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I was 24 when I discovered the UB. Taking what the UB is, and what it says as literally as possible, it has been the most influential thing in my life, besides those things that are the result of my faith in God.
I was already a believer in Jesus when I found the book. In fact, I felt very much compelled to follow him and seek out anything that shed light on him. And then I found the UB.
It was for this reason that I was immediately convinced of the authenticity and authority of the UB. Even before I began to read it for the first time. I never have questioned it, and never will.
Lately, I have been conversing with some folk who are older, about my age, around 60 years old. They are reading the book, investigating it.
These folk are rather skeptical of it. They claim they themselves could have written it. Something that I can’t believe, and know isn’t true.
What impresses me about these people is that it’s dawning on me that (perhaps) they’re simply too old. They like their old wineskins too much and pouring themselves out of the old and into the new is more than they’re able to bear. There’s been too much invested in their views for them to cash out and buy into something as light filled as the UB.
(48:7.9) 7. Blind and unforeseen accidents do not occur in the cosmos. Neither do the celestial beings assist the lower being who refuses to act upon his light of truth.
That might not be the best quote for me to use in describing what I’m feeling but it nonetheless seems to me whats going on. But I somehow think that, at the point when one is older, having spent almost a lifetime coming to terms with the confusion that exists, there isn’t an ability left anymore. The cup is now almost filled up for these souls. No more room even when finally, the good wine is on the table.
For the record, I don’t think anyone who’s skeptical is any less. It is what it is.
Something tells me most of you were young like I was when you found the book. Do you think it makes a difference?
22
it was a very bazaar time in my life
had left the Mormon Church just before going into the service in 65 and found TUB a couple years after coming home from the war as a totally maladjusted nutcase desperately looking for peace of mind. don’t think understood much about the text at that time but the cult groupies – that hung out with located in the beautiful California foothills of the Sierras would read, take LSD, smoke weed and meditate. The leaders would go up in space ships to commune with deity but it was invisible to all but them.
It was a mindless distraction that worked but did not really seriously study and learn anything till a decade later.
still cannot have a constructive dialogue with Christians, especially my son
Life is good and can feel real spiritual progress
at last. Thank god for TUB at both ends of my life.
Thanks Gene.
Doing drugs and reading the UB isn’t a good idea. But if it leads to an understanding that there’s a job to do, then it falls into the whatever works for you category. God’s presence within will eventually guide one away from this handicap, like he did with me.
Do you think having found the book early in life has helped you to dispel unnecessary baggage? And do you think that if somebody’s been already filled up with a philosophy or worldview with a certain level of devotion, will that hold up being able to assimilate the information from the UB which makes it tantamount to being impossible to take what it says like we do?
“And do you think that if somebody’s been already filled up with a philosophy or worldview with a certain level of devotion, will that hold up being able to assimilate the information from the UB which makes it tantamount to being impossible to take what it says like we do?”
Taking my son as example it is far better to simply accept the fact that as he so vigorously holds onto the traditional religion about Jesus, the spirit of truth is working in him and that is good. The spiritual liberty that can be experienced with the gospel of the kingdom, the fatherhood of God/brotherhood of man will just have to wait.
49.
Like Gene, I had left the Mormon Church. I had gone through several phases from agnostic, to atheist, back to agnostic, and was really on my way back to finding my faith in God when the UB came into my life. It challenged many of my previous paradigms; but in ways that affirmed my own seemingly heretical views from very early in my life. I was a trouble-maker in Sunday School because of my inquisitive nature and reluctance to swallow some of the teachings that seemed to go unremarked by so many LDS churchgoers.
Age 23 for me….42 years ago…..ahhhhhh…the angst and vigor of youth!!!!!
By my understanding of the teachings in the Papers, those of faith who are devoted to God and whose lives are changed and guided by such faith – or simply love, care, and serve others – have no great need for more information or fact in this brief life. But for those with faith who hold little trust in priests, preachers, creeds, dogmas, and ceremony – I think such minds are overjoyed to discover such a rich and truth filled perspective of the grandeur and wonder of the universe of universes presented in the UB – no matter their age.
I think one must be seriously dedicated to discovering, knowing, and understanding more than they do now to embrace such a long book of such detail and specificity. And even those who are such must still wade through lots of material that is not of great import to each truth seeker by priority or curiosity. For some it is the history or the rebellion or the creation story or the story of Jesus or the philosophy or the personal religion or the science, or, or, or, or………that is most compelling and attracting to the new student. The rest takes more time to integrate and harmonize….but there is something for each mind that rings true loudly and clearly and quickly I think….if motivated sufficiently to endure and embrace such an adventure of learning….and changing our living by such learning.
Born a fundamentalist protestant myself, I was burdened as a child and teen with the notion that my soul was in jeopardy and so were all others…and it was up to me to save others from hell and damnation…..Lord, what a gruesome burden of guilt and responsibility!!
I have noticed over the decades that many UB readers and even believers seem to carry forward this false “responsibility” – to ‘save’ others from something by the teachings in the UB – or to correct others in their knowledge, understanding, and beliefs. Some also seem to carry forward the very Christian (non-Jesusonian) expectations that the world and its souls are somehow in danger from the devil or the inherently evil nature (original sin) and remain expectant, generation after generation, year after year, of planetary redemption and salvation by miraculous Divine intervention, as taught by so many Christian churches for 2000 years now…even left behind so long ago. It is difficult (impossible really) to be much of an ambassador of the UB while still contaminated by this lingering legacy of falsehood ourselves.
For those of us who embrace the words and meanings of the UB, every God-Believer and every faith child and every giver of Love-to-Another are well within the Kingdom already and progress in the Spirit – regardless of false beliefs or doctrines – and should be celebrated and supported – not challenged, corrected, or changed by subtraction or conversion. Perhaps it is not others that ‘need’ the UB so much as, still, those of us who study and even believe the UB but continue to allow anxiety and fear to pollute the perspective and fact that all God’s children are loved and ministered to in this friendly universe wherein every inhabited world is lovingly guided into inevitable Light and Life ahead and that no souls are damned by ignorance, false beliefs/disbelief, confusion, doubts, or even the materialistic attachments of one of our two inherent natures which keeps one distracted, engrossed, and disappointed in materialistic pursuits.
I also think it wise to consider the prejudicial views created by recent bias, local bias, and the illogical projection of personal experience onto generalizations of others. Most of the folks I knew 40+ years ago who embraced and disseminated the UB were my age now or older and were intellectually and religiously disappointed with Church and were real truth seekers with great passion and patience in their wisdom and their sharing with us young whippersnappers….all filled with evangelistic fervor and immature impatience to change the world by raining UB’s down upon the heads of the whole world….ahhhhh. the angst and vigor of youth!!
So very common to judge others by our own immature impatience and personal idealisms. Those Boomers who discovered the UB in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s are now the Old Guard (or Corps of Discovery!). I’ve heard many lament the movement is aging and the youth are not attracted. Balderdash. Digital downloads, Skype study groups, social media….are all booming. The old guard that meets in the old ways see decline….that is an illusion compared to the totality of the readership around the globe. I have no doubt the 5th Epochal Revelation to humankind will succeed in its mission and ministry as an effective infusion of fact and truth which will come to be undeniable in many aspects over time to many who may remain skeptical or disappointed today.
Thanks for asking…and yes….sometimes I talk too much….hahahhaha!!!
I’m honestly not sure how old I was. I discovered the ub purely by accident while trying to research a biblical passage via google while in college. Several years later I read the ub for intertainment. What made me remember the name Urantia Book I have no idea.
The rest of the story, as Paul Harvy used to say, is history. I eventually accepted the teachings of the ub after my own struggles with it.
As for Bradlys’ contention that the theery that the younger generation is not being attracted to the ub is rubbish, I, as one of the younger generation (I’m 35) have to disagree. I’m the youngest currently active member of my small study group. The others (to my knowledge although I may be off by a few years) are of retirement age. At the Urantia gathering I attended in May of this waning year I was the youngest there as well… and there were ub believers there from other states that I’d never met.
It honestly concerns me that more young people are not being attracted to the ub. There is a religious community that does not reproduce via normal means. They grew via adoption. They would raise orphans and adopt kids and raise them in their beliefs. In this way they expanded. When I was in college I studied them in music class because we were studying there music. At that time there were only five of them left so an effert was being made to preserve as much as possible of there music and way of life through recordings. I don’t know if any of them are left as of this writing.
I see the same thing happening in the ub community. I do not see youth joining. I do not see us expanding. And yes, I use technology to interact with the ub community. So does every ub believer I know. I hear about the ub community growing around the world… but it is the older generation that are finding the ub, not my generation. I can see a day comeing if we do not find a way to correct it where the UB believers will die out and the UB will be among the forgotten/little known religious texts of the world.
This may be a grim outlook for a text that has transformed our lives. But based on my knowledge of UB believers and my own experience trying to share the UB (no one I know/interact with on a daily basis is interested) it is the most plausible outlook I see unless something changes.
I remember in one of the UAI newsletters a survey that wanted to know about the ages of the UB believers. Several responses were published in said newsletter. The overriding concern among the respondants published and unpublished was the lack of youth in the ub movement. And if memory serves the published respondants were from the youth that had found the UB.
Maybe it would be a good idea to ask ourselves this question. We hear about the growth of the UB community around the world through technology. But how many of these younger ub readers do we actually know? How many do we actually talk to, not just write back and forth with? The answer in my case is no one.
A grim outlook for the Urantia community indeed.
Hi Truthseekers.
First primordial impression.
155:6.8 Human unity and mortal brotherhood can be achieved only by and through the superendowment of the religion of the spirit.
Sharing ….
100:1.8 … sharing one’s spiritual life with one’s fellows.
Good, very good Bradly ear your laughing about yourself with us.
Feel great seated at the same table and living unity, exercing brotherhood.
Dearest fellows,
Looking our eldest brother is someone remembered Him worried about young generation spiritual’s survivance ?
114:6.4 The twelve corps of the master seraphim of planetary supervision are functional on Urantia as follows: …
- The progress angels.
- The religious guardians.
- The angels of enlightenment.
… are they have healthy plans purposes ?
About Father’s perfect plans?
In my early 50s, In Montreal, I occupied a job manager locative building with a international young clientele. Was God interested opened a door from me to testimonies for them?
no
Be concern about young relief but not worries.
Do you think having found the book early in life has helped you to dispel unnecessary baggage? And do you think that if somebody’s been already filled up with a philosophy or worldview with a certain level of devotion, will that hold up being able to assimilate the information from the UB which makes it tantamount to being impossible to take what it says like we do?
It all comes down to whether or not a person is a truth seeker. When a person begins to seek for truth, truth shows up, guaranteed. A truth seeking person is receptive to truth wherever, or however it is revealed. That does not mean that a truth seeker cannot become confused in the process. The capacity for spiritual receptivity is meant to grow along with dedicated truth seeking. Truth eventually crowds out all falsehood and error, provided one continues to strive for it (132:04; 141:6.2). Some folks stall out and become complacent, satisfied with the status quo, they cease seeking (101.74).
13:4.3 Physical reactions are uniform, unvarying, and always instantaneous and automatic. But experiential spiritual presence is in accordance with the underlying conditions or states of spiritual receptivity inherent in the individual minds of the realms.
The book found me when I was 18, but I didn’t really read it with earnest until my late 20’s. It took me over a decade to let some of it sink in. Then, in my late 30’s early 40’s I began to seriously study it, ask questions and discover answers. That’s when I slowly started applying what I was learning. In my mid 50’s I really saw the light though, I finally found the living Truth within me, my constant companion and friend . . . book just an adjunct now . . . going on almost two decades with my faith in the sole company of TRUTH, and loving every minute of it.
p1141:5 103:9.7 Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of TRUTH.
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Considering how the book can be introduced to others, it’s a mixed bag, but there’s first a need to shine the light in how we live our lives.
Whether or not others are receptive comes by this factor in my opinion, but, yes, if a person isn’t sincerely seeking for the truth then it might be more of a problem than a benefit in discovering the UB, it always seemed to me.
It’s funny, the first 15 years or so I was determined to pass the book to someone. I bought several cases and shelved them out. Nothing.
Then in the mid nineties, I got real frustrated about it and vowed to never mention the book to anyone again and just do what I knew I wasn’t doing, living what the book says to do. As best I can.
It was surprising. Almost immediately I found out that some family members and close friends were telling me they were beginning to read the book! I’m certain I had nothing to do with it lol. I just hindered them.
When I started reading the book, one of the first things I did was to make phone calls to find somebody who I could talk to about the book. I was very curious about it.
Through these conversations with a few folk, I eventually joined Hal and Lucille Kettell’s study group in Arcadia, CA. I was 24 and everyone else was much older, retirement age.
I did find that fact interesting also, that there were so few young people involved. But Hal and Lucille were so kind and loving. I will never forget them.
Sometimes I ponder this place we’re in regarding the early times of the fifth epochal dispensation. How much we can actually do to further the following of Him, and helping to spread the restated gospel. So I get up every day, pray, and wait.
Then my wife comes in and asks me, “do you want breakfast?”
Hello my geriatric fellows,
Do you think having found the book early in life has helped you to dispel unnecessary baggage?
TUB was offer to me in early 30s. Answer will be : no ! Never pack light. My personnal (experienced) belongings with time and proper guidance got better organized, tidy. I learned to not display all inside luggages running after each travellers encountered.
TA reach out with plans to lighten them for next trip. My oldest geriatric brother show me how to reach the boarding dock.
All aboard !!!
I found the Book in 1970 when I was 22. I was agnostically inclined, whenever I bothered to think about the possible existence of God, which was infrequently. Having grown up in a thoroughly secular family and environment, I had no idea why I had such an acute sense that something was missing, something I could not even begin to name. A nagging intuition of “nameless despair” seemed to permeate and devalue everything. And how irritated my friends would become, whenever I tried to steer the conversation toward the question of the meaning of life! The militant nihilism of European existentialism sweeping college campuses at that time eschewed such cosmic questions as utter nonsense; there is no larger meaning to life. (Nietzsche’s atheistic philosophy in Beyond Good and Evil has since become something of a cultural touchstone for western thought.) When I tried to share my thrilling discovery of the Book with them, not one showed the least interest.
Looking back, I think my deep idealistic disappointment in the world was a significant factor in my response to the Book. The spiritual influences acting within and upon us cause “the consuming thirst of mortal discontent and that indescribable hunger of the unspiritualized human mind.” (34:6.8) These disturbing feelings can be greatly aggravated by the experience of idealistic disillusionment. I was deeply dissatisfied with my old worldview of materialistic despair based upon the wisdom of the world. I was hungry to hear about “a new heaven and a new earth” filled with spiritual hope based upon divine revelation.
As an example: Traveling about Rome, Ganid and Jesus encountered a “thoughtless pagan.” Ganid was surprised that Jesus did not attempt to steer the conversation toward spiritual matters, as he so often did. Jesus explained,
Ganid, the man was not hungry for truth. He was not dissatisfied with himself. He was not ready to ask for help, and the eyes of his mind were not open to receive light for the soul. That man was not ripe for the harvest of salvation; he must be allowed more time for the trials and difficulties of life to prepare him for the reception of wisdom and higher learning…. You cannot reveal God to those who do not seek for him… Man must become hungry for truth as a result of the experiences of living… (132:.7.2)
I can only theorize why those who believed in God, Christian or otherwise, before ever finding the Book chose to accept it as revelation. This is outside my experience, since I was a confused agnostic. It was the deep disillusionment of my thoughtless secular ideals by life’s trials which finally prepared me to receive the higher truth of epochal revelation. I strongly suspect that many agnostics who have come to accept this revelation were first similarly prepared by trying life experiences which encouraged them to become hungry for truth.
In all of this, I am convinced the seraphim play a crucial role. I am certain they are always looking for the opportunity to arrange things in a way that will bring the Book to the attention of those who may finally be hungry for it in their hearts. Because of this, I am not unduly concerned about the movement’s apparent lack of growth or the older ages of those who openly make themselves known to fellow believers. The seraphim will act whenever another mortal is prepared and willing to hear about this great revelation. Spiritual growth cannot be rushed. And we have no real idea how many are studying in isolation, not yet ready to deal with the poison darts of ridicule they know they would surely receive, should their peers and family learn of their evolving belief in the Book. In this regard, it is worth considering the possible reasons why our angels are called guardian seraphim.
“
Ganid, the man was not hungry for truth. He was not dissatisfied with himself. He was not ready to ask for help, and the eyes of his mind were not open to receive light for the soul. That man was not ripe for the harvest of salvation; he must be allowed more time for the trials and difficulties of life to prepare him for the reception of wisdom and higher learning…. You cannot reveal God to those who do not seek for him… Man must become hungry for truth as a result of the experiences of living… (132:.7.2)”
I have often thought about this situation and wondered why or how someone can be not hungry for righteousness such that the master, the walking talking spirit of truth coming face to face with you or at least in very close proximity- falls on blind eyes and deaf ears and un-curious mind that cannot be stimulated by any spirit influences.
Is it just will, choice, determination, secular education and background?
or maybe a form of mental illness??
one thing-in those days not everyone had Adjusters. We are fortunate in that respect. Seems more difficult to ignore that hunger for righteousness these days even though it manifested in some what secular ways – like the scientific community that continues to define God as an it as opposed to a he. I can visualize this short sided thinking as short lived but I may be fooling myself. The first astronaut standing on the moon looking back at the earth had a spiritual uplifting bunch of words for us back here on Urantia.
I can only theorize why those who believed in God, Christian or otherwise, before ever finding the Book chose to accept it as revelation.
Well, I’m one of those people and I can tell you it has to do with the recognition of truth. Recognition of truth has little to do with belief. It’s all about faith. If you’re frozen by beliefs it’s much harder to crack the ice. True faith never gets frozen. It’s actually what breaks the ice and eventually melts it away.
I can honestly say that I never once entertained the ideas of atheism or agnosticism. I fell in love with Jesus as a toddler and never fell out of love. I can’t say why it’s a bond that has never been broken, it’s just the way it is with me. I’ve never been tempted to think otherwise, not even during my darkest of days. I guess I’m lucky, but it does not help me understand people who do have such doubts. I really cannot comprehend it no matter how hard I try. It’s a puzzlement.
In all of this, I am convinced the seraphim play a crucial role. I am certain they are always looking for the opportunity to arrange things in a way that will bring the Book to the attention of those who may finally be hungry for it in their hearts. Because of this, I am not unduly concerned about the movement’s apparent lack of growth or the older ages of those who openly make themselves known to fellow believers.
I agree in part. The book was presented to me before I was ready, but it stood on the shelf beckoning me. I think our guardians know that the human animal is curious, some more so than others. The adjutants, particularly #4, are also instrumental in urging us to seek new levels of harmonious cosmic relations, which is the purpose of curiosity (56:10.6). I don’t think it’s an accident that the Book begins with a cosmic view of the earth and humans.
And we have no real idea how many are studying in isolation, not yet ready to deal with the poison darts of ridicule they know they would surely receive, should their peers and family learn of their evolving belief in the Book.
Agreed. I was one of those people. Never had a study group and probably never will. There are none around here. It wasn’t until I found TB that I began talking to other UB’ers, (and they quickly became ugly, sorry to say). So, that’s almost 40 years of isolated reading. Oh, and like others, I gave away copies to friends and family. Everyone I know has a copy and knows that I’m deeply into it, but very few of them are genuinely interested in knowing what it is that intrigues me about it . . . very little curiosity.
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