RELIGION WITHOUT SCIENCE HAS NO FOUNDATION SCIENCE WITHOUT RELIGION HAS NO DIRECTION    INTRODUCTION      The seed for this work was planted unconsciously in my mind the day my parents had an argument over the reason for the preservation of the body of St. Claire, one of Italy's patron saints. I was in my early teens, living in that country at the time and visiting Assisi where the woman's mummified body was kept on display in a glass case. As a devout Catholic my mother believed with the Church that it was a miracle; as a medical doctor my father offered a scientific explanation. The intensity with which the difference in viewpoints was expressed left a deep impression in me.      Searching for answers, I later learned that scientific thought began to run counter to religious beliefs when Galileo Galilei introduced the scientific method of investigation four centuries ago. Facts based on observation, experimentation, and mathematical deduction came to refute opinions based on religious texts. One of these is the advent of Man. Science asserts that he evolved from lower life forms; religion maintains he was created by God. As concerns the existence of a God, science does not accept it as certain because it has not been proven with facts; religion is convinced of his existence based both on faith and because it is written in religious books.      Based on the theory proposed by Charles Darwin, the current view in biology is that evolution is nonintelligent, naturalistic (i.e., solely the result of natural causes) and purposeless, and that human beings evolved from lower life forms by accident. While this paper agrees with the explanation of Man's origin, it disagrees with the current interpretation of the nature of evolution. Recent discoveries in the natural sciences are presented here which show that biological evolution is the product of intelligent design, that its final goal is the development of human beings, and that for this to occur a God is necessary. (Click here for article) ********************************************************************************************                                                                        THE URANTIA PAPERS                             EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD      In his book The Intelligent Universe, the eminent British astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle writes: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature."      Proof of the existence of superintellects and God is given in the URANTIA PAPERS, a divine revelation to our planet on science, history, philosophy, religion, and related subjects. Urantia is the name of our planet and the papers were authored by various celestial personalities between the early 1920s and mid-'30s. They were published as The URANTIA Book in 1955. Consider the following statement at the end of Paper 1 titled The Universal Father: "I am commissioned to sponsor those papers portraying the nature and attributes of God because I represent the highest source of information available for such a purpose on any inhabited world. I have served as a Divine Counselor in all seven of the superuniverses and long resided at the Paradise center of all things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father. I portray the reality and truth of the Father's nature and attributes with unchallengeable authority; I know whereof I speak."      The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes the nature of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit, the reality of Paradise, the central and superuniverses, many other high celestial personalities, as well as the Corps of the Finality, the destination on Paradise for humans who have attained perfection in doing the will of God.      Part II describes the local universe whose creator is Christ Michael, known on Earth as Jesus of Nazareth. The local universe includes Urantia and many other inhabited planets. These papers also give information on the Life Carriers who implant life on the evolutionary worlds.      Part III narrates the history of Urantia and the origin of life here. A timeline of plant, animal, and human evolution is given. Our planet was declared inhabited by human beings about a million years ago when the first minds of "will dignity" appeared.     Part IV gives a detailed account of the purpose of Jesus' incarnation and a year-by-year narration of his life, teachings, death, resurrection, and legacy.                                                                       HOW THE PAPERS WERE REVEALED (The following is a shortened version of a tape recording made in 1962 by William S. Sadler Jr., the son of the two physicians, Drs. William and Lena Sadler, who were the first to receive the communications which led to the revelation of the Papers.)      "Many years ago my parents had brought to their attention this individual who had some rather strange things happening to him. My father was an exposer of mediums. In his book "The Truth about Spiritualism," he categorized them as either frauds or sincere but self-deceived individuals, "with one possible exception". He believed this man was different. He would go to sleep and would talk, and what came out was strictly offbeat. This went on for years. In 1922, I believe, a Sunday evening meeting - kind of a forum - came to be organized at our house where friends would be invited to talk about health, and history, and politics, etc. This group became interested in spiritualism because Pop was writing on that subject at the time. The question came up whether all such phenomena is (sic) fraudulent. My dad was an honest guy and said that there was one case that was a puzzle. The forum became intrigued with the shorthand notes that he had taken since 1911 of things this man talked about while asleep. One evening, while talking with this chap, a kind of argument broke out. They were talking with someone who claimed to be a "Mighty Messenger." They asked if he could prove that he was a Mighty Messenger. "No," he said, "but you can’t prove I am not, either. If you knew what I know you would not ask these half-backed questions." Pop looked at the others in the group and said: "Let’s take him up on it."So the next Sunday the group came in on the deal and many questions were submitted in written form. The first question was: "Is there a God, and if so, what is he like?" What happened was this - one day the question was gone and where the question was kept was the first of the Urantia Papers titled: "The Universal Father." I believe a total of five thousand questions were submitted and received in the same manner. The sleeping subject did nothing. He was never seen to write one of the papers that followed the written questions. We tried everything to see how this was done, but were baffled. The text was entirely written in pencil. We took an oath never to divulge who this guy was." (To find answers to some common questions go to the Conclusion.)