Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery

By Martin Gardner

Book Overview

Well-known skeptic and acclaimed popular science writer Martin Gardner presents a complete history of the Urantia movement, from its beginnings in the early 20th century to the present day. In... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879759550
• ISBN13: 9780879759551
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 445 Pages
• Weight: 1.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

If possible, read this book before reading the Urantia Book.

Even though Gardner's book is fairly formidable (445 pages; 1.7 pounds), do yourself a favor and read it before you buy and read the Urantia Book (2,097 pages; 4.3 pounds, per Gardner). By doing so, you will hopefully save the cost of buying, the time spent reading, and, most importantly, avoid a possible commitment to the Urantia Book. I first ran across the Urantia Book (UB) in 1973, bought it and spent months of careful reading before finishing it in early 1974. At that time I got rid of the UB because I felt that, although unconventional, it was essentially Christian and capable of only producing yet another Christian sect, and was therefore limited in perspective and usefulness. The racial and religious prejudices, spread throughout the book but concentrated especially in the Jesus papers, were obvious, and likely not the product of those with a comprehensive view of the world, as assumed by the UB's purported cosmic authors. Because of the UB's complexity and obviously Christian focus, I concluded at the time that the source must be, say, a very cynical Christian mathematician. Although I have not paid much attention to the UB for the last 30 years, I was very interested to recently run across Gardner's book in the library and to find that my initial reaction to the UB had some elements of truth. From Gardner's book, I learned that the authors of the UB, or at least its editors/compilers, were from a strong Christian (Seventh Day Adventist) background. Also, to date, approximately 50% of the UB has been shown to be directly copied or summarized from a variety of early 20th century religious, scientific, sociological, and historical publications that were available to UB authors prior to its publication in 1955. Of course this fact runs counter to the extraterrestrial origin claimed by the UB's naturally very secretive human sources. Whether their motivation was to create a special aura around the book, or to shield themselves from public accountability, in the short term it is clear that the miraculous origin gathered more attention than would have the open acknowledgement of its copyrighted human origin. Who would have given any attention to this eclectic mishmash if the sources had been duly cited? The fact that much of the material was illegally plagiarized is not in doubt, and is clearly presented by Gardner. This is not just his opinion, as stated by some UB devotees, because Gardner's book contains multiple instances of, and references to, identical passages copied word for word from identified, copyrighted sources into the UB. This activity has been shown, to date, to account for approximately half the UB; perhaps the remaining 50% of the UB is also plagiarized, or portions of it may have been authored by its editors/compilers. The complexity of some of the UB can be attributed in part to the complexity of some of its sources; at least one of the sources noted was a physics publication by an acknowledged expert

Worth Reading - Even for Urantians!

Given that Martin Gardner is a skeptic, and that the Urantia book is a so-called "revealed" Bible-like text which mixes Christianity, philosophy, history, and many strange, wild, and often nutty ideas, Gardner's book is primarily worth reading for the history and background of the Urantia Book and movement based upon it. Gardner's opinions are condescending and nasty at times, but one expects that from so harsh a critic of spirituality as he. I am a liberal Christian and an open-minded skeptic, not a "Urantian", yet I have read much of the Urantia Book and know many Urantians, good people all of them. While I am generally skeptical of any claims of spiritual revelation, I have found the Urantia movement peaceful and positive in nature, not worthy of being labeled "cult" and lumped in with Waco, Heaven's Gate, etc. I do not buy most of what the Urantia Book claims as reality, but that does not mean I do not respect much of what the readers stand for. I do believe Martin Gardner has done us all a service in tracking the cloudy history of the Urantia movement and how "the book" came to be, and I believe as he that the U Book is simply a creation of human minds. Educated human minds, but human minds, nonetheless. Yet that does not lessen my appreciation for the merits of the U Book, it's devoted readers, and the message it tries to get across. I would recommend this book with very few reservations, to all Urantia readers and believers, and anyone interested in the real history of the movement. It not only enhanced my understanding of the U Book, it filled in most of the blanks on the creation of that mammoth text. To Urantians afraid of reading this book or critical of Gardner, I believe you do yourselves and your movement a disservice. I would invite you to open the windows a bit. Start with this book.

Be skeptic of the skeptic

Marvin Gardner has a formula to be the prolific writer that he is. He looks for a subject with considerable interest and takes an opposing and controversial view. Using his own logic, Marvin could not prove that China exists. A five minutes perusing through the pages of the Urantia Book would convince any reasonable person that such a stupendous amount of knowledge and wisdom cannot possibly originate in the human mind. To affirm that it does demonstrates that Marvin believes that not only is he capable to write a book of this caliber, but that his superior mind can tell that it is possible for another being to do so. What a gratification for his ego. After having studied the Urantia Book for 20 years, it is mind bogling to me how consistant and absent of error this Revelation is for any midly intelligent human being. But the Urantia book does reveal that not all humans are endowed with the same capacity to seek out and discover the truth. Marvin is only interested to make a buck and needs his own cult of followers: the people who buy his books. P.S. The Urantia Book is rather sanguinary on mathematicians, which may explain Marvin's ardor against the teachings of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. (The Urantia Book)

Poor Martin...

While it's certainly unintentional, Gardner has done something valuable with this book: it will stand as a useful illustration of one of the more delusionary intellectual sophistries of those who choose to live life without living faith. What's more, anyone interested enough in The Urantia Book to bother with his efforts to debunk it, may actually become intrigued enough to read the UB for themselves; and that's the ultimate redeeming value of Gardner's psuedo-scholarship. I look forward to a Mansion world reunion of the several Urantians Martin inadvertently turns on to The Urantia Book! It could give rise to one of the more memorable crow-eating sessions of Urantian history... (subject matter rates a 10; Gardner's conclusions a sketchy 2.)

An eye opening expose' of gross religous manipulations

Martin Gardner has clearly done extensive and scholarlyresearch in preparing this book. It was fairly easy to read and quiteto the point. I found it very interesting that the Urantia book found it's origin with a group of dis-gruntled ex Seventh Day Adventists. As Martin Gardner points out so clearly E.G. White who founded the S.D.A. church is well known for her blatant plagerisms and her hypocrisy. What a foundation to build another elaborate religious manipulation upon. And this is just what Dr. William Sadler did, he master minded the creation of a compromised Bible filled with outright lies and fiction mixed with stolen truths for those who are unwilling to accept the God of the Holy Bible. I believe that Martin Gardner showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Urantia book and the entire Urantia movement which has followed is built on a foundation of shifting sand. The Urantia book is quite clearly not the product of pure divine inspiriation but rather a clever and intricate web of fantasy and deception mixed with faulty S.D.A. doctrines and plagerized truths. I would highly recommend this book especially to those who have believed the lie that the Urantia book was inspired by 'higher beings'. No The Urantia book was inspired and compiled by dishonest, arrogant and power hungry indivduals.