My Testimony
by Mo Siegel
Thanks to the influence of my father and grandfather I grew up curious about religion and in quest of deeper spiritual meaning. I was especially interested in the relationship between science and religion and troubled by the apparent conflict over the subject of evolution. The more I read on religion and science the more I was convinced that science reflected the divine nature of God rather than contradicting it. The more I read, the more urgent the need to understand how the world was the way it was.
At the age of 19, I discovered The Urantia Book and have been reading it ever since. The book presents a logical story of physical and social evolution. It is for me the bridge between science and religion that I had been searching for.
I found the foreword to the Urantia Book utterly confusing but kept reading anyway. What followed was a fascinating intellectual and spiritual adventure that shook up everything I thought I knew. The first two parts of the book describe God, the Trinity, the organization and structure of the Universe, life on other worlds, life after death, angels and other personalities and heaven. When I read part three I thought I had won the lottery. That section deals with the origin and history of our world and ending with the birth of Jesus.
The Urantia Book devotes 875 pages on the magnificent life and teachings of Jesus. It includes the missing years of his life from age 1 to 12 and then from age 13 to approximately 30 --- not chronicled in the Bible.
Before I read the Urantia Book I loved the story of Jesus in the New Testament but always felt disappointed that it covered only a few years of his life. When I read the section about Jesus I was profoundly moved: Jesus --- both the human being and the Son of God ---came alive in the most superbly written biographical literature that I have ever come across. It made me far more respectful and appreciative of my childhood training in both Judaism and Christianity. Simply put the life and teachings of Jesus in section four of the Urantia Book transformed my life to one of doubt to one of faith, from one of insecurity to one of trust in God --- with Jesus as the lens through which God becomes visible. As a spiritual adventurer, I was thrilled that the Jesus of the Urantia Book built on the Bible, and then took me a hundred miles further.
The Urantia Book has been life changing, for it has made me examine my values and commit myself to doing something worthwhile with my life. Like all businesspeople, I have had to make choices every step of the way. My materialistic side could have easily hardened me, but the ideals I internalized from the Urantia Book kept pushing me to choose good over greed and to care about the people I worked with as well as the people who bought our products. In fact those ideals were the inspiration for the uplifting quotes we print on the side of our tea boxes and on our tea bag tags from the company I founded many years ago -- the Celestial Seasonings Tea Company.
The most valuable thing the Urantia Book has done for me is to make God real. After reading and absorbing the book I slowly grew to trust that every part of God has been implanted in our minds to guide us and show us the way.
When I first heard people discussing The Urantia Book, they said it was a revelation, written not by human beings but by angels, which I thought was the goofiest thing I’d ever heard. I ended up reading it in spite of all that. After I read it for the first time, I was not concerned about who had written it or how it had been written. It was too powerful!
I had wanted bold; I found bold. I wanted spiritual adventure, and I was on the ride of my life. I was searching for truth and the book was loaded with it. Since that time, I have looked into it deeply and cannot find any author associated with the book. But that is not the point because I love what it says. I am a much better person because of The Urantia Book’s teachings.
by Mo Siegel
Thanks to the influence of my father and grandfather I grew up curious about religion and in quest of deeper spiritual meaning. I was especially interested in the relationship between science and religion and troubled by the apparent conflict over the subject of evolution. The more I read on religion and science the more I was convinced that science reflected the divine nature of God rather than contradicting it. The more I read, the more urgent the need to understand how the world was the way it was.
At the age of 19, I discovered The Urantia Book and have been reading it ever since. The book presents a logical story of physical and social evolution. It is for me the bridge between science and religion that I had been searching for.
I found the foreword to the Urantia Book utterly confusing but kept reading anyway. What followed was a fascinating intellectual and spiritual adventure that shook up everything I thought I knew. The first two parts of the book describe God, the Trinity, the organization and structure of the Universe, life on other worlds, life after death, angels and other personalities and heaven. When I read part three I thought I had won the lottery. That section deals with the origin and history of our world and ending with the birth of Jesus.
The Urantia Book devotes 875 pages on the magnificent life and teachings of Jesus. It includes the missing years of his life from age 1 to 12 and then from age 13 to approximately 30 --- not chronicled in the Bible.
Before I read the Urantia Book I loved the story of Jesus in the New Testament but always felt disappointed that it covered only a few years of his life. When I read the section about Jesus I was profoundly moved: Jesus --- both the human being and the Son of God ---came alive in the most superbly written biographical literature that I have ever come across. It made me far more respectful and appreciative of my childhood training in both Judaism and Christianity. Simply put the life and teachings of Jesus in section four of the Urantia Book transformed my life to one of doubt to one of faith, from one of insecurity to one of trust in God --- with Jesus as the lens through which God becomes visible. As a spiritual adventurer, I was thrilled that the Jesus of the Urantia Book built on the Bible, and then took me a hundred miles further.
The Urantia Book has been life changing, for it has made me examine my values and commit myself to doing something worthwhile with my life. Like all businesspeople, I have had to make choices every step of the way. My materialistic side could have easily hardened me, but the ideals I internalized from the Urantia Book kept pushing me to choose good over greed and to care about the people I worked with as well as the people who bought our products. In fact those ideals were the inspiration for the uplifting quotes we print on the side of our tea boxes and on our tea bag tags from the company I founded many years ago -- the Celestial Seasonings Tea Company.
The most valuable thing the Urantia Book has done for me is to make God real. After reading and absorbing the book I slowly grew to trust that every part of God has been implanted in our minds to guide us and show us the way.
When I first heard people discussing The Urantia Book, they said it was a revelation, written not by human beings but by angels, which I thought was the goofiest thing I’d ever heard. I ended up reading it in spite of all that. After I read it for the first time, I was not concerned about who had written it or how it had been written. It was too powerful!
I had wanted bold; I found bold. I wanted spiritual adventure, and I was on the ride of my life. I was searching for truth and the book was loaded with it. Since that time, I have looked into it deeply and cannot find any author associated with the book. But that is not the point because I love what it says. I am a much better person because of The Urantia Book’s teachings.
4 comments:
A facinating book. I discovered it in the 60's and and been reading it ever since. There are a number of websites about the book if anyone is interested. I thought Mo's testimonial was good. I highly recommend the book to people who are serious about the relationship between science and religion, and the life of Jesus from birth to death. The reader will quickly learn that Jesus lived and died for all of humanity. A revelation to many who believe they are the chosen people. Sorry to disappoint you.
neil webster, New York
I was so happy to discover the Urantia Book recently. The Jesus papers were just what I have been looking for. In reading the Bible I always felt I had been cheated that there was so little about the early life of Jesus. How could three wise men travel so far for the birth of Jesus and walk away with no further curiosity about him. I would want to know what he was doing and where he was...nothing. The Jesus papers helped me better understand Jesus and why he was sent to us. It opened my eyes as to why he lived and not just the traditional Christian why he died. What a wonderful story with a message for all of us.
This is a statement about my association with Ed Roache to give a little more history about the writing of his book, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand".
The decision to actually make his year long study into a book was made on September 11, 1999. I know because we attended a one day conference together, along with others from nearby towns also interested in this conference we were attending on this Saturday in September. I know the date is correct because it is in the recorded minutes of the meetings of that day which also just happened to be the Jewish Holiday Rosh Hashanah. It was in March of 2000 when he told me he was finished with his book and would have a manuscript copy of it available for me soon and in April 2000, I finally received the copy of that manuscript. This book, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand", by Dr Roache, has changed my life and realizations of the Kingdom of Heaven. The website http://www.inspiredbooks.com is devoted to this book and to the Kingdom of Heaven of the end times in which we are now living. This website is also dedicated to the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven Within which allows us to make the proper choices in the participation of future events.
ainnt no damn way
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