Eugenics, Race, and The Urantia Book

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of statements in The Urantia Book related to eugenics and race and, in particular, to focus on aspects of this topic that are more likely to be misinterpreted and/or cause concern.

The UBtheNEWS project documents how new discoveries and scientific advances increasingly support The Urantia Book’s account of planetary history as well as some of its other statements. Some UBtheNEWS reports involve sections from The Urantia Book that address eugenics and race. As the field of genetics continues to make advances, reports in this category also continue to increase. UBtheNEWS is primarily for people who are unfamiliar with The Urantia Book. For people unfamiliar with the fuller context of the book’s statements about eugenics and race, the limited selections quoted in UBtheNEWS reports, naturally, raise more questions about The Urantia Book than provide answers. This problem led to the preparation of this paper.

People, of course, have legitimate concerns and strongly held beliefs and opinions on eugenics and race. Perhaps because of the size and complexity of the undertaking, this is the first effort in over fifty years to create a comprehensive review of what The Urantia Book says about eugenics and race. Because UBtheNEWS is responsible for leading people to these easily misunderstood sections of the book, the importance of creating the Eugenics, Race, and The Urantia Book paper became self-evident.

The authors of The Urantia Book integrate the material on eugenics and race with theological and cosmological statements that are outside the scope of this paper. However, in order to provide readers with the benefit of reading direct quotes, to a certain extent, some of this material needs to be explained.

Even among those who consider themselves scholars of The Urantia Book and accept it as an authentic revelation, there is ongoing debate and a wide variety of opinion on the book’s statements about eugenics and race.(1) Because this subject is controversial within the community of Urantia Book “reader-believers,” a secondary purpose of this paper is to contribute to progressive appreciation of the topic amongst reader-believers.

The following wisdom from The Urantia Book guided the preparation of the paper:

"True and genuine inward certainty does not in the least fear outward analysis, nor does truth resent honest criticism. You should never forget that intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret doubts as to the trueness of one's belief. No man is at any time disturbed by his neighbor's attitude when he has perfect confidence in the truth of that which he wholeheartedly believes. Courage is the confidence of thoroughgoing honesty about those things which one professes to believe. Sincere men are unafraid of the critical examination of their true convictions and noble ideals.(2)

"But logic can never succeed in harmonizing the findings of science and the insights of religion unless both the scientific and the religious aspects of a personality are truth dominated, sincerely desirous of following the truth wherever it may lead regardless of the conclusions which it may reach.

". . .

"What both developing science and religion need is more searching and fearless self-criticism, a greater awareness of incompleteness in evolutionary status. The teachers of both science and religion are often altogether too self-confident and dogmatic. Science and religion can only be self-critical of their facts. The moment departure is made from the stage of facts, reason abdicates or else rapidly degenerates into a consort of false logic."