ozone

• protective layer

58:2.2The earth’s at­mo­sphere is all but opaque to much of the so­lar ra­di­a­tion at the ex­treme ul­tra­vi­o­let end of the spec­trum. Most of these short wave lengths are ab­sorbed by a layer of ozone which ex­ists through­out a level about ten miles above the sur­face of the earth, and which ex­tends space­ward for an­other ten miles. The ozone per­me­at­ing this re­gion, at con­di­tions pre­vail­ing on the earth’s sur­face, would make a layer only one tenth of an inch thick; nev­er­the­less, this rel­a­tively small and ap­par­ently in­signif­i­cant amount of ozone pro­tects Uran­tia in­hab­i­tants from the ex­cess of these dan­ger­ous and de­struc­tive ul­tra­vi­o­let ra­di­a­tions pres­ent in sun­light. But were this ozone layer just a tri­fle thicker, you would be de­prived of the highly im­por­tant and health-giv­ing ul­tra­vi­o­let rays which now reach the earth’s sur­face, and which are an­ces­tral to one of the most es­sen­tial of your vi­ta­mins.

58:2.3And yet some of the less imag­i­na­tive of your mor­tal mech­a­nists in­sist on view­ing ma­te­rial cre­ation and hu­man evo­lu­tion as an ac­ci­dent. The Uran­tia mid­way­ers have as­sem­bled over fifty thou­sand facts of physics and chem­istry which they deem to be in­com­pat­i­ble with the laws of ac­ci­den­tal chance, and which they con­tend un­mis­tak­ably demon­strate the pres­ence of in­tel­li­gent pur­pose in the ma­te­rial cre­ation. And all of this takes no ac­count of their cat­a­logue of more than one hun­dred thou­sand find­ings out­side the do­main of physics and chem­istry which they main­tain prove the pres­ence of mind in the plan­ning, cre­ation, and main­te­nance of the ma­te­rial cos­mos.

58:2.4Your sun pours forth a ver­i­ta­ble flood of death-deal­ing rays, and your pleas­ant life on Uran­tia is due to the “for­tu­itous” in­flu­ence of more than two-score ap­par­ently ac­ci­den­tal pro­tec­tive op­er­a­tions sim­i­lar to the ac­tion of this unique ozone layer.