Posts by CyrusThePersian

9

Am I a Christian anymore??

by quellycatface in

there's quite a lot on tv just now about jesus.

i'm not sure anymore....was he the son of god, or just generally a good person?.

i'm not atheist or agnostic but i just want something real and true..

CyrusThePersian

"There's quite a lot on TV just now about Jesus. I'm not sure anymore....Was he the son of God, or just generally a good person?"

...or did he even exist?

Many years ago I wrestled with the same conundrums you are facing today. Is God real or true? To answer that question, you must look at the cold facts. You must shun "Divine Revelation", ignore wishful thinking, and avoid the opinions of those around you and concentrate on the evidence.

What I personally found was that God supposedly gave us five senses with which to perceive the world. Yet with none of these senses can we perceive God. We cannot taste to see that he is good. We cannot see him or feel him or smell him because he is incorporeal. We cannot hear him because he does not speak. We pray to him but he doesn't answer. He does nothing to alleviate human suffering.

To paraphrase Carl Sagan, whats the difference between an invisible, incorporeal God who does nothing and says nothing--and no God at all?

What's "real and true" is out there, but you have to find it.

CyrusThePersian

11

Marriage only possible as an M.S. as a JW???

by ADJUSTMENTS in

it seemed to me for a male jw to begin the steps of dating and eventually getting married you at least had to be an m.s.

to get anywhere with a sister at least a decent sister.

i'm wondering if others felt this way?

CyrusThePersian

"It seemed to me for a male JW to begin the steps of dating and eventually getting married you at least had to be an M.S. to get anywhere with a sister at least a DECENT sister."

Maybe you should have set your sights on an indecent sister. They're more fun.

Where I grew up the situation was just the opposite of JustVisiting and Julia Orwell's. The young bro's outnumbered the sisters by a factor of at least three to one. The young women in the cong. wouldn't even talk to a guy unless he was on the fast track to being an elder. That made dating a real pain for the young bro's. We would often go out of town en masse to try to find young hotties to flirt with. Can you imagine some small town cong. being suddenly flooded by five or six young theocratic studs on some Sunday? It happened a lot back then, I know, because I was one of them!

130

Questions on Evolution and the Existence of God and...

by ILoveTTATT in

jw
friends

i know this is one huge rant, but i want to put my own questions and doubts in writing.. i am a fading jw who has become agnostic... i still believe in "god" and "jesus," but i simply cannot explain to people why i believe in them.

i just do.. about the existence of god: it is an infinite regress.

"all things were created by someone"... well... who created god?

CyrusThePersian

"Suppose a species turns into another one. Why did chimpanzees, gorillas, and other large apes "remain" in their past form, and then the intermediaries to humans died off?

If the large apes had the same circumstances as the ones that branched off and became humans, why didn't THEY die off?

I am missing something here?"

Yes, you are. You're making the incorrect assumption that evolution is a steady, progressive process, which is not necessarily the case. Evolution is driven by two factors: Mutation and natural selection. Mutations happen all the time. The simple fact that no two animals-including humans- are alike, bears this out. Natural selection simply favors a creature whose mutations make it better able to cope with its environment, survive, and then pass on its mutated genes to the next generation. So evolution affects different species in different ways. Some species evolve rapidly-like Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and some evolve or change hardly at all- like sharks.

All species of modern apes, which includes humans, have undergone evolutionary change and many "intermediate" species of all great apes have died off. (I put "intermediate" in quotation marks because all species living today and in the past are in fact intermediate. Biological evolution does not have a finish line.) It is interesting that of all the hominids only humans remain today, (even though there is a movement afoot to declare chimpanzees and bonobos as hominids). However this is easily explained, given human nature. These other hominids, like Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis, simply couldn't compete. They were probably assimilated or simply wiped out by the superior Homo Sapiens.

CyrusThePersian

36

What are you doing on Christmas day?

by Jen1 in

jw
friends

any one out there doing field service?

i have not gone out on that day in years.

and have no intention of ever doing that again.

CyrusThePersian

Since all my friends will be spending Christmas with their families, I will be left to my own devices. I haven't really decided what I'll do. I'll probably do what I always do, smoke my bi-annual cigar, prop my feet up next to the fireplace and marathon my favorite Christmas movies.

CyrusThePersian

25

Naughtiness in my bathroom

by usualusername in

jw
friends

i have some guests coming over to spend xmas with me for a couple of days.

they are my friends family and i have a larger place than them and am playing host.. dilemma.

they are christians and i have some postcards in my bathroom that are slightly naughty.

CyrusThePersian

While on the one hand it is your home and you have the right to have anything you want on your bathroom walls (within the law of course), there is, on the other hand, the need to be sensitive to the feelings of your guests. In my personal opinion, I think your cards, at least the ones you describe, may be a little too racy for an eight year old. I think it would be wise and prudent to temporarily remove them.

CyrusThePersian

186

Just out of curiosity, how many elders (current & ex) do we have here?

by mrquik in

jw
friends

me.

CyrusThePersian

I was an elder for 12 years. I stepped down in 1996 and never looked back.

CyrusThePersian

3

Here's IRONY for you

by Hortensia in

jw
friends

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/major-tech-companies-unite-to-call-for-new-limits-on-surveillance/2013/12/08/530f0fd4-6051-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html.

imagine -- google is protesting that the government spies too much.

pot calling kettle black?.

CyrusThePersian

When Google does it it's OK because it benefits the corporate big shots but when the NSA and the GCHQ does it, it makes Google look bad. So they have to try to make themselves look noble by protesting.

CyrusThePersian

48

Here it is, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me you...

by chapstick in

jw
friends

if all of the ex-watchtowerites and other critics of the religious bs we've been fed all our lives want to know and understand all the whys and hows of this monstrocity called the christian church, how it really came to be, what it is and what you can do about it, here it is on a neat platter.

it will shock the sensitive ones among you (if there still are any) to your core.

no fantacy and no bullshit here guys, this is the unadulterated truth.

CyrusThePersian

Do a little research Cyrus

No, I will not. When someone makes a presentation, I expect the presenter to do the research, not me.

CyrusThePersian

48

Here it is, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me you...

by chapstick in

jw
friends

if all of the ex-watchtowerites and other critics of the religious bs we've been fed all our lives want to know and understand all the whys and hows of this monstrocity called the christian church, how it really came to be, what it is and what you can do about it, here it is on a neat platter.

it will shock the sensitive ones among you (if there still are any) to your core.

no fantacy and no bullshit here guys, this is the unadulterated truth.

CyrusThePersian

I'm with ya, WinstonSmith. As soon as I heard the part about the Phoenecians and the Suez canal I was like, "Nah." and shut it off. I have no time for people who can't keep their history straight and commit anacrhonisms like that.

CyrusThePersian

11

HALF AND HALF or 50/50

by Terry in

jw
friends

there are only a thousand people left on earth.. about ten percent of the survivors (of some unnamed disaster) have professional expertise of some kind.. 80 per cent have some education, but not any practical grasp of how things operate.. 10 per cent are extremists of varying kinds; a sort of lunatic fringe with knee-jerk "solutions" they propose to carry out.. a temporary leader/spokesman acts as a referee to sort things out.. a meeting is conducted with all 1000 present.. after much arguing, a vote is conducted.. 51 % want to carry out one set of plans while 49% want know part of it.. the thin majority start doing things their way and the minority get more and more outraged.. what happens next?.

.

CyrusThePersian

I know. I grew up in the sixties. Back then, the rhetoric was all about ideology, this time it's about money - which is much nearer and dearer to people's hearts because cash flow is essential to people being able to eat and put a roof over their heads.

That's important. Protesting the war in Viet Nam is one thing but yanking the spoon out of peoples' mouths is quite another, just ask the Bolsheviks.

CyrusThePersian