2007: 4th QuarterThe UBtheNEWS project, which was launched in January 2007, has completed its 4th Quarter/1st Year of development! Below is a summary of 4th Quarter and year-to-date accomplishments. Quantitatively speaking:
Qualitatively speaking:I am delighted to report that this last quarter includes a number of new developments for the UBtheNEWS project! Many thanks to all the people who have helped and continue to help make this possible. One of the most personally exciting experiences was getting to do two presentations at Denison University in Ohio. I spoke to the World Religions class and the Nature of Religion class. One aspect of this development was being asked to provide syllabus material. This syllabus is now available on UBtheNEWS and can easily be emailed to a friend or printed out. It has a three-page introduction and about 35 pages of direct quotes. Preparing this material was the best academic assignment I have ever had in life; putting together the material brought me to tears numerous times. Apparently, I did a good job because it brought the professor to tears when she read it. It looks like Prof. Fein will be teaching there for at least the next several years and I have an open invitation to come back each semester for additional presentations. As well, she will also be working to set up a time next semester during the evening at which I would do my regular UBtheNEWS presentation. Other presentations for non Urantia Book reading audiences included United Church of Christ in San Diego, a group of students at UC Santa Barbara, and the Capstone House, a "futuristic learning center." Capstone House brought in 17 people, all non Urantians, with just three days notice. I am invited to present there again and was told that on the next visit, with enough lead-time to advertise in the local newspaper, they would probably bring in even more people. New additions to the website include:
Artistic improvements have also been introduced to the site this quarter. Mind, Body & Spirit, out of Tallahassee, FL (which is legally structured as a church) and the Association of Light and Life (ALL) are gratefully acknowledged as the first two organizations to support the UBtheNEWS project. People who would like their contributions to UBtheNEWS to be tax deductible can accomplish this by making it through Mind, Body & Spirit. As well, they are also integrated into the UBtheNEWS website to receive online credit card contributions. Eric Schaveland videotaped a presentation done for about 30 people in Boulder. He made a copy of this available to me so that I can pass it out to people who want to use it as an outreach and learning tool. The last year has been year of stead progress. From reports to presentations to participation and fundraising, this project and the community's appreciation for it have consistently increased. UBtheNEWS is an outreach effort that is open to everyone's participate; it is designed to effectively and efficiently work with everyone who has an interest in helping it move forward, no matter what skills or time commitment people can make. On an economic level, it is extremely cost effective because the Internet provides a particularly inexpensive way to reach most of the world and to present the increasing and unique quality of credibility that The Urantia Book now exhibits. Next year we will break into double digits with the number of reports. This has real psychological significance. As the number of reports grows, so does the impact of the project. By IC08 the vast majority of study groups in the US will have learned about the UBtheNEWS project. Soon the slide presentation will be made available online, thus allowing the international community of readers to more efficiently educate themselves and also present others with a powerful first impression of The Urantia Book. A dramatic shift occurred with this project once I bought a project and developed a slide presentation. This format for providing information is a powerful tool and will soon be complimented with online videos. The UBtheNEWS project is developing the credibility of The Urantia Book in a way that has cumulative and collective implications. It not only supports the effectiveness of everyone's person-to-person outreach efforts, but also directly works to increasingly upgrade our collective appreciation for the unique nature of Urantia Book as a document. With increases in the quantity of people who are aware of and want to participate in this project and enhancement of the substantive quality of nature of the project, we are poised to enjoy even more fruits as we enter the second year! Much thanks goes to everyone who has contributed to this project in the last year and all those who will do so in the future.
2007: 3rd QuarterThe UBtheNEWS project, which was launched in January 2007, has completed its third quarter. This is a summary of third quarter and year-to-date accomplishments. Quantitatively speaking:
Qualitatively speaking:The third quarter of UBtheNEWS was marked by many major events. An initial contact with the Worcester Academy alumni office was made in an effort to reconnect with Iranian high school classmate about trying to find the vestiges of Adamson's civilization. When I got there, Worcester was in the process of planning its first all-Iranian alumni event. They graciously gave me their recently updated master list of Iranian alumni. A few contacts have been made with some of them and efforts are currently underway to let all the attendees at the event this October know about UBtheNEWS and my interest in getting in touch with them. While heading back across the country from New England in July, a stop was made at the University of Chicago to look up the genetics researchers who were responsible for doing the analysis that led to the Adam and Eve Report. I hit it off especially well with the lead genetics researcher and was also given a lot of time and consideration by the researcher from the zoology department. Though a small sampling, it did indicate very powerfully that scientists take seriously the type of credibility that is emerging with The Urantia Book, particularly when their work is related to corroborations of information in The Urantia Book. July was also marked by an ironic development in relationship to the Magnetic Sensitivity Report. On Wikipedia I saw a reference to Martin Gardner's acknowledgement of human sensitivity to the earth's magnetic field as a valid issue in which The Urantia Book was ahead of science. This is ironic because Gardner wrote a book that is highly critical of The Urantia Book and the reference on Wikipedia in support of Gardner's acknowledgement turned out to be a rather discredited study. But it did lead me to taking a deeper look at the issue and I found good evidence for how The Urantia Book was very much ahead of science on the more general issue of asserting that all animals have some degree of sensitivity to the earth's magnetic field. During this quarter two presentations were done for non Urantian communities. One was done in Boulder, Colorado for a group of business professionals and the other one was held at Unity Church in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. The purchase of projector for $600 has allowed education about the UBtheNEWS project to be done in the much more professional slide presentation format. This development provides a much more powerful educational experience and has led to Urantia Book readers to be more willing to make financial contributions. The first four presentations done with the projector inspired contributions that nearly covered the cost of the projector. Over 80% of contributions to UBtheNEWS came in during this quarter and over 150 people attended UBtheNEWS presentations. In the last couple months the presentation schedule spiked. During August and September, seventeen presentations were done in six states; four were done in Oregon over a five-day period. I am very pleased to announce that I was asked by a World Religions professor at Denison University in Ohio to prepare syllabus material for her class, which spends a day on The Urantia Book during the new religions section of the course. I am scheduled to be a guest lecturer at this class after Thanksgiving and the professor is also planning to set up a time during the evening for a presentation about the UBtheNEWS project. This syllabus has been completed and is now available on this site so that everyone can use it and adapt it as necessary for other purposes. Naturally, it is a very nice way to introduce people to some of the best parts of The Urantia Book. There is a three-page contextualizing introduction and then about 35 pages of direct quotes with inserts as necessary to explain unique terminology. Back to Top 2007: 2nd QuarterUBtheNEWS has reached the end of its second quarter, and in so doing, has spanned the opposite corners of the country. From as far west and south as San Diego to as far east and north as Boston, this show is most definitely on the road! Here's a quick review of what has happened in this second quarter and first half of the year. Quantitatively speaking:
Qualitatively speaking:The timing of my return to Boulder was fortunate for a number of reasons. I was present at the Planetarium presentation that was created by Stan Hartman. This was a wonderfully meditative and informative look at the cosmos through the lens of Urantia Book cosmology. There were approximately 150 to 200 people in attendance, including many representatives from both the Urantia Foundation and the Urantia Fellowship. (The Fellowship and Foundation were in town for meetings.) Many guests were in attendance from around the country and from around the world. It was a nice opportunity to introduce UBtheNEWS to a wide spectrum Urantia Book readers, geographically speaking. As some of you may know, Chris Halvorson's study group in Boulder is now being broadcast live on the intenet. I was present for the first broadcast of this study group. Very exciting! Twelve people stayed tuned in for the whole thing and about 75 people checked it out during the course of the evening. The first stop out of Boulder was at the Association of Light and Life conference held at Unity Village outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Many great contacts were made at this event. Specifically, I look forward to working with Steffen Patrick on getting some of the UBtheNEWS material placed on Wikipedia. There are a number of opportunities for this type of outreach. Aside from the Urantia page, Wikipedia pages on Adam and Eve as well as the Garden of Eden are ripe for posting a version of the material regenerated for the UBtheNEWS project. I stopped at the Indianapolis study group. Linda Buselli, editor of the Fellowship Herald, attends this group and we agreed that I should do an article for the next edition. It will be called The Urantia Book Isn't What It Used To Be. Naturally, this article will focus on how emerging corroborations have given the UB a level of credibility that did not exist during the first several decades after its publication. Changes have been made to all the UB references in the reports so that the links actually spell out "Urantia Book." This helps the search engines find and favor the site. The changes already seem to be having a nice effect on search engine placement. Back to Top 2007: 1st QuarterMy how time flies when you are on a mission! Back in August of 2006 UBtheNEWS was nothing more than a twinkle in its Daddy's eye. By the beginning of 2007 this baby was not only born, it had already left home and hit the road! Now here we are in the first week of April 2007 and it only seems right to reflect on what this conception has grown up to be by the end of its first quarter. Just what exactly has happened so far? Well, let me tell you. . .
Quantitatively speaking:
Qualitatively speaking:Two of the Topics that have Reports written on them relate to extraordinary developments regarding the corroboration of information provided in The Urantia Book. The Adam and Eve Report relates to genetics research that was done in just the last couple years. This research not only parallels The Urantia Book's account of Adam, Eve, and their progeny in four different ways, but also tracks The Urantia Book's date for the beginning of the human race. Specifically, this research indicates that about 37,000 years ago an upgrade occurred to a gene that relates to brain function; that this gene was introduced from a single source (the methodologies are not accurate enough to distinguish between one person or two introducing the new genetics); and that the genetic upgrade has currently reached about 70% of the human population, having made the least progress into sub-Saharan Africa. All of this tracks beautifully with The Urantia Book's account of the genetic upgrade contributed by Adam and Eve. Additionally, the research indicates that the general genetic background in which this upgrade occurs coalesces to approximately a million years ago, which is when The Urantia Book says humanity originated. The information on the Garden of Eden is especially significant because there were no detailed maps of the eastern Mediterranean basin when The Urantia Book was published. However, today's detail bathymetric maps of this area reveal a topography that matches the description of a sunken peninsula that The Urantia Book says was the location of the Garden of Eden. Additionally, tectonic plate maps indicate that the exact area of this now underwater peninsula marks the convergence of three tectonic plates that are not only highly active, but also exhibit unusual crosscurrents of tectonic forces. Tectonic plate theory did not even develop until over ten years after The Urantia Book's publication. Those who have read the article titled The Adamson Project: A Case Study in "Get a clue; then FOLLOW IT!" know that these particularly dramatic corroborations of information in The Urantia Book will be especially helpful for inspiring a certain group of Iranians to search for the vestiges of Adamson's civilization near the southern end of the Caspian Sea. Another great development of the First Quarter was the introduction of Phil Calabrese and Chris Halvorson. The inherent potentials available through their inter association are of tremendous value because they are at the forefront of scholarly work and research related to the scientific and historic information in The Urantia Book. The development of UBtheNEWS will, no doubt, be accelerated and improved now that these two individuals are starting to communicate with each other. And, of course, three of the most unusual Halbertcicles ever grew during this period! Check the Trail Tales of late February and early March for a better understanding of this wild and peculiar phenomenon! Much thanks goes to the following individuals who have made special contributions to the accomplishments of the First Quarter of UBtheNEWS: Chris Riggio for helping me to get and stay on the road; Mike Fitzmorris, Robert Snickburns, Phil Calabrese, Beth and Bruce, Barbara and Don, Paula and Marty, Eric and Michelle, and Bob Dominski for the accommodations; angel Chris for the gas money; Fred Harris; Phil Calabrese, Robert Sarmast, and Chris Halvorson for the writing and Topic-related support; and everyone else whose graciousness has supported the work of UBtheNEWS! Back to Top |
