is the urantia book a counterfeit gospel?

inkling wrote:

Hello all: i post this in the Name of Jesus Christ. My testimony is that I read this book from cover to cover in approximately 1996. When I read it, I loved it and I believed it. After many years of living a very sinful life, I started to get an inkling that something was wrong. My life was not heading in the right direction spiritually. I was not growing as a person, I was going backwards. On Thanksgiving Day, I prayed to The God of Abraham, The God of Isaac, The God of Jacob, to show me the truth about the urantia book. It was revealed to me that this book is demonic. Its a counterfeit gospel that twists the truth about Jesus Christ. I promise every one here that this is the truth. This is the truth about the real Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who is God Himself. He was born of a virgin. He lived a sinless life. He died on the cross to pay for our sins. God rose Him from the dead on the 3rd day after His death, and He ascended to the right hand of The Father (who is The God of Abraham, The God of Isaac, The God of Jacob). We need saving because we were born in sin and because our nature is such that we sin. We sin because of who we are. God, on the other hand, is Perfect in every way imaginable. He is Holy, Perfect, and completely without sin of any kind. Jesus lived a totally sinless life, never making even one mistake despite having to contend with human flesh (Jesus Christ has come in the flesh), and He reconciles those that believe through His death on the cross. He has overcome all things, including death, the enemy, and sin. I pray that at least one of you accepts the truth and becomes converted. All Glory to the one true God, who is The God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, The God of Isaac.

it is amazing where our search for truth may take us.

with all due respect I cannot help but be curious as to why you would take the time to post your testimony here??

The Spirit of Truth, sent to us on Pentecost Day, has helped people to recognize truth. I don’t get the same result as inkling when reading this marvelously clarifying document known as the Fifth Epochal Revelation. For me the book has given new insight, resulting in new understanding about the God of all time and all persons. There is no inkling in me that the FER is false, but rather there is strong inkling the book offers new forward and positive spiritual growth for people who want to think and have a living relationship with Jesus and his Father, our Father too.

To ascribe a new work to demonic sources is to miss marvelous affirmations coming from new understanding, enlightening clarity and new confidence in Jesus and God. To miss these, perhaps after reading the book, even studying, suggests a person doesn’t desire spiritual movement toward God and wants to hold fast onto old resources. We are not to be static; we are to progress and that could certainly be conflict.

The book is full of kindness; we see many of the 11 Fruits of the Divine Spirit in the writing tone from its authors. They model for us an inspiring urgency of importance to seek truth and accept the the Father’s invitation-command to be perfect.  How can we become perfect without progress?

I can’t support any concept the book is demon inspired.  Our creator parents and their loyal celestial Sons know what we need here for personal and planetary growth and progress. One could easily conclude Michael of Nebadon came here to Urantia and also taught for his universe children because he has progress in mind for us all. We are told by the Revelators the watchword of the universe is progress.

Each of us would be welcomed to participate wholly in seeking progress in spiritual realities. Consider: what would a planet or universe be without movement—progress?

Bradly wrote:

Well….quite a puzzle for the mods here.

Agreed, especially since I’m sure we’ve seen this dude before.  Or was it over at TB?  Can’t remember.  But anyway, what kind of craziness turns TUB into a gospel?  Totally erroneous premise to start with.  It’s sad to see a mind warped by such nonsense.

I think inkling gave us a clue as to how he came by his distorted thinking.  He said that after reading TUB and believing it, he started to live a very sinful life.  Of course, rather than take personal responsibility for living a “very sinful life,” he blames it on a book.  Now that’s a sign of immaturity, in my opinion.  Man-up Mr. inkling.  TUB didn’t make you do it; the devil didn’t make you do it.  You made your life sinful all by  your little ole self.  Take responsibility for it.

And blaming your sinfulness on your birth is another big cop-out.  No one is born a sinner.  Sin comes from conscious choosing.  A newborn baby is not conscious of his or her choosing. Newborns act on instinct, which is not conscious.  So that’s another losing argument, a scapegoat to avoid having to deal with your own behavior and character.  Jesus is not a scapegoat.  Jesus’ death was not to provide us with a scapegoat for sin.  You alone are culpable for your sin.  There is no magic in the cross that can erase what you knowingly do, or did.  So fix it.

I’ll pray for you inkling.  I’ll pray that you atone for your self-inflicted sins and realize that our Father is a loving Father who would never slaughter his own son, Jesus or you, for that matter.  You are one of his sons too, doncha know?

WHAT’S REALLY IN TUB:

53:8.9 In general, when weak and dissolute mortals are supposed to be under the influence of devils and demons, they are merely being dominated by their own inherent and debased tendencies, being led away by their own natural propensities. The devil has been given a great deal of credit for evil which does not belong to him. Caligastia has been comparatively impotent since the cross of Christ.

There are no demons.  There are only debased natural tendencies which scramble the minds of men and women who allow them to dominate their thinking.

MidiChlorian wrote: . . . set off the natural inclinations of the sinful nature inherent to all who inhabit what would be considered by name “demonic” if only by the namesake of this universe “Satania”.

WHAT’S REALLY IN TUB:

Our natural inclinations are not sinful, they’re evil.  HUGE difference.  Evil simply means imperfect.  Our natural inclinations are imperfect, which is why we embark on the adventure of the seven psychic circles, to become perfected in nature, like God, or Godlike.

148:4.6  By nature, before the rebirth of the spirit, mortal man is subject to inherent evil tendencies, but such natural imperfections of behavior are neither sin nor iniquity. Mortal man is just beginning his long ascent to the perfection of the Father in Paradise. To be imperfect or partial in natural endowment is not sinful. Man is indeed subject to evil, but he is in no sense the child of the evilone unless he has knowingly and deliberately chosen the paths of sin and the life of iniquity. Evil is inherent in the natural order of this world, but sin is an attitude of conscious rebellion which was brought to this world by those who fell from spiritual light into gross darkness.

MidiChlorian wrote: . . . yet based on other narrations about Jesus, would have freed those souls at the time of His death and Resurrection, those souls from the time of Adam, who could also be considered “The Son of Man”, etc., etc.  Even as the UB concurs to this, it would seem that those freed souls, where held in captivity, where some would say, in a place held secure by the “demonic” beings that have also been verified to exist but, neutered from their abilities after Pentecost, unless invited to reside with those who will their conjoint existence.

POPPYCOCK ALERT:  What the hell are freed souls held in captivity?  Isn’t that an oxymoron? How can you be free and captive at the same time?  Egads.

Okay, here’s how it really goes according to TUB.  Sleeping survivors are free souls, they are just asleep until a periodic millennial resurrection roll call, or a roll call at the end of a dispensation.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses were all sleeping survivors because none of them fused with their Adjusters, which they presumably had.  During this sleep their souls were in the safe keeping of the guardian angels and their identities safeguarded in their Adjusters.   They were not held captive by anyone, but simply slept the sleep of unconsciousness until resurrection.  If resurrection on Mansion World One is what  is referring to as being a freed soul, then it also makes no sense since there are no midwayers on the mansion worlds.  Midwayers are planet bound, and it was the rebel midwayers who were referred to as “demons” by people who didn’t know better.

77:7.4 These disloyal midwayers were able to reveal themselves to mortal eyes under certain circumstances, and especially was this true of the associates of Beelzebub, the leader of the apostate secondary midwayers. But these unique creatures must not be confused with certain of the rebel cherubim and seraphim who also were on earth up to the time of Christ’s death and resurrection. Some of the older writers designated these rebellious midway creatures as evil spirits and demons, and the apostate seraphim as evil angels.

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.