Questions to Christians

[Walker]

For fuck sake. Randomly turning words upside down when there are perfectly good words already is NOT evolution of language. It's butchering of language. Just like the 'men' are 'women' bullshit.

That is an excellent point. These days there's nothing random about it. It's a calculation pushed by repetition.

[Walker]

And don't you ever go to bed old man?

Full circle ...

Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily
Merrily merrily
Life is but a dream.

[Alexiev]

Evolution of words.

- Sex has evolved from noun to verb while also remaining a noun.
- The term “sleeping together,” has evolved to mean sex the verb, while also still meaning two or more snoozing at the same time or in the same proximity.
- Gender stands a chance of evolving into a verb to mean sleeping together, and like sleeping together, it would be an evolution into a new way to say sex-the-verb.

“Nice,” has an interesting evolution, if this is to be believed.
”nice (adj): This word evolved from meaning stupid, ignorant or foolish to describing something refined, pleasant or agreeable.”

Here's Jane Austen expounding on "nice" in Northanger Abbey. Henry Tilney is expounding to his beloved Catherine Morland, to the horror of his sister. Austen seem s to suggest that "nice" meant fastidious or proper in 1800.

“Not very good, I am afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?”

“The nicest — by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding.”

“Henry,” said Miss Tilney, “you are very impertinent. Miss Morland, he is treating you exactly as he does his sister. He is forever finding fault with me, for some incorrectness of language, and now he is taking the same liberty with you. The word ‘nicest,’ as you used it, did not suit him; and you had better change it as soon as you can, or we shall be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way.”

“I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?”

“Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything. Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement — people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.”

“While, in fact,” cried his sister, “it ought only to be applied to you, without any commendation at all. You are more nice than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate over our faults in the utmost propriety of diction, while we praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like best. It is a most interesting work. You are fond of that kind of reading?”

Although I agree with Mr. Tilney that "nice" has morphed from a word with a specific meaning to one with a meaning so general that it is almost meaningless, I don't think "gender" has undergone a similar change. It remains a word with a specific (or two specific) meaning. Same with "sex". Of course we have always sought euphemisms for "fuck". Sex isn't such a bad one.

As a bonus, since we are talking about gender politics, here's Austen's narrator expounding on that theme a couple of paragraphs after the conversation quoted above:

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.

[Walker]

The cross-over of "Nice" must have happened before Austin, if it ever happened at all.

Since the thread already took a turn away from the thread title:

I remember devoting a long term paper to Pride and Prejudice while in school, and now I scarcely remember much of it now although memories do serve to answer a few Jeopardy questions when playing along at home. The term paper was a project I enjoyed as opposed to doing it for credit.

I remember it was a wonderful novel with themes of propriety, attraction, practicality, primogeniture and entail, the new business class of new money, family relationships and aspirations and of course, the pride of keeping up appearances and the prejudice of the old ways pitted against the new, and conceptions pitted against reality. Who could forget Darcy and Elizabeth and their shadow characters, although I do forget their names. I was quite taken with it at the time.

It was from a time when relationships were entertainment and conversation was performance art. Couples would take a turn about the drawing room for a conversation, and conversation was an art form, which is really a pillar of life when considering that we exist only in relationship (duality), although we also exist in relationship with places, things and thoughts. The ancient art of entertainment through conversation is dying out due to relationships with electronics and television where conversation is consumed as a witness rather than engaged as a practitioner. The ostensible cover and justification for the atrophied art of conversation is the notion of listeners being the best conversationalists, a rumour likely started by a poor conversationalist with a vocabulary that relies on a few multi-purpose words such as, SEX, and its more popular and ubiquitous synonym.

[Alexiev]

The cross-over of "Nice" must have happened before Austin, if it ever happened at all.

Since the thread already took a turn away from the thread title:

I remember devoting a long term paper to Pride and Prejudice while in school, and now I scarcely remember much of it now although memories do serve to answer a few Jeopardy questions when playing along at home. The term paper was a project I enjoyed as opposed to doing it for credit.

I remember it was a wonderful novel with themes of propriety, attraction, practicality, primogeniture and entail, the new business class of new money, family relationships and aspirations and of course, the pride of keeping up appearances and the prejudice of the old ways pitted against the new, and conceptions pitted against reality. Who could forget Darcy and Elizabeth and their shadow characters, although I do forget their names. I was quite taken with it at the time.

It was from a time when relationships were entertainment and conversation was performance art. Couples would take a turn about the drawing room for a conversation, and conversation was an art form, which is really a pillar of life when considering that we exist only in relationship (duality), although we also exist in relationship with places, things and thoughts. The ancient art of entertainment through conversation is dying out due to relationships with electronics and television where conversation is consumed as a witness rather than engaged as a practitioner. The ostensible cover and justification for the atrophied art of conversation is the notion of listeners being the best conversationalists, a rumour likely started by a poor conversationalist with a vocabulary that relies on a few multi-purpose words such as, SEX, and its more popular and ubiquitous synonym.

I'm a big Austen fan. But I don't think "there are perfectly good words" for the modern use of "gender". Instead, it seems some people object to any word that means "a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions on the basis of the individual's gender presentation." You may object to someone "self-representing" as male or female when that is not their biological sex, but you can't pretend it doesn't happen. And if it does happen, isn't it reasonable to have a word describing it? After all, in romance languages that gender many nouns, the "masculinity" or "femininity" of the word has no biological basis; it's culturally constituted. So why can't the word describe unusual self-presentation? (I don't speak French, but according to David Sedaris the French word for "penis" is feminine, which may or may not have anything to do with someone born male using feminine pronouns.)

A great many words morph (like "nice") into vague generalities freighted with emotionally laden connotations. Perhaps "gender" suggests an acceptance of transsexuality to which you object. But the specific meaning of the word that the Yale medical school provided seems like a something we need some word to describe.

By the way, Austen was a Church of England Parson's daughter, and whetted her ironic humor on a general acceptance of English and Christian mores. Her fictional parsons run the gamut from the clownish Mr. Collins, to the witty and worldly Henry Tilney, to the kind but judgmental Edmund Bertram. Nonetheless, she is not a prude. If you've read Pride and Prejudice you perhaps recall that when Elizabeth's sister Lydia runs off with Whickam (unmarried, yet!), Austen and Elizabeth see the sin as one against family solidarity, hurting as it does the prospects of the other sisters, and embarrassing the parents. They are less shocked by the mere fornication. Unfortunately, Jane's sister Cassandra destroyed her more prurient letters, so we can't read them. If they were anything like those letters that we have seen, they were probably very funny.

[Impenitent]

And don't you ever go to bed old man?

Full circle ...

Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily
Merrily merrily
Life is but a dream.

that's not how it goes...

Row, row, row your boat
If it sinks you swim
Then you get eaten
By alligators
You never swim again

-Imp

[Age]

The word, "gender."

Now that you've been educated as to the proper use of the word, you can go forth and be clear of fewer confused messes.

Will you show where and when, exactly, there are some, so-claimed, 'confused messes' here?

If no, then why not?

You're making a confused mess out of refusing to expound upon your reply of, "Neither."

Your confusion even caused you to confess that you didn't remember what you were thinking, and you were asking me what you were thinking.

Ask yourself why you must make your confused mess all by yourself.

Here is a/nother prime example of when one assumes some thing and how a False and Wrong assumption can lead them completely astray.

[Age]

Interesting. Consciousness requires form. Form and consciousness co-arise as life. A conscious form is conscious that it is a form.

Consciousness without form cannot be.

Therefore, any continuance of consciousness after death of the body, requires a form … whether or not that form can be detectable by the limitations of known physicality.

The nature of that required form is another matter. The point is that evidence indicates consciousness does indeed require form, therefore any existence as consciousness after death as we know it, also requires a form..

Consciousness exists HERE, ONLY.

Once a body stops breathing and stops pumping blood, then there is no physical so-called 'living' activity where 'consciousness' could be, in 'that body', only. But, obviously, 'consciousness' is, still, existing, HERE, in 'other bodies'.

[Walker]

that's not how it goes...

Row, row, row your boat
If it sinks you swim
Then you get eaten
By alligators
You never swim again

-Imp

The Way We Were

[Fairy]

Interesting. Consciousness requires form. Form and consciousness co-arise as life. A conscious form is conscious that it is a form.

This is a tricky one.
Is formlessness conscious? or is form conscious?

Consciousness without form cannot be.

This is very tricky.
Is formlessness conscious? or is form conscious?

Therefore, any continuance of consciousness after death of the body, requires a form … whether or not that form can be detectable by the limitations of known physicality.

This is very very tricky.
Only aliveness is known, never death. Do not speak of what you can never know, only speak of what you can know.

The nature of that required form is another matter. The point is that evidence indicates consciousness does indeed require form, therefore any existence as consciousness after death as we know it, also requires a form..

[Walker]

Only aliveness is known, never death. Do not speak of what you can never know, only speak of what you can know.

To be free from the known and attendant inferences that create the known is to know your true self, and to be free of the known means to be free from attachment to the known.

[Walker]

In the words of Jesus in The Holy Bible:

John 3:3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

What is the kingdom of God? The unknown. What does it mean to be born again? To be born again is to leave behind the known.

[Age]

In the words of Jesus in The Holy Bible:

John 3:3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

What is the kingdom of God? The unknown.

The kingdom of God is certainly NOT unknown.

'That kingdom' is just living in peace and harmony with every one, as One.

What does it mean to be born again?

To come-to-realize, to come-to-learn, or to come-to-know how to find ALL of the Truly meaningful answers in Life, and that ALL of those answer were, known, within 'you' all of the time, they were just, previously, 'unconsciously known', whereas they are, 'now', 'consciously known'.

To be born again is to leave behind the known.

No,

But, it could be said to leave behind what was Falsely or Wrongly assumed or believed to be known.

[Age]

Only aliveness is known, never death. Do not speak of what you can never know, only speak of what you can know.

To be free from the known and attendant inferences that create the known is to know your true self, and to be free of the known means to be free from attachment to the known.

It is not 'your' true self, as this is an oxymoron and contradiction of terms.

It is 'the' 'True Self', of which is there is only One, and to be CLEAR, One, only.

And, of which all of you human being 'selves' are just 'a part of', only.

[Walker]

To be born again is to leave behind the known.

No,

But, it could be said to leave behind what was Falsely or Wrongly assumed or believed to be known.

Leaving behind does not mean disregarding, or exclusion. One still chops wood and hauls water.

In order to know what was falsely or wrongly assumed, one would need to be attached to a new FSK, or discover new evidence that negates the assumptions of the old FSK.

For example: remember when you were in high school and had a crush on a girl, Age? The feelings of your crush were real then and now are memories of what was real, but now that girl has been left behind in the sense that you are no longer attached to her via the crush, but she still exists and need not be excluded or disregarded, and the feelings were not wrong or false. You were just attached by crush.

To say and know EXACTLY how it is, does not automatically confer a need to change EXACTLY how it is. The need to change the known could likely be in the DNA and the cause of perpetual feelings of discontent which vary in intensity and result in progress. This supported by evidence that reveals:

Rich or poor, if folks don’t have any problems, they’re going to find some, maybe even cause some, and that is the known way of human progress towards peace, which sounds rather irrational.