I Began Reading as a Skeptic
Born and raised in an Anglican home, I was the stereotypical altar boy/choirboy – with a guardian angel working overtime to keep me from accidentally killing myself. Homemade model rockets (three-stage with a mouse payload), pipe cannons and fireworks tested the angel’s ability to move shrapnel or place me where the exploding bits would least likely hit.
I matured to young manhood with a career in engineering, a family, wealth, and an ego that left little room for God. Science and logic left no need for a God, either. As executive VP of research and development for the largest turbine-engine overhaul company in the world, I pooh-poohed “metaphysical mumbo jumbo” and dismissed the people who were led astray by that stuff. I had taken religion back to its very base – the Big Bang – and decided that God was needed only to supply the initial energy. The natural processes of energy association and evolution would take over from there.
Then in 1985, when I was 37, I hired a creative genius, Dr. Irwin Ginsburgh. Irwin had a Ph.D. in physics, 45 patents, a brilliant understanding of everything, and a big blue book of answers, a book which he said combined science and religion into a logical whole.
A logical blend of science and religion? Impossible! Okay, maybe not impossible, but certainly improbable. I began reading as a skeptic but ended as a believer. Finally, the New Testament miracles and the death on the cross made sense; afterlife was logical, and there was a reason for my existence. I didn’t need God; God needed me! He needed me to experience what he could not experience alone – relationships with others, learning, sympathy, empathy, love.
It was a sad day when I finished the book, and yet it is the last book I will ever need.
I find The Urantia Book to be internally consistent and scientifically credible. The probability of getting all those day/date combinations in Part IV correct staggers my mind. The big blue book that questions all answers and answers all questions has changed the ego me into the Supreme we. It’s amazing how your attitude changes when your perspective is eternal.
