The Dalamatia Ethic

by Troy R. Bishop

One-half million years ago, in the walled city of Dalamatia, the Planetary Prince of Urantia and his staff faced the problem of sharing advanced knowledge on Urantia. Their approach, drawing wisdom from on high at the system level, might be called the Dalamatia Ethic. Factors of the Dalamatia Ethic appear in the techniques of all five of the epochal revelations to our planet; as an example, the practice of observing respect for existing systems of belief and conduct was followed by the Planetary Prince, the Material Son and Daughter, Machiventa Melchizedek, Jesus, and the URANTIA Revelators. Ongoing analysis and commentary on the Dalamatia Ethic, as it appears in various forms throughout The URANTIA Book, could constitute a field of thought adding significantly to accepted techniques for the enlightened sharing of advanced knowledge.

A Process Defined

One important part of the Dalamatia Ethic is its view of the process of the sharing of knowledge, which might be defined as a cooperative process between two active participants in which a donor makes knowledge available and a recipient appropriates knowledge, each as they see fit and for their own purposes, the relationship between them being one of mutual respect and encouragement.

A Process Applied

The Dalamatians treated their knowledge as a free gift for those who had the desire and ability to receive it, subject to the limitations imposed by their awareness of the dangers of overteaching and overrapid growth. The Dalamatians never forced their ways on the primitive peoples surrounding them. Representatives of these people were invited to sojourn within the walls of Dalamatia for a time, taking back with them what they wanted of the Dalamatia knowledge and ways. The Dalamatians did not expect the simple folk coming to them to exchange their few cultural possessions for even the superior ways of Dalamatia; instead, these sojourners were free to uplift their ways as they saw fit, through social intercourse with the advanced culture of Dalamatia. The Dalamatians did not go out as missionaries to the surrounding peoples, where they might do unintentional harm to developing cultures; instead, native sojourners, trained within the walls of Dalamatia, returned to their own homes as teachers, well suited to meet the needs of their own people.

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URANTIA Book Reading references:

UB, pp 749-750; 819:7; 1591; 1592:5; 1765

© 1981 Troy R. Bishop. "The Dalamatia Ethic" may be freely duplicated electronically and transmitted across networks and the Internet if the copyright notice and this permission notice appear on all copies.