Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

The media is owned and/or run by people with political interests, which will influence the news they report and how they report it, that is just a fact of life.

True enough.

You're right. I did give too hasty an agreement. My apologies.

But my suprise with your interpretation stems from this: I did not interpret you to be saying that's the way it should be, nor that it was inevitable -- which is the implication you wished to take from my agreement...and with that interpretation, I do not agree. It is not the way it should be, it is not inevitable, and it's not right. However, it is the way things seem to be operating now.

That's what I meant to concede. I was not conceding what you took me to be conceding.

...the media do not depend on "the appearance of objectivity and truthfulness"...

Of course they do.

They clearly don't...

Yeah, they do.

So you can have your Pravda news, I guess. I think the public has a right to expect a reasonable attempt at objective reporting from people whose whole occupation depends on them appearing to tell the truth.

[Dontaskme]

Are we following this IC ?

No, not really. It's not rational enough to "follow." Sorry.

Then follow the irrational narrative that is your invisible God, if that makes more sense to you, it's entirely your prerogative to believe in all things invisible like wind and gravity and oxygen and pain and emotion as being something that could possibly be the starting block of life on earth.

Remember, For the invisible to exist as a real literal thing known as a human being imaged as jesus, it would have needed a womb to drop out of...there must have been a first womb IC ?

I guess not. How would that be possible. And is why you will continue to espouse the need for a creator in your endless frustration at not knowing anything.

Admitting that life is irrational is the sane thing to do.

[Immanuel Can]

Are we following this IC ?

No, not really. It's not rational enough to "follow." Sorry.

...it would have needed a womb to drop out of...

I can see you have no conception of the doctrines of pre-existence or of the Incarnation. If you did, you wouldn't say something so obviously a non-sequitur. And you'd know what theological answers already exist to help you out.

Anyway, you've got some reading to do. And Christmas would be a great time for you to do it.

[Dontaskme]

I can see you have no conception of the doctrines of pre-existence or of the Incarnation.

Concepts are known by every knower IC
A knower implies there is something to be known. This KNOWN is all that is known in this conception that everything has been conceived by.
Concepts known know nothing of their reality.

If you did, you wouldn't say something so obviously a non-sequitur. And you'd know what theological answers already exist to help you out.

Anyway, you've got some reading to do. And Christmas would be a great time for you to do it.

Reality is Nondual IC...many authors appear but there is only one reader of the writing no one ever writ.

It does seem like I insert name is writing as one of the many authors that appear as words...but these words are read only by the same one reader. And the words are appearances in the one reader. We all see the same things. Even the word I is a word.

One seer.
One knower.
One reader.

Seeing is inseparable from the seen. No seen, no seer.
Knowing is inseparable from the known. No known, no knower.
Reading is inseparable from the words. No words, no reader.

Reality is Nondual IC... that you reject, just like people reject your God....Anyway, you've got some Nondual reading to do. And Christmas would be a great time for you to do it.

What a dilemma eh! You reject what I don't and I reject what you don't. And one day we will both die and never be any the wiser to that which we sought to understand. We'll both go pooof! and we'll soon be forgotten as though we never happened, but at least our names will survive, and will be written down somewhere, and will be remembered by name, like every other fairy tale character that was ever written.

We were no thing until no thing gave itself a name, and that's all you are, because the label says so.

[Immanuel Can]

Reality is Nondual IC...

Nope.

And you don't even believe it is. It's evident from how you talk.

[Dontaskme]

Reality is Nondual IC...

Nope.

Yep.

[Dontaskme]

And you don't even believe it is. It's evident from how you talk.

You can only talk about your own authored story, whether you believe it or not, is your prerogative.

[Immanuel Can]

And you don't even believe it is. It's evident from how you talk.

You can only talk about your own authored story...

I'm talking about what you say and do...nothing to do with me.

Notice above: you have two expressions "your own," and "you" which presuppose I'm distinct from you...not absorbed in some ultimately "nondual" reality. But the sentence is intended to convince me of a feature of nondualism. That doesn't work.

Meanwhile, you continue to talk to me as if I exist as distinct from you, and even try to argue with me, which is impossible if we take nondualism seriously.

You don't believe yourself, obviously. Why would anybody else believe you?

[Dontaskme]

And you don't even believe it is. It's evident from how you talk.

You can only talk about your own authored story...

I'm talking about what you say and do...nothing to do with me.

Notice above: you have two expressions "your own," and "you" which presuppose I'm distinct from you...not absorbed in some ultimately "nondual" reality. But the sentence is intended to convince me of a feature of nondualism. That doesn't work.

Meanwhile, you continue to talk to me as if I exist as distinct from you, and even try to argue with me, which is impossible if we take nondualism seriously.

You don't believe yourself, obviously. Why would anybody else believe you?

And that there is your story, that you have authored...not me.

Notice how both you and me are reading the exact same words on this forum, no matter who has written them, words that have been authored by many different authors, and yet the reader is the same one in all of us. These authored words are only appearances in the same one reader which is just another word for knower.

Can the knower/reader be known without making it a word, which it is, and therefore known conceptually and read by the same one reader.

Keep persevering with Tony Parsons, who knows if you put in the time to listen, the penny may drop eventually for you. However, you may not like what you hear. And you are always free to disbelieve anything you hear that does not ring true for you.

All we ever hear is our own voice echoing back to us anyway, so believe what you want, it's only your story built purely on what you've heard.

As I've said, many authors appear with many stories...all read / known or not known and understood or not understood by the same one reader.

Remember, who told you that you exist? ... you heard it somewhere didn't you, and you believed it. Without that self belief you are no one and no body. The sound of your name is what separated you from the nondual reality of oneness. You became you and every other you was not you. WAS is past tense, but you are only ever now.

All because you believed you were your name. Even though .....

[Immanuel Can]

And that there is your story, that you have authored...not me.

It's not a "story." And I didn't "author" it. You did.

Never mind. I'm going to go back to paying no attention.

[Dontaskme]

Never mind. I'm going to go back to paying no attention.

Why pay no attention when you can have no attention for free.

I’ll never charge you for what you already know.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Feeble indeed it is! I'm always intrigued when someone counters with "obviously false" which possibly it may be, but how would I know if the one who presumes such won't elaborate. Obviously true, ideas gratuitously accepted for purposes of personal worth or given some external lamination of ultimate meaning are usually the most indefensible and least open to a reasonable explanation.

As for gophers pushing dirt, such is the existential necessity of gopher life; we have a lot in common with gophers, only our piles are a lot bigger. As for any gopher dabbling in metaphysics, the future looks bright trusting there will still be one without any delimiting countdown of days all earthly life must endure.

Woe is me! I wish I could be that gopher (no wry comments please) if only logic and reality weren't such potent immunizers!

As it turns out, the offhand attempt at some humor seems to have provoked your concerted reaction and the metaphors (which were merely humorous) seem to be agreeable to you.

You said:

Only when truth negates itself as absolute does it render service among humans or likely anything else that developed through trial and error.

To which I responded:

Largely true but also notably false [affirmation/negation]. Pretty obviously false [affirmation of the negation] yet with notes of veracity [contradiction but in service to the negation] that pop up like gophers pushing dirt [a reference to 'worlding' and the condition of being stuck within categorical limitation].

I give, I negate. I negate, then I counter the negation. I thought I was doing right! Why must I be punished so mercilessly!

Dubious writes: As for gophers pushing dirt, such is the existential necessity of gopher life; we have a lot in common with gophers, only our piles are a lot bigger. As for any gopher dabbling in metaphysics, the future looks bright trusting there will still be one without any delimiting countdown of days all earthly life must endure.

Great! I seem to have made a point or introduced a metaphor that encapsulates what you get at.

Since I have been reading you, you have been stating and restating the same assertion. This is not a complaint since this is what we all do, isn't it? Make efforts to clarify our own positions in relation to the positions of others.

I wonder if you have ever read a Kafka story called the The Burrow? I would suggest that it is apropos to what I understand an aspect of your essential point to be, and also relevant to the larger meaning that we seem to be coming to when we examine these huge religious constructs which have failed us. Here it is.

Growing up on a sort-of post-hippy commune in the Santa Cruz hills I was actually in charge of gopher elimination in our large communal gardens . . .

Credit where credit is due, brother!

Can't tell you how many of these I've set:

What a hideously cruel looking contraption. So much for 'peace and love' hippies.

[Walker]

You must be joking.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You must be joking.

About what?

[Walker]

Your heart bleeds for gophers. You must be joking.