I've never heard of the Urantia Book before, and I'm intrigued. I'm not a pastor with a degree in biblical studies or anything, but I am a Christian...can I follow along with you in your blogs and offer my own responses?

I've always thought of Jesus as a Jew - he was circumcised according to Jewish law, and kept the Jewish traditions, and no other group of people of that time that I know of would circumcise their children.

Animal sacrifice and an angry God don't make sense right away, but it's kind of a case of figuring out where things started. To put it simply, God created people, and there was love. People he'd made loved him, and he loved them and wanted the best for them. People, however, weren't precisely like God - he's holy, and sinless. People tended to want and go for things that'd hurt them or separate them from God - known attractively as sin. This created a separation, and God couldn't be with them in the same way. Only by showing that they recognized that they'd done wrong and wanted to make it right could they be right with him again - and the price was death. In a figurative sense, the old ways had to die, so that they could begin life newly with God. Since we're pretty sure reincarnation is not the case, there would be no life to newly begin, so God let them use animal sacrifices, instead of themselves, and so be forgiven.

I can't remember a case where God's anger was not something to the nature of love being spurned. You know how it feels when someone you love says that they want nothing to do with you, or they completely mock who you are. This isn't a matter of lovers - the closest relationship we have as people to this is a parent-child relationship. I'm not sure either of us could fully understand it unless we had our own children - but try to imagine your children declaring that they don't want to be with you, they don't care what you think, your ideas are ridiculous, and leaving and having nothing to do with you ever again. God's anger was precisely BECAUSE he loved us - if he didn't love us, he'd be ambivalent and smile benignly and tell us that whatever we wanted to do was okay with him.

Keep posting - this really has me interested.

Thank you for your response, and yes, please feel free to add any comments you wish. When I started writing about this I hoped it would start a discussion.

 

Honestly, I haven't had done much research in regards to religion. I've read a few books, and took a world religions class, but that's about it. So, any further insight into Christianity is greatly appreciated.

 

The history behind the Urantia Book is somewhat... odd... basically, it was written by some guy in the 30s (I think) through a "higher being" (alien). It's supposed to contains a lot of scientific information about the Universe that couldn't have possibly been known in 1930. There's more evidence to suggest that what The Urantia Book says is true, but I haven't read it through all the way, so I couldn't really tell you what it says.

 

In regards to animal sacrifice, I suppose that the logic behind it makes sense, if you assume that the only way to make our sins right is death. I've always thought it was interesting how our interpretation of God has changed. I read a book by Karen Armstrong that actually stated that this changing God was one of the reasons for Christianitys survival. Back then sacrifice was important, but now... ask almost anyone and they'll say it's cruel... that there are better ways to show love, devotion, and ask forgiveness from God than to kill an innocent creature.

 

Personally, I've always viewed God as the kind of God Jesus described in The Urantia Book. I view God as loving all his creatures, and I think he would be rather sad if we assumed we had the right to kill something he created.

 

I think you're right about not really being able to understand the parent-child relationship, but I'm also pretty sure that if I told my parents I hated them, they wouldn't feel more sadness than anger. I just view anger as being a negative virtue that God doesn't possess.

 

Thanks again for your comment, it was very insightful; I'll try to post another Urantia book entry soon.

I was rather interested at the dates you had for the beginning of Christ's life - I hadn't heard those before. I was trying to figure out how they would get them.

That particular interpretation of God's nature hasn't changed. The focal point of Christianity was still that you had to pay to make your sins right, and no one was able to live a blameless life. Trust me, any number of people have tried. That was the point of God's son sacrificing himself - he'd lived a blameless life, he was pure and didn't need to face the punishment awaiting anyone who'd fallen away from God. It was that sacrifice that atoned for everyone - now, an animal sacrifice would be like spitting on that gift. He no longer demands an animal sacrifice, but wants us to accept his sacrifice.

God did indeed place people here to care for the earth and the creatures he'd created - he says so in the first few chapters of Genesis. I know that after people first sinned and became aware of what they were, God killed animals to give them skins to cover themselves, instead of the leaves they'd been using. I don't entirely understand why - I still have to check that out. I will get back to you on it. I do know part of it was because they (the people) had been put here to care for the creatures of creation, so they'd be shocked and hurt by their deaths. Maybe it was so that they could understand how hurt God was by their sin - I'm not certain.

Well... as an example, if you were to look at Jonathan Edwards work in the 1700s, God is depicted as a much angrier God than he is today. Not so much a father figure as something to be feared. The point of paying for sins may still be the same, but how we pay for those sins and how we ask for forgiveness can change depending on what the church deems to be the proper method at the time. I'll have to see what the book says about the significance of Jesus' sacrifice. If it was to pay for our sins then I can understand why animal sacrifice shouldn't be practiced.

 

I really don't understand why punishment for sin should be death, though... and if Jesus really did have such an aversion against animal sacrifice, then why would he allow that to be done to himself?

 

I'm not really sure where the dates came from, but I do remember reading that they were all converted from the Hebrew calendar. I'll let you know if I find out anything more.

Mmmm...I do have some disagreements about what different churches have done with their faith statements in the past. I guess it was a misunderstanding - I thought you were suggesting that God's perspective had changed, not ours. We've been getting things wrong for centuries - the Catholic church in particular is well-known for manipulating the people and keeping them in the dark.

The entire point of Jesus' life was that sacrifice - if the book denies that and passes it off as an accident or tragedy, I'd read it with caution.

Point 1 - it was God who gave us animal sacrifice in the first place as a way to pay for what we'd done. But there were also very specific laws about how the animal was to be killed, to make it as humane as possible, I believe. There were other cultures that also sacrificed to their gods, but in very painful ways. Point 2 - if we took the time to go through the full details of what crucifixion entails, it's clear he had a strong aversion to that as well. But his love for us was greater.

That would make a little more sense, if they were converted. But I didn't think that such things were really documented at all in that time period. Mary and Joseph were two common people - very poor, we learn later.

i'll throw in a bit of my 2 cents. in regards to God's anger, yeah i think He does get angry. Jesus showed anger when he tossed the moneychangers out of the temple. but i've heard a message preached about that and i agree that it was rightgeous anger. people were casting lots in the temple. thats kinda like gambling in the middle of church. and correct me if i am wrong but the Bible doesnt metion Jesus having all of those siblings. he funny thing to me about his book and lots of other books, is that, they are all written after the Bible was. its like they read it and are like, no it happened different. if the Bible had some things in it that arent in it now, people would still say, no it happened like this. i dunno thats a bit of what i think

Well there are several versions of the bible. Most people will argue that the message is still the same, but if you look at the Old Testament, for example, the original version will read differently than the version you read today. The council of Nicea also helped to change aspects of the bible... choosing what writings were fit to be put into The New Testament. I've also heard that most of the Apostles didn't actually write their Gospels... their students students did. I think that since there are different versions of the bible, we have to be careful when determining what exactly we are going to take as absolute truth.

 

The Urantia Book was published in 1955. There is supposedly a lot of evidence to suggest that this book is true. Unfortunatly, though, I've just started reading it, so I can't give you much to persuade you.

 

I still don't believe that God is angry or wrathful. I view God as a kind, merciful, patient, understanding father. I think anger and hate are lower human emotions that cause nothing but harm. Why, then, would God display such negative characteristics? If we're assuming the Urantia Book is true... then the reason for Jesus' anger might be because he was both human and divine. A little bit of anger might just be his human side peeking through.

 

but if you want to believe the bible, go ahead. It certainly doesn't mention Jesus having siblings. I think popular Christian belief states that Mary remained a virgin her entire life... so if that's true... then this book is totally incorrect. I really don't know, but I plan on reading more to find out.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Hi! *runs by chasing little brother with a stick* I just dropped in to Spam your inbox with this Anti-Spam note to say "Thanks for taking the time to stop at my blog Boo. 

 

Good post, it opens up several doors that give pause for thought. ♥ Wendy

I'm with you...I'm rather skeptical of the book's claims as well. But I will say that it did open a door for at least one person:

I want to share with you this story that Kerry Livgren, former guitarist and songwriter from Kansas recounted 20 years ago. He read Urantia as well...basically he bounced from religion to religion before finally becoming a Christian, which he still is today:

I've always been a very religious person, although at this point I didn't know which one to believe in and I dabbled in about every Eastern religion you could think of. I sort of moved from one thing to another, from Hinduism, Baba Ram Dass, Zen; finally I ended up in a... belief centered on the Urantia Book. At that point I thought I had really found the answer.

I became convinced that the book could not have been written by men or human inspiration. So I made the mistake of attributing the supernatural to the divine, a very easy mistake to make, although I didn't realize that at the time. I sort of wholeheartedly gave myself to this thing as the end of the road as far as systems of belief go.

Last summer our group Kansas was touring with a band called Louisiana's Leroux. Their lead singer and lead guitarist was named Jeff Pollard, who is a very powerful and knowledgeable witness for the Lord. We struck up sort of an instant friendship, seeing as how we were both theologically minded, and we started having these discussions.

Fortunately, Jeff has true devotion and has done special study toward helping people who are involved in [the "c-word" used commonly as an epithet for a minority religious group with marginal status or a group which one dislikes is used here]. Although I wasn't involved with a [that word] per se, is far at an organization, I was certainly involved in a false, doctrine. So we started having these debates and they became so intense, and important to me that I quit riding with Kansas and started riding with Jeff's group on their bus. We had these sessions for days running, 8 and 9 hours at a time, non-stop. We would sit there and discuss. He'd have his Bible open and I had my Urantia Book open. And we would go over various points about the person and nature of Christ.

Although I would try as hard as I could logically and every way I knew to swing him over to my side of the fence, I started noticing these feelings in me that really wanted him to be right. I think that I really knew in my heart that he was right; that the Bible was the Word of God. Partially, it was pride that didn't want to give up something that I had believed and was proved wrong in; the fact was that I had been taken, and sucked into a demonic doctrine.

But when I saw the tremendous disparity between the Bible and the Urantia Book, and the nature of that disparity as it pointed to the nature of Christ and who He really was, it started to eat at me. Why is this book denying the things which the Bible says in fact are my salvation?

It became clear to me in a flash that this thing was designed to dazzle the intellect, and to actually lead me astray from what I knew in my heart to be the truth, the Bible. At that point I don't think there was any doubt in my mind that I was going to become a Christian, although I hadn't gotten down on my knees asking the Lord to forgive me and giving myself to Him completely. But I did do that a few days later, in a hotel room - in Indianapolis, Indiana, about 3 o'clock in the morning. And the moment I did that, the Spirit swept me like a flood and I cried like a baby. I knew I'd really found the Lord.

Having read more it is astounding to me how much information is in the book. I must admit... I do find myself wanting to believe that it's true, it just seems too extraordinary for one person, or a group of people even, to have written.

 

I'm trying to remain skeptical though... one of my problems is that my dad has read the book and believes it to be true, so throughout my life I have been fed images of God and Jesus that correspond to what the book describes. My father has never really openly discussed the book or God, but I've probably inadvertantly picked up some of his beliefs, and since the book correlates to what I've believed my entire life it just seems right to me.

 

Knowing what I now know about the history of the bible and man's influence on it... it's hard for me to accept it as the word of God. I admit, I haven't exactly read the bible cover to cover nor examined its doctines fully, but I don't really understand what Kerry is talking about in regards to disparity between the nature of christ in both books and the demonic doctrine. Thusfar, all I've learned is that Jesus was the union of man and God who advocated peace, love, and faith. He taught that God is our father who is both merciful and just, and that the way to reach "the kingdom of heaven" is to strive to be like God, i.e. good. Idk, I hardly consider anything that advocates botherly love and compassion to be a demonic doctrine.... and from what I've learned about Christianity, they believe Jesus to be merciful and just as well.

 

Thanks for your respose, aside from members of my own family, I have never come in contact with someone who knew about the Urantia Book. I really appreciate being able to read about someone else who was influenced by this book.