid.)

The above edict speaks directly against the biblical teaching that man is separated from God by sin. Aside from the commission of sinful deeds, the Bible also points out the sinful nature of mankind. One of the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity is original sin, or the belief that all mankind has inherited a sin nature brought about by the fall of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3; Isa. 43:27; Rom. 5:12,19; 6:23; 1Cor. 15:21,22). Yet The UB’s authors view this position as inherently unjust. To punish billions for the acts of one, so they would claim, is unwarranted: “Adam should not be regarded as the cause of a curse on the human race” (75:8.3). This same sentiment is carried over into Part IV and expressed in a passage that “explains” how the fact that Jesus of The UB was about to be crucified on the Day of Passover was merely an unrelated coincidence:

“Jesus is not about to die as a sacrifice for sin. He is not going to atone for the inborn moral guilt of the human race. Mankind has no such racial guilt before God.” (186:5.7; emphasis added)

In order to rid mankind of the stain of original sin, The UB altogether eliminates Adam and Eve from the human lineage and presumes that pre-Adamic humans had roamed the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. Accordingly, the first human beings were a mating pair of hominids named “Andon” and “Fonta,” who evolved from lower primates almost one million years ago:

“[A]fter almost nine hundred generations of development, covering about twenty-one thousand years from the origin of the dawn mammals, the Primates suddenly gave birth to two remarkable creatures, the first true human beings. . . . From the year A.D. 1934 back to the birth of the first two human beings is just 993,419 years.” (62:4.6; 62:5.1)

“Andon and Fonta were . . . the actual parents of all mankind . . . .” (63:1.1)

And instead of Adam and Eve being the first humans who ushered mankind into a life of perpetual sin terminated by death, The UB portrays “Adam and Eve” as extraterrestrials who arrived on planet Urantia about 38,000 years ago on a genetic mission. They subsequently tasted physical death as a result of their “default” by procreating directly with the native humans. This “default” is not construed as a “sin,” but only as an “unfortunate and unwise” career choice (51:1.4). Their deaths are totally unrelated to the phenomenon of human death, which is simply the natural outcome shared by all animals. Therefore, to “blame” Adam and Eve as the first persons to usher sin (and death) into humanity is looked upon by the “celestials” as a false accusation.

But The UB expresses many views that run contrary to both biblical history and empirical evidence. In this case, the Bible presents Adam and Eve as the first humans who were directly created by God, not as interplanetary travelers who arrived some 960,000 years after the birth of Andon and Fonta as The UB asserts. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). The man was Adam, and the name literally means “man” in Hebrew. Thus, Adam was created on earth and was the first human being. Jesus of the New Testament confirmed this when He said that “‘He who made them at the beginning “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”’” (Matt. 19:4), quoting Genesis 1 and 2 as authoritative about the origin of mankind. First Corinthians 15:45 also says, “The first man Adam became a living being,” and thus reaffirms that it was Adam who was the first man, not Andon. Likewise, the placement of Andon and Fonta at approximately one million years ago (and further elaborations provided in Paper 64 of The UB) would group them as belonging to the hominid species Homo erectus, which paleontologists have long recognized as a side branch of the hominid family that went extinct independently of the arrival of modern humankind (Homo sapiens), and which played no part in modern human evolution.[1] Moreover, modern analyses of H. erectus specimens indicate that they were incapable of speech[2] (cf. 62:5) and lacked the advanced cognitive abilities of modern humans[3] (cf. 62:6). The combined anatomical and archeological data indicate that these were non-human hominids distinct from modern humans.

What’s more, subsequent discoveries of this species of bipedal primate present a migration history that is not at all in agreement with that of The UB’s account. The history of Homo erectus has been documented directly from the many sites that have yielded their fossil remains subsequent to Dubois’s original discovery on the island of Java in 1891. During the 1930s and 1940s, it became “common knowledge” that Asia was the birthplace of humanity. It now appears that Homo erectus most likely originated in Africa, not from the highlands of India as asserted by The UB. Instead, it appears that Homo erectus must have been restricted to the African tropics for several hundred thousand years before gradually migrating into Asia and probably into parts of Europe. According to modern standard views, Homo erectus evolved in Africa and did not migrate out of Africa until about one million years ago. The oldest African Homo erectus finds are between 1.6 million years old[4] and 1.8 million years old,[5] placing their appearance a full 600,000 to 800,000 years before Andon and Fonta, the supposed “first human beings” according to The UB (62:5.1).

The “Origin” of Sacrifice?

When one peruses the panoply of UB passages pertaining to the “origin” of the religious practice of sacrifice, one must surmise that the “revelators” seem a bit confused on the subject, and can’t seem to make up their mind just where this notion derived from. First, let us hear from a “Life Carrier resident on Urantia” (63:7.5) who regales us with the religious practices of the Andonites, the first human tribe that was a direct lineage of the first humans, Andon and Fonta, some ten thousand years later:

“Very early the Andonite peoples formed the habit of refraining from eating the flesh of the animal of tribal veneration. Presently, in order more suitably to impress the minds of their youths, they evolved a ceremony of reverence which was carried out about the body of one of these venerated animals; and still later on, this primitive performance developed into the more elaborate sacrificial ceremonies of their descendants. And this is the origin of sacrifices as a part of worship.” (63:6.4; emphasis added)

And now, let us listen to a “Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon” who also discusses the “origins of sacrifice”:

“Primitive man gauged the value of his sacrifice by the pain which he suffered. When the idea of sacrifice first attached itself to religious ceremonial, no offering was contemplated which was not productive of pain. The first sacrifices were such acts as plucking of hair, cutting the flesh, mutilations, knocking out teeth, and cutting off fingers.” (89:4.1; emphasis added)

So, which was it? Were the first religious sacrifices carried out through rituals involving animals, or did the first sacrificial acts involve self-abuse? Apparently, the answer depends on which “celestial” author one asks!

Keep this glaring inconsistency in mind as we get back to the account given by the “Life Carrier,” whose treatise on the origins of sacrifice ends as follows:

“This idea [Andonite animal sacrifice] was elaborated by Moses in the Hebrew ritual and was preserved, in principle, by the Apostle Paul as the doctrine of atonement for sin by ‘the shedding of blood.’” (63:6.4)

As had already been alluded, it is difficult for us to accept that these “Andonites” (a.k.a. Homo erectus) possessed any spiritual capacity such that they were engaging in acts of worship in light of modern evidence. The notion that a “primitive” yet cognitive concept such as animal sacrifice originated from these hominids is difficult to corroborate with the plethora of paleontological finds.

Before we move on, we have another authoritative opinion to point out that runs contrary to that of the “Life Carrier” above. The quoted phrase “the shedding of blood” is taken from Hebrews 9:22, which states: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (RSV). The “Life Carrier” therefore attributes the apostle Paul as the author of Hebrews; however, according to a “secondary midwayer who was onetime assigned to the superhuman watchcare of the Apostle Andrew” (120:0.0), Paul did not write the Book of Hebrews:

“The gospel of the kingdom is founded on the personal religious experience of the Jesus of Galilee; Christianity is founded almost exclusively on the personal religious experience of the Apostle Paul. Almost the whole of the New Testament is devoted, not to the portrayal of the significant and inspiring religious life of Jesus, but to a discussion of Paul’s religious experience and to a portrayal of his personal religious convictions. The only notable exceptions to this statement, aside from certain parts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are the Book of Hebrews and the Epistle of James.” (196:2.1; emphasis added)

Seeing as how both “Midwayers” and “Life Carriers” supposedly have mutually resided on planet Urantia since well before the time of Christ, it is difficult to understand why the two factions were unable to compare notes in order to get their facts straight! On the other hand, it is much easier to perceive that these two passages were lifted from two different human sources with opposing opinions regarding the author of Hebrews, but that the human author(s) who engaged in the culling did not pick up on this discretion.

At-One-Ment (Is What I Meant)

The UB is quick to disassociate the Christian claim that Jesus died on the cross for our sins from the doctrine of human depravity. This campaign begins early in The UB’s treatise on the “evolution of religion” by associating the concept of original sin with man’s primitive rationalization of death:

“Later and more complex systems of theology still ascribe death to the action of the spirit world, all of which has led to such doctrines as original sin and the fall of man.” (86:3.3)

In fact, the position held by The UB is that Adam and Eve did not “fall” or commit a sin that had consequences on the rest of the human race, nor does man have a fallen or sinful nature that is passed from parent to child. Sin is an act of rebellion against the laws of one’s “local universe” creator:

“Adam and Eve did default, but no mortal subsequently born on Urantia has suffered in his personal spiritual experience because of these blunders.” (67:7.7)

“Adam and Eve did fall from their high estate of material sonship down to the lowly status of mortal man. But that was not the fall of man. The human race has been uplifted despite the immediate consequences of the Adamic default. . . . There has been no ‘fall of man.’ The history of the human race is one of progressive evolution, and the Adamic bestowal left the world peoples greatly improved over their previous biologic condition.” (75:8.1,2)

“The animal nature—the tendency toward evildoing—may be hereditary, but sin is not transmitted from parent to child. Sin is the act of conscious and deliberate rebellion against the Father’s will and the Sons’ laws by an individual will creature.” (188:4.5)

Note carefully from this last passage that The UB’s predilection toward splitting the difference between a hereditary “evil nature” and the actual commission of sin places the authors into a theological conundrum. We have inherited the capacity for evil, and yet when we actually do commit a sin, we are not to blame our inherited evil nature! The above passage attempts to foist a false dichotomy on the issue of evil vs. sin in that “sin is not transmitted from parent to child” while evil is inherent. And this is certainly true, insofar as The UB defines sin; the commission of a sinful act is obviously not passed down from parent to child, as we are all individually responsible for our actions. It is the capacity to commit evil (i.e., the sinful nature in Christian terms) that is inherent in us all, and that is precisely what is “transmitted from parent to child”! One cannot commit a deliberate sinful act unless one has the capacity to do so in the first place. If one did not inherit a sinful nature, then one would be incapable of committing a sinful act. The two go intrinsically together, not one without the other.

The UB’s interpretation of the Fall is a by-product of nineteenth-century rationalism, which views the Bible alternately as revelation (when it agrees) or as speculation (when it disagrees). The doctrine of the sinfulness of mankind is especially obnoxious to The UB. The Bible affirms that death is a literal consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve: “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:4). “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23; cf. James 1:15). The effect of Adam’s sin was universal (Rom. 5:12, 19). The great suffering and pain inflicted by humans on one another throughout history is obvious and empirical truth of the validity of the Bible on the sinfulness of man.

The UB attempts to dodge this empirical bullet by defining sin as rebellion “against the Father’s will and the Sons’ laws”—that is, the laws of the local universe Michael Sons (or Creator Sons). Although this has echoes of the biblical definition of sin as transgression of God’s law (1John 3:4), it wedges polytheism into its definition. There are not many creators over other local universes (Rev. 4:11). Moreover, the Bible also defines sin as a principle or inclination that dwells within mankind, not merely as an act of disobedience. “It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Rom. 7:17). “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts” (Rom. 6:12).

In the same rationalistic vein, The UB claims that the world is not fundamentally evil, and sin is not the major stumbling block that separates man from God. In doing so, it must also re-define Jesus’ attitude towards these concepts such that his views are in tandem with those of its authors:

“Jesus led men to feel at home in the world; he . . . taught them that the world was not fundamentally evil. . . . Jesus did not share Paul’s pessimistic view of humankind. The master looked upon men as the sons of God. . . . He saw most men as weak rather than wicked, more distraught than depraved. But no matter what their status, they were all God’s children and his brethren.” (196:2.9)

“The doctrine of the total depravity of man destroyed much of the potential of religion for effecting social repercussions of an uplifting nature and of inspirational value. Jesus sought to restore man’s dignity when he declared that all men are the children of God.” (99:5.5)

In stark contrast, the Bible portrays the world as good in substance, but evil in that its inhabitants are alienated against God. Moreover, the Bible does not mince the words evil, sin, and iniquity like The UB does: “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Eccl. 7:20). “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isa. 64:6). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1John 1:8). “The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1John 5:19). Jesus viewed the world of man as basically lost, for He said, “‘And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil’” (John 3:19).

Ms. Cook relies on one of the more outspoken papers on the subject of “evolved” religion is Paper 89, entitled “Sin, Sacrifice, and Atonement” in the formulation of her first paragraph cited above. In its attempt to “set the record straight,” Paper 89 tells us that the doctrines of original sin and salvation are derived from primitive human thought, and that propitiation for sins evolved from religious practices involving ritualistic sacrifice:

“Primitive man regarded himself as being in debt to the spirits, as standing in need of redemption. As the savages looked at it, in justice the spirits might have visited much more bad luck upon them. As time passed, this concept developed into the doctrine of sin and salvation. The soul was looked upon as coming into the world under forfeit—original sin. The soul must be ransomed; a scapegoat must be provided. The head-hunter, in addition to practicing the cult of skull worship, was able to provide a substitute for his own life, a scapeman.” (89:0.1)

The UB authors take this tact because, in their world view, human physical death is not the consequence of sin, but only the alternative to not attaining sufficient spiritual progress:

“Most human beings die because, having failed to achieve the spirit level of Adjuster fusion, the metamorphosis of death constitutes the only possible procedure whereby they may escape the fetters of time and the bonds of material creation, thereby being enabled to strike spiritual step with the progressive procession of eternity.” (32:5.4)

No doubt, then, the UB has its task set out to convince us that we are the unwitting victims of our own superstitions!

And now comes the pitch, transparent as it is in light of earlier discussions. The original concept of sin (the transgression of taboo) evolved out of the envisaging of good vs. evil spirits, and became the logical conclusion of primitive minds as to the cause of physical death (89:2). The origins of sacrifice took shape early in the evolution of religion with the emergence of two concepts, those being the gift sacrifice, or thanksgiving, and the debt sacrifice, or redemption (89:4). These ideas eventually merged into the doctrine of sacrifice for the atonement of “racial” sin. The idea of original sin implied racial guilt, which placed everyone in a position of great debt to the powers that be. This “primitive” concept grew into the ritual practice of animal sacrifice, which in turn led to cannibalism and finally human sacrifice. “Human sacrifice has been virtually universal; it persisted in the religious customs of the Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, Hebrews, Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, and many other peoples . . .” (89.6.2; emphasis added). Faw’s Paramony lists Genesis 22 for this passage, which is the Biblical account of God’s testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. But the biblical account indicates that Abraham did not actually kill Isaac, as God’s angel prevented him from doing so at the last moment (vs. 11, 12). The purpose of this exercise was to test Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only begotten son (by Sarah) to God as a test of his faith. This passage serves as a foreshadowing of what God was willing to do as a means for man’s needed redemption because of Adam’s original sin (cf. John 3:16; 1Cor. 15:22,45).

As another means to circumvent the sin problem, The UB teaches us that salvation should be taken for granted:

“The ideal of religious philosophy is such a faith-trust as would lead man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes. Such a genuine religious experience far transcends the philosophic objectification of idealistic desire; it actually takes salvation for granted and concerns itself only with learning and doing the will of the Father in Paradise.” (103:9.5)

“All this concept of atonement and sacrificial salvation is rooted and grounded in selfishness. Jesus taught that service to one’s fellows is the highest concept of the brotherhood of spirit believers. Salvation should be taken for granted by those who believe in the fatherhood of God. The believer’s chief concern should not be the selfish desire for personal salvation but rather the unselfish urge to love and, therefore, serve one’s fellows even as Jesus loved and served mortal men.” (188:4.9; emphasis original)

The fact that the UB authors acknowledge that the human condition known as salvation should be taken for granted does not excise the reality or relevance of the condition, but merely attempts to adjust the appropriate attitude toward the condition. Though salvation should be taken for granted, the condition of salvation is nevertheless granted, provided the proper attitude is realized.

Likewise, the “revelators” do not so much attempt to remove the concept behind the atonement doctrine from the human psyche, but instead replace it with a “new and improved” demeanor, replete with a familiar-sounding moniker for ease of transition:

“Fusion with the Adjuster never occurs until the mandates of the superuniverse have pronounced that the human nature has made a final and irrevocable choice for the eternal career. This is the at-onement authorization . . . .” (112:7.5; emphasis added)

So in review, while it is the UB authors who accuse the biblical authors of borrowing primitive human concepts for the purpose of inventing their theological constructs, it is the UB authors themselves who are guilty of such mimicry!

ENDNOTES