Friday - May 02, 2008
Urantia
I hadn't thought about this stuff for *years*. But as I was planning to "clean up my office" (it's a god-awful mess again since it's the end of the semester), I ran across it & started flipping through the pages a little. I got it in high school - actually had to special order it....I was a weird kid.
Anyhow, at that time, it was the nuttiest thing I had ever heard. The guitar playing on that tune (The Attitude Song) was just insane. I was maybe 15 and I went nuts for it. Until I heard Allan Holdsworth, I had never heard anything like it before. There was a little p.o. box address on the back of the album. So I wrote to him asking him some stuff - mostly what it was like at Berklee (my alma mater & his for about 6 months, I think). It was so cool when he wrote me back - just awesome. I actually wrote to him again & yet again he wrote back. Not long after that, he got the gig with David Lee Roth's first "band" after he left Van Halen. At that point, he didn't write back anymore! Go figure - it's not like he wasn't busy! *****
The record company that Vai created when he launched the Flex-able album with his own money (sort of) was called Urantia records. The number was Urantia 777. So I started digging around about the book & "cult" surrounding it. It's not really a cult, per se. Sort of like Dianetics except not crazy. Well, not AS crazy, I guess. One of the coolest things that Vai said in his first letter to me was when he wrote about finding yourself & finding what you were supposed to do in life, he mentioned that the ultimate goal was closer to myself than my own breath.... and that's the Will of God. Interesting, huh?
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So I found this Urantia book thing. I never really got all the way through it. It was pretty strange even for me. The basic idea is that the book was sort of "given" to mankind through little green men (not really green men - more like angels & archangels & all that stuff). The book sort of reads as though it's the angels, or whatever you want to call them, themselves. I guess the idea was that a dude was sort of taken over by the "spirit" and spit out all this stuff that some other dudes wrote down. Sort of like the Mormon thing, I guess.
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There's a ton of stuff on the web debunking Urantia & in the grand scheme of things, it really ought to be debunked. Still, some of the criticism is really over the top. For example, at this website there's a mess of debunking stuff that just doesn't sit right with me. Here's a quote:
Masterpiece of Deception The Urantia book may be one of Satan's greatest masterpieces of deception. It is so seductive because it cleverly plays on many human emotions. Okay, fair enough. Satan deceiving us and all that.... understand. Roger that. but it goes on with this a bit later: Satan plays on our fears in the Urantia book by soothing us with lying reassurances that Hell does not exist, and by focusing on God's love and mercy while distracting us away from God's judgment and wrathagainst those who do not accept Jesus as their savior. That's the weird part to me. is it really that bad to focus on God's love and mercy? I'm not sure that God is all about "judgment & wrath" exclusively. in fact, I see Jesus (as Lord & Savior, sure...) as the One who came to forgive us. To save us. It seems to me that God wants to give us that chance. As some of my very religious friends say: Scaring somebody into Heaven might not be as effective as LOVING them into Heaven. But what do I know. I see Christianity as having similarities to Buddhism (especially Zen), so I'm pretty much out of the loop. ("They" want to keep me out! It's a conspiricy I tell ya!) ***** My last quote is from the Urantia website itself. On the front page....
What People Are Saying About The Urantia Book:
"I haven't been able to read the entire book yet, but even after reading a few parts a lot of things became clear(er) to me." The Hague NETHERLANDS
That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?