Astrology and the Urantia Book !

Though the Urantia Book has been a wonderful book that has fascinated me for quite some time now, there are certain things that I find a bit confusing.

The book is a collection of various subject papers essentially covering details of the God who is the First Being that existed from eternity and who is behind the creation of all that is in the Universe. The book tells us about the nature, qualities and personality of God (also called the Universal Father) and the details of the creations that came into existence from eternity onwards, including both living beings and non-living things.

The various subject papers of the book [196 in all] together with its elaborated Foreword gives a comprehensive coverage of all that the modern man wanted to know regarding origins of the universe, God, subordinate deities, celestial personalities, laws of the material universes, origin of nebulae, stars, black bodies, planets, planetary systems and worlds having material life just as our earth.

It also covers the origin of earth, the establishment of life on earth and the origin and progressive evolution of humans on earth. The evolution of religions, god concepts, governments, economies, philosophies, science, etc on earth are also explained in such details and authoritativeness as if the authors are eyewitnesses to all the sequences of development of our world.

Then the authors of the papers identify themselves as invisible non-humans of various orders. The details of their orders are also covered in papers dealing with such subject matter. It is told that these information are of a revelatory type from a higher intelligence level than the humans. At the same time, the authors also inform us that the knowledge humans have acquired so far correctly by themselves have been retained as such. They inform us that they try to polish our understanding with some factual inputs and corrections where ever necessary.

I have found the treatise of the book having a high intellectual level and very much logical. It is difficult to find inconsistencies or grave errors of that sort in the book. The knowledge provided has been far advanced than the knowledge that existed at the time of publication of the book [ie 1955]

While depicting some historical events that had happened some 2000 years ago, the book gives the many dates in the modern calendar clearly identifying the day and some astronomical peculiarity of those days[such as full moon] which has been found correct recently with the help of NASA's advanced computer software.

There are many such things which project the book to such high level of authenticity .

The book also deals with the superstitious human belief systems and the evolution of such superstitions in human minds.

Astrology is one such topic.

" The courses of the stars in the heavens have nothing whatever to do with the events of human life on earth. Astronomy is a proper pursuit of science, but astrology is a mass of superstitious error " The Urantia Book says.

But, I have found the astrological profile of my personality correct to a great extent.

I have also found the personality traits of people based on their zodiac signs nearly true that it is difficult for discarding those as false.

The Urantia Book also tells like this: "Again and again did the Caesars banish the astrologers, but they invariably returned because of the popular belief in their powers. They could not be driven out, and even in the sixteenth century after Christ the directors of Occidental church and state were the patrons of astrology. Thousands of supposedly intelligent people still believe that one may be born under the domination of a lucky or an unlucky star; that the juxtaposition of the heavenly bodies determines the outcome of various terrestrial adventures. Fortunetellers are still patronized by the credulous."

But the book also have some statements like these :

"Personalities may be similar, but they are never the same. Persons of a given series, type, order, or pattern may and do resemble one another, but they are never identical. Personality is that feature of an individual which we know, and which enables us to identify such a being at some future time regardless of the nature and extent of changes in form, mind, or spirit status. Personality is that part of any individual which enables us to recognize and positively identify that person as the one we have previously known, no matter how much he may have changed because of the modification of the vehicle of expression and manifestation of his Personality."

" Always should the domains of the physical (electrochemical) and the mental response to environmental stimuli be differentiated, and in turn must they all be recognized as phenomena apart from spiritual activities. The domains of physical, mental, and spiritual gravity are distinct realms of cosmic reality, notwithstanding their intimate interrelations."

There are many other statements and affirmations of cosmic facts of this kind which tell us that the human personality traits are affected by a person's time and place of birth on account of the universal gravity lines influencing the genes that determine the personality traits of humans.

But they are not due to the stars and the planets.

Our astrologers happen to see the planets and stars of a particular type during the time of the year at a particular location and they have been able to classify people's personalities according to the stars or planets. The Urantia Book says that these planets and stars are not responsible, but something else coming from far beyond. Gravity has a role, but not the gravity of the stars and the planets we had identified.

Again the Urantia Book authors for reasons known to them do not encourage us to go exploring this and waste our energies and time on such things which they consider as irrelevant to our lives on a long term perspective.

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