CyrusThePersian

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Posts by CyrusThePersian

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  14

  Holy Moses! PBS documentary suggests Exodus not real

  by ICBehindtheCurtain in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  this will be very interesting, i only wish it would make the rounds on the jw emails the same way "knocking" did, fat chance!

  we can only hope that pbs and nova will jump on this bandwagon as well, sooner than later.

  holy moses!

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  CyrusThePersian

  Much of the information in this documentary is taken from The Bible Unearthed by Isreal Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. One of the most startling things I learned is that for decades archaeologists have been searching for evidence of the Exodus in the Sinai desert.

  Do you know what they found? Nothing, nada, zilch. There should be remains of late Bronze Age campsites, there are none. There should be the bones of more than a million people out in the desert, there are none. (Num. 14:29) There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of a forty year sojourn in he Sinai desert! (Much less the seven plagues on Egypt, which would have left the Egyptian economy in a shambles and left the country open to invasion-an event that is nowhere recorded in the Egyptian, or in any other nation's records)

  This documentary will probably posit, like Finkelstein and Silberman, that the Exodus is a Canaanite retelling of the Egyptian story of the Hyksos invasion, as recorded by Manetho.

  It should be an interesting documentary!

  CyrusThePersian
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  43

  What Would You Like to Tell The Governing Body?

  by AK - Jeff in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we assume that they or their dupes read this forum, or parts of it, right?

  address your comments to them.

  do so kindly, and respectfully, remembering that it is their religion, and they can run it like they like.

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  CyrusThePersian

  I would tell the Governing Body, very respectfully, to please stay out of peoples' lives. Stop telling your followers what books they should read, what movies and television programs to watch, who their friends should be and whether or not they should go to school. None of that is any of your business and people should decide those things for themselves.

  Respectfully,

  CyrusThePersian
• 
  19

  New York City

  by sandy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'll be in nyc this month (july) for a two night stay i won through a radio station here in los angeles.

  i am so excited!

  hotel and air are completely paid for.

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  CyrusThePersian

  i want to recommend a restraunt but do not know the name of it....jit prob in little italy......pretty much a stucco cave, but in the back it has boccie ball will a small gallery area to watch...what a place...anyone know the name?.........have fun oompa

  oompa, are you thinking of Mama Leone's? It had a kind of a grotto type of atmophere, kind of like a cave. It's in the theatre district though, on W. 44th St., not in Little Italy. Besides, I think they closed it down, it was too expensive to operate in that area.

  BTW congatulations on the trip, Sandy!! Have a great time!

  CyrusThePersian

  Edited to add: Mama Leone's didn't have bocce, so I'm probably thinking of a different place than you are. New York is covered with Italian and Greek restaurants (I love Greek food), just try them all!
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  20

  How is the Internet changing us?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  open question: i really don't have any ready answer for that one.... my basic assumption is that mankind has always been different.

  every period and situation of history can be construed as a "system" involving specific political, economical, social and technical conditions and a corresponding set of ideas, or beliefs, allowing for a certain type of self-, community- and world-understanding.

  just to follow one particular line among many: .

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  CyrusThePersian

  I think that one of the internet's biggest contributions is that certain people and organisations can no longer hide things from ordinary folks.

  Just like the printing press put Bibles and other books in the hands of farmers and shopkeepers, thus sparking both the Renaissance and the Reformation, the internet has put huge amounts of data at the disposal of anyone. Now it could be argued that libraries have always had lots of information, but the internet puts it all at your fingertips instantly!

  No longer can a company say that research shows that their product is better than Brand X because now people can get online and see the actual research findings or read message boards of actual users of the product.

  No longer can a religious organisation say,"We never said that Armageddon would happen in 1975 or that the end of the world would be within the generation that was alive in 1914." because with the internet, we can retrieve the information that shows that it isn't true.

  No longer will we hear some crazy story and wonder if it's true or not. We just access snopes.com or a similar website and do five minutes worth of research to establish the veracity of the story.

  In short, we have become a much better informed generation and, as a consequence, much harder to fool.

  CyrusThePersian
• 
  36

  Did/Does God answer your prayers?

  by song19 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in my spiritual journey, which includes trying to decide if i still believe in god anymore or not i am beginning to question if god listened to my prayers or even answered them.

  i think i had a track record of praying more when i needed something.

  terrible i know.

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  CyrusThePersian

  Lincoln said, "I had a good Christian mother, and her prayers have followed me thus far through life."

  Fromthis website:

  Lincoln never joined a church nor ever made a clear profession of standard Christian beliefs. While he read the Bible in the White House, he was not in the habit of saying grace before meals. Lincoln's friend Jesse Fell noted that the president "seldom communicated to anyone his views" on religion, and he went on to suggest that those views were not orthodox: "on the innate depravity of man, the character and office of the great head of the Church, the Atonement, the infallibility of the written revelation, the performance of miracles, the nature and design of . . . future rewards and punishments . . . and many other subjects, he held opinions utterly at variance with what are usually taught in the church." It is probable that Lincoln was turned against organized Christianity by his experiences as a young man in New Salem, Illinois, where excessive emotion and bitter sectarian quarrels marked yearly camp meetings and the ministry of traveling preachers

  I didn't mean to imply that Lincoln was a total unbeliever, just that his beliefs may not be what you may think. All of which has nothing to do with the OP, which is the effectiveness of prayer.

  CyrusThePersian
• 
  36

  Did/Does God answer your prayers?

  by song19 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in my spiritual journey, which includes trying to decide if i still believe in god anymore or not i am beginning to question if god listened to my prayers or even answered them.

  i think i had a track record of praying more when i needed something.

  terrible i know.

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  CyrusThePersian

  Doubters may question the value of prayer, but persons wiser than most of us believed in it and didn't hesitate to say they practiced it and got answers. To name a few:

  ...and I could come up with a list, from Voltaire to Einstein, from Mark Twain to Carl Sagan, who thought that prayer was a load of bollocks, but it wouldn't mean a thing. What counts are the facts, the REALITY of the situation, and that is that life can sometimes be good, and it can sometimes be bad, and prayer ain't gonna change a damn thing, (except maybe make you feel a little better, if you're so inclined.)

  CyrusThePersian

  P.S. You better take a closer look at old Honest Abe Lincoln, he may not be as much a believer as you think!
• 
  36

  Did/Does God answer your prayers?

  by song19 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in my spiritual journey, which includes trying to decide if i still believe in god anymore or not i am beginning to question if god listened to my prayers or even answered them.

  i think i had a track record of praying more when i needed something.

  terrible i know.

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  CyrusThePersian

  What a lot of people don't realize is that the efficacy of prayer can be physically measured. Simply put, people who pray should be better off than those who don't. Admittedly some of the things people pray for -like happiness and wisdom and stuff like that are hard to measure- but other things can be, like health and prosperity.

  The question is: Is the person who prays better off measurably than the person who doesn't? The believer prays for good heath. Is he really healthier than the athiest who lives down the street?

  A person prays that his crops will prosper. Do his crops grow strong and tall while his unbelieving neighbor's crops wilt?

  People all over the world lie horribly ill in hospitals. Do those who have people praying over them have a better chance of suviving their ordeal than those whose friends are simply hopeful that the doctors can help the patient?

  Six million Jews prayed like hell that God would just simply spare their lives in Nazi concentration camps. Did he listen?

  The answer to all these questions is no. The reality is that life is a crapshoot. Some things turn out well, and some things don't. People often say they feel better, like a load lifted off their shoulders, when they pray to God. More power to them. But really, it's no different than the solace a child feels when confiding with his imaginary friend.

  CyrusThePersian
• 
  41

  Single? Do You Cook for Yourself?

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  dear friends,.

  as i cook away, preparing a hearty breakfast before the robust walkabout that awaits me, i recall an earlier conversation with a married friend whose wife prepares him beautiful meals.

  if you're a single person, it's typical to throw something together hastily and eat it on the run.

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  CyrusThePersian

  Cook?

  Who bothers to cook?

  I don't even heat microwave dinners. I just suck 'em frozen.

  CyrusThePersian
• 
  47

  What did you think in -95?

  by Samuel Thorsen in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  when i first read about wts having "new ligth" on the 1914-generation issue in the newspaper i was shocked.

  (some evil apostates had been helpful and informed the paper weeks before i got my november issues of the wt.).

  my thoughts was.

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  CyrusThePersian

  I went to a couple of khs...when they studied the articles...just to see what the reaction would be.... It was wierd... no reaction at all... I don't think most jws got it for a while....took a long time to sink in...

  I know!! It was weird, wasn't it?

  Like I said above, I was the Watchtower conductor at the time and I remember as we were going over those paragraphs about the generation change thinking, "Come on people! Wake the **** up already!!

  CyrusThePersian
• 
  47

  What did you think in -95?

  by Samuel Thorsen in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  when i first read about wts having "new ligth" on the 1914-generation issue in the newspaper i was shocked.

  (some evil apostates had been helpful and informed the paper weeks before i got my november issues of the wt.).

  my thoughts was.

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  CyrusThePersian

  Just like Blueblades, I was the Watchtower conductor at the time. I remember being floored by this change. It was a real epiphany for me.

  This change though, seemed to go right over the heads of most of the witnesses that were there that Sunday. i even pointed out that this was a significant change to the understanding of "generation" in Matthew. Still nothing...

  But it was the turning point for me. It wasn't long before I quit being an elder and subsequently faded from the org.

  CyrusThePersian