Inkling, I thought I’d give my testimony. I was raised a ultra-conservative ultra-fundamentalist Christian. I ended up a pinacostal (complete with the falling out and speaking in tonges) after trying the more conservative denominations.
I however, have always had an interest in other religions. I discovered TUB at first about a decade ago when I was researching Mulchisidek. I was trying to remember the references in the Bible and could not, so I used Google. Besides the references, I found TUB. I was still in college so didn’t think much about it… at the time. Skip forward several years. Though I’d never read TUB in its’ entirety, it still held my interest. I finally read all of it and my reaction was anger… anger that this book would challenge my most cherished beliefs. I still was interested though. I wanted to go deeper in this religion purely for the sake of interest.
However, before I did so, I thought I’d better explore my own faith first. I was raised, as I said, a fundamentalist conservative Christian. I, like most of those who profess that faith, had never read the whole Bible. To that end, I downloaded a chronological year long Bible schedule. This puts the biblical events in time sequence. For example, you are reading the life of david where ever it occurs in the Bible and reading the psalms that they think he wrote at the appropreiate places in his life. Another example is when you are reading the history sections, you stop at the right places and read the prophetic books where they should be read. Am I making sence? Hope so. One last example. You also read the events of Jesus’ life as recorded in the gospels where appropreiat.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I did a lot of jumping around in the bible, but in the end I read all of it, in sequence at least, like a novel. By the time I got through with it I was more disturbed by the Bible than the UB. If I had not had the ub to fall back on, I would have completely given up my belief in God. I felt angry and perhaps a little betrayed by the end. I had a better moral code than the people in both testaments, I don’t condone slavery for example, and I don’t believe in an angry god. If you take both testaments, it is is as if you are reading the stories of two different gods. You have the angry one in the ot and the loving one in the nt.
As a result of me being willing to explore my Christian faith, I turned my back on Christianity and the god of the Bible. I have found a truer “more real” god in the pages of the UB than in the pages of the Bible.
Do I still have questions? Yes, I do. That is what places like this forum and my study group are for though.
As for me ggoing to church, I still go. (though to a United Methodist church now) I go to be around spiritually minded people. I go for the fellowship. I go to worship God with others. I am usually carefull about what I say and who I say it to though as concerning my beliefs. So far I have had a few instances where I had to “retreat” from a subject due the the other person being ultra conservative, but those have been few. For the most part what I have had to say has been well received. At one time, the pastor wanted me to take ministry classes and become a minister. I declined after giving it much prayer and thought though. I could not in good conchance take the vows of a Christian minister when I do not hold Christian beliefs.
So, I prayed about it. I thought about it. And I came to the exact oppisote conclusion that you did. I could argue that God revealed to me that The Urantia Book is true just as you argue that God revealed to you that the Bible is true. I hope this helps.
