Friday, November 10, 2006

these are not tongue twisters...

check these out...

"betty bought a bit of butter"

"insert a quater in the meter"

sounds like a tongue twister? Here is an even better one...

"thirty little turtles ina bottle of bottled water. A bottle of bottled water held thrity little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles"

haa haa ha.. that was a tough one right? Actually, they are not tongue twisters. they are sentences used in Indian and other non english speaking countries to help people become familiar with American, Canadian or British accent!! Yes. Why you might ask? Well.. if you didn't know... most of the north american and europian companies are moving thier call centers to these countries. I read this from Thomas L. Friedman's famous book "The World is Flat". If you haven't got a chance to read it.. it's a highly recommended read for everyone in this century coz the book is a brief history of 21st century. Wonderful book. A true globalization 101 for the novice.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

miracles of jesus...


while flipping through the channels on my TV last night, I was thrilled to see a title called "Miracles of Jesus" on the discovery civilization channel. With lots of interst I sat and watched the documentry.

The documentry was about a young christian magician who wanted to know the whats and whys behind jesus's miracles and wanted to see if they were dillusions and if he could reproduce with his magic skills. The documentry was based on 3 main miracles that jesus did. Since I am not a christian I may spell or describe things a little different. Appologies for that first...

the first miracle is where jesus brings a dead man's life back. According to the gospel , a widowed woman who had lost her only son comes crying to Jesus and after seeing her sorrow jesus brings her son's life back. Now the narrator poses a few questions behind this incident. one is, "why did jesus do it?" . the other is was that boy really dead? or was he on coma? is there any parallels to this?

Only the last question has a thoughtful answer. there is a parallel between this and an indicent in the old testement. A spritual leader called Elijah used to bring the dead back to life and in fact when Jesus brought this boy's life back the jewish people praise him as the next Elijah. There is lots of similarities to the old testement incident. Same widowed woman. only son. But why did jesus do this? what is he trying to tell the jewish community?

now the second miracle. The one in which jesus fed more than 5000 people who came to listen to his speech. now is that possible? how is it possible to produce food from nothing? is this an illusion? the documentry has comments from great scholars from pshycology and bibilical studies. Apart from the miracle part, let see if there is any parallels? Yes. this also has a parallel. again from the old testement, when Moses took his followers to the promissed land the moment they arrived , they all felt hungry and Moses has produced food from whatever the food was available. and some birds came flying. From the Jesus side, it was bread and fish. Now, even more, both Moses and Jesus asked the people to sit in groups on 50s and 100s. why is that?

Fianally the thrid miracle. THis is when the deciples saw Jesus walking on the water while returning from the speech. According to the gospel, jesus was passing them and did not come towards the deciples. this has happened when they were travelling to the east of Jordan traingle. Now, to the parallel, When Joshua, Moses' right hand took the jewish people to the promissed land, he too have shrinked the water and have walked on the same waters. The similarities are so intersting. Joshua crossed the waters with 12 of his men and Jesus showed up to 12 of his deciples who were on the boat.

Are these similarities coincidences? What's Jesus' point about this? What did he wanted to tell the Jewish people? Did he wanted to prove that he is next Messiah? or was he the reincarnation of Moses?

A wonderful documentry. Here is a link on Amazon if you wanna buy it.

http://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Jesus-Discovery-Channel/dp/0801012929