So basically the difference is that intersex individuals can be identified as such on the basis of physical evidence that can be independently verified by a clinical examination. Transgender individuals, on the other hand, are identified as such on the basis of psychological/behavioural factors and/or self-reporting. Would that be correct?
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Just wanted to note here that according to a church history class I took that was taught by a Jesuit priest the early church blessed homosexual bondings – not marriage, but a committed relationship nevertheless, in which they were to strive for chastity and fidelity. That didn’t last much past Theodosius’ Edict of Thessalonica that made Orthodox Christianity the official religion of the empire.
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When people already use theology to put God in a box, it is hardly surprising to see them also using it to people in boxes also.
Why do people try to make the Bible about biology and genetics when it clearly cannot be about any such thing?
I have shied away from this topic of gender for some time but this comment from @ivar pushing biology onto the Bible and Christianity has decided me.
I do not believe our humanity is a matter of biology. That is just our bodies which are demonstrably not so different from the bodies of other animals. I believe our humanity is found in the human mind born from an inheritance of ideas we have from God. In the mind we have whole other form of life founded on language with information and representational capabilities which surpasses that of DNA.
I think this strange projection of biology onto the Bible also ties to anti-science creationism, because this premise that we are just bodies leads to the conviction these bodies must come from God. And so they transform God, the shepherd, of the Bible into the watchmaker God of Deism in order to make Him the designer.
I find it remarkable just how far they can twist reality in order to make it fit their fantasies. They make sin into a god rivaling the creator able to transform the entire universe into something completely different. They don’t have to see or listen to any of the overwhelming data God sends to us from the earth, from the sky, and even from within ourselves, by making all of this a product of this second creator deity of theirs. But for me, sin is nothing more than a collection of self-destructive habits. To be sure its effect on humanity is devastating, but these magical demonic powers given to sin are just over top absurd.
So… back to gender. I have come to the realization that my conviction that our humanity is found in the mind rather than the body does have considerable bearing on this topic of gender. And I will certainly not buy into this bizarre projection of biology onto the Bible regarding this issue any more than I do for other theological/philosophical topics.
On a somewhat related tangent, Wendy Widder made a compelling case for a double fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy with Antiochus IV Epiphanes
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In his book, The rise and triumph of the modern self, Carl Trueman makes a clear connection between acceptance of evolutionary theory and a progressive worldview. Evolutionary theory has burnt down that there are fixed categories in biology. Nowadays, this fluency is imbedded in the minds of most people in Europe and this process is going on in the US to, seemingly.
Ah okay, I am new to this forum. So thank you for the heads-up! Perhaps it could be added to the guidelines?
I totally understand that. I will only answer the direct question of @SkovandOfMitaze and @jammycakes (just so polite). But I won’t reply to the other comments regarding sexuality then.
I think the teleological definition I gave earlier includes everyone. But let’s rephrase it:
A male is someone who is able to become a father. Including everyone who is able to become a father after their issues (e.g. infertility or DSD) would have been healed if Jesus would still be walking around.
A female is someone who is able to become a mother. (Idem.)
I suppose this is compatible with your definition.
Yes! Although it is possible of course for an intersex person to experience transgender feelings. Just as an intersex person can experience anorexia. So they are separate issues, but not mutually exclusive.
Yes! That’s why humans are created last. If I remember correctly, the image of the god or goddess was always the last thing to be placed inside the temple after its construction.
And it shows that both men and women constitute the priesthood. I wonder though why Israelite priests were only male. You could argue that God accommodated worship to their culture. But there were female priests in Egypt.
Perhaps women’s monthly impurity made it impossible to serve at the altar. Which would not necessarily be sexist. Certain men were also exempt from service (Leviticus 21:18-20).
Or it has something to do with preventing people to think that Yahweh had a consort. Just like why there was no Israelite queen, as I mentioned in my comment here:
What can be said about these supposedly ancient Israelite drawings of YHWH and His “wife”
I looked it up, interessesting! I will probably buy her commentary on Daniel someday. But if I may ask, how do you relate this to this thread?
The main issue I am seeing is this cycle argument of social constructs = something biological or using the supernatural in it. Forget societal creations for a few moments. Don’t use the supernatural. Jesus could have given a trans man the ability to get a trans woman pregnant if he wanted too. God could turn a rock into a woman and she meets a man and so on. It’s a pointless aspect to this discussion.
I’m asking simply what is your purely scientific explanation of what a human male is?
It can’t be that they are masculine since they can be feminine and woman can be masculine. It can’t be that they are able to be biological fathers because some men are infertile. It can’t be that they have a specific reproductive system because some men are intersex. It can’t be that they have XY chromosomes because they can have other set ups and so can women. So if physically and genetically there is a spectrum , it’s probably safe to presume there can be a spectrum for any biological bases involved in gender. If there is a spectrum biologically involved in what’s a man and what’s a woman, we could expect to see that spectrum showcased in how individuals act and express themselves which we do see .
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Entirely burnt down? Or just alerted us to more fluid border conditions than we were previously aware?
If blurring hard-and-fast categories is the issue, then evolution is hardly alone among the sciences in that. Physical sciences too, alert us to the problems of imagining that all our historical categorizations must be hard and fast. The definition of a planet has been a subject of some productive fluidity. And even the distinctions between planet, gas giant, brown dwarf, red dwarf, ‘full-on’ star in the traditionally understood sense has proven to be more of a continuum than we popularly imagined a century ago.
But despite all that we still retain those categorizations as useful vocabulary and distinction. Even among professional astronomers I imagine - though they will be more aware of these fluidities and nuances than most.
Making and insisting on hard-and-fast categories and boundaries between them is a very human thing to do. And feeling threatened when any such structure is challenged (at its borders) in any way is also very human. We seem to like to find our security in impermeable borders, but we forget that … those may be more human-sourced than divinely ordained. Our desire for borders means that we create them. Lots of them. And scriptures seem to be a relentless record of God bulldozing right through some of the borders we hold dearest.
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Hi @jbabraham88,
I would want definitions/explanations for these terms and claims.
What is meant by:
- Darwinism
- responsible
- "gender ideology”
- schools
- teaching
- transgenderism
- kids transitioning
- “they are coming after your kids” (Who are “they” and what is “coming after”?)
- defeating” gender ideology
What do you mean by this statement:
- I believe in the biblical language of two genders and evolution.
Gender and queer studies, anthropology, sociology, psychology and constitutional law are not just pulled out of a hat, which the invocation of “postmodern ideology” below implicates. None of these areas of study, will support the current 19th century gender concepts held by the white western church today.
Understanding precisely what Jay Richards means, and what is supportable and how from what he means, is a start. But not the end. The more you learn about gender matters and the issues related to them, the more complicated this will get for you, particularly if you value science and a traditional (to us) Christian understanding of the matter.
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A pig sacrifice is not in itself the epitome of unholiness… I also forget how post-mills see this fulfilled in 70AD
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Not even close!
So somebody unable to have children for whatever reason cannot be male or female?!?! really?!?
And do you know that some think medical science is close to making it possible for transgender females to bear children?
…so… anybody not fitting into one of your theo-biology boxes is a disorder and a product of evil (sin or the devil)… have I got that right? Only those able to be fathers and mothers are actually created by God… is that what you are saying?
Just because someone believes something contrary doesn’t alter the beliefs of the mainstream religion. Why should religious variation of millennia ago prove anything – any more than the religious variations of today prove anything?
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All three of these certainly played a part. But another reason – at least as some rabbis argued – was that Adam was priest to Eve, so men are priests. This is sometimes added to by the idea that woman was drawn forth from man and so man represents both whereas woman does not.
It’s part of the human urge to label things; labeling allows the belief that we understand what we have labeled. But labels aren’t much use without borders, so when our labels divide something into sub-categories we want the dividing lines to be solid and clear, and will treat them that way whether they actually are or not.
I recall reading one social psychologist who argued that there is a “conservative brain” and a “liberal brain”, where the first relies heavily on set definitions and is thus cautious about change whereas the second is somewhat eager to open new understanding and thus push boundaries both intellectually and societally. I’m dubious as to this being an actual biological distinction given how many people switch “sides” over time; I also find the distinction interesting because it engages in the very labeling it discusses.
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I’d say that the definition needs an addendum, that a man is one who has the equipment to be a father if that equipment worked properly, and the same idea for being a woman.
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Yes, that’s what I was trying to convey. 
Thank you for making it more clear!
I gets complicated. I think you can say that anyone with a Y chromosome is a genotypic male, and anyone without a Y chromosome is genotypic female, but their are XY people with androgen insensitivity syndrome who are phenotypically female, and may not even know of their syndrome until puberty and amenorrhea becomes an issue. They most often live life as normal but of course sterile females.
I think that sort of situation helps clarify the position that gender is a cultural designation.
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One of the views is that “the abomination of desolation” is Cestius Gallus’ attack on the Temple.
Josephus' account
“But now Cestius, observing that the disturbances that were begun among the Jews afforded him a proper opportunity to attack them, took his whole army along with him, and put the Jews to flight, and pursued them to Jerusalem. …
“But when Cestius was come into the city, he set the part called Bezetha, which is called Cenopolis, [or the new city,] on fire; as he did also to the timber market; after which he came into the upper city, and pitched his camp over against the royal palace; …
“Thus did the Romans make their attack against the wall for five days, but to no purpose. But on the next day Cestius took a great many of his choicest men, and with them the archers, and attempted to break into the temple at the northern quarter of it; but the Jews beat them off from the cloisters, and repulsed them several times when they were gotten near to the wall, till at length the multitude of the darts cut them off, and made them retire; but the first rank of the Romans rested their shields upon the wall, and so did those that were behind them, and the like did those that were still more backward, and guarded themselves with what they call Testudo, [the back of] a tortoise, upon which the darts that were thrown fell, and slided off without doing them any harm; so the soldiers undermined the wall, without being themselves hurt, and got all things ready for setting fire to the gate of the temple. …
“had he but continued the siege a little longer, had certainly taken the city; but it was, I suppose, owing to the aversion God had already at the city and the sanctuary, that he was hindered from putting an end to the war that very day.”
(Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, 2.19.4-6)
And that his sudden retreat made it possible for the Christians to escape.
The Christian Flight to Pella: True or Tale? - The BAS Library
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I’m not sure that it does. It shows that biological sex is not always clear cut and that there are cases where the distinction between male and female breaks down. But these cases can still be identified as such on the basis of independently verifiable physical evidence. That’s not the same as treating gender as a cultural designation, which is something much more subjective.
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Biologically, male is the sex that produces the microgamete and female the part that generates the macrogamete.
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Only if the equipment works properly.
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