tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.comments2023-02-10T14:51:43.108-05:00There are More Things in Heaven and EarthBilliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05444391902853133843noreply@blogger.comBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-84418441656732307112023-02-10T14:51:43.108-05:002023-02-10T14:51:43.108-05:00betmatik
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I..."That was easy"....my favorite line. I've heard Gen. 5:2, "Male and female created he them", cited by others (in thundering tones) in the "conversation". Of course there's always Quentin Crisp's famous retort, "male and female made he me". Cheers!Joao1923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-76978634204175988982015-06-05T08:41:34.795-04:002015-06-05T08:41:34.795-04:00Hey man! OK so I'm not quite sure what you mea...Hey man! OK so I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say that I "continue to assume LGBT sexual practice is a totally separate issue from gay marriage". I certainly agree that sex and marriage are intimately related, though I would point out that one can have sex without being married. So can you unpack that a little bit for me?<br /><br /><br />When you say that "If LBGT sexuality is unbiblical no amount of reasoning can make LGBT marriage biblical, I first want to point out that there is an important distinction to be made here between the LGB and the T. Focusing then on the LGB (since that is where Keller focuses) I want to point out that, as you said, sex and marriage are intimately related and that one part of that intimate relationship is ethical. Marriage has an impact on the ethics of sex, so when one reads the Bible forbidding a given sexual expression it is entirely legitimate to ask whether that expression is being forbidden within or without the context of marriage. Of course the answer may turn out to be "both" but to assume that answer without looking at the evidence would be unwarranted.<br /><br /><br />I tend to agree that some Greeks were aware of committed LGB relationships though I think the sacred band of Thebes is probably a better example than Sparta. My point was that Keller's claims are historically bad. There may be a better argument to be made but Keller has not made them in his review. First, Keller's response was a defense of the proposition (contra Vines) that sexual orientation was an extant concept in the Roman world, not that committed, monogamous LGB relationships existed or that people in classical Greece were aware of them. <br /><br /><br />As far as Suetonius and Hadrian are concerned, you are up against the problems of anachronism again, (at lest if your Suetonius reference is about Nero, if not please direct me to the passage you are referencing). Both of Nero's "wedding ceremonies" with Pythagoras and Sporus occurred after Paul wrote the letter to the Romans (by most conservative Biblical scholar's estimates) while Hadrian wasn't even born when most of the new testament was being written. I would certainly agree that Paul knew what he was talking about in Romans 1 but I am not at all convinced that it was "gay sex in the context of a gay marriage."Billhttp://www.heavenandearthquestions.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-52313549451744707402015-06-04T17:48:24.380-04:002015-06-04T17:48:24.380-04:00The problem, Bill, is that you continue to assume ...The problem, Bill, is that you continue to assume LGBT sexual practice is a totally separate issue from gay marriage. Sex and marriage are intimately related, after all, Jesus tells us marriage will cease to exist in eternity because reproduction will cease. If LGBT sexuality is unbiblical no amount of reasoning can make LGBT marriage biblical. As to the Greeks being aware of committed LGBT relationships, how could they not be? Sparta was based on committed male relationships parallel to marriage, which was necessary for the continuation of the state. Rome was also aware of LGBT sexual practice, just read Seutonius. Don't forget that the emperor Hadrian was in a committed relationship with another man. Paul knew what he was talking about in Romans 1.James Almondnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-23599358932583826702015-06-04T14:23:32.430-04:002015-06-04T14:23:32.430-04:00I'm working on it but so far it has been diffi...I'm working on it but so far it has been difficult to get anybody to actually articulate even a constructed argument based on perceived implications from Genesis and places where the gospels quote Genesis. I have been pointed towards a few sources though and the research continues...Billhttp://www.heavenandearthquestions.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-43566887065656145772015-06-03T17:41:18.135-04:002015-06-03T17:41:18.135-04:00Ha! That was surprising. I was just settling in fo...Ha! That was surprising. I was just settling in for a scriptural analysis, and wham. Of course, I think you're correct here, and like the way you made your point. However, the brevity of this post means you'll have less leniency if you take too long putting up part 4. ;)Aaronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-73086011193548490182015-04-01T22:05:34.631-04:002015-04-01T22:05:34.631-04:00Yes, I do see that we are getting to the same conc...Yes, I do see that we are getting to the same conclusion by different means. My participation in this conversation was to answer your question as to whether or not I agree with all the propositions. I know you like participation! And I know you treat everyone with dignity! That statement of our belief was spurned on by my disbelief that others could even get to the point of asking rude questions, which would be necessary for refuting someone on their own gender claims. If you ask me, THEY'RE the weirdos. :PNicholehttp://nicholelnelson.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-58333929199980178322015-03-30T11:24:20.897-04:002015-03-30T11:24:20.897-04:00As a follow up, I should probably make it really c...As a follow up, I should probably make it really clear that I don't think anyone should be restricted from participation in Church, the family, or secular society (or anything else off the top of my head) on account of their sex or their gender. And I think we have managed to do a great deal of damage by seeing people as overly simplistic steriotypes of what I might refer to as the cosmic feminine or cosmic masculine. I suspect that peoples participation in those two archetypes could be situated along a spectrum (which would probably also work out to a bell curve since it seems like everything does) with people participating in greater or lesser degrees of femininity and masculinity, both of which are of equal value.Billhttp://www.heavenandearthquestions.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-24833051542351179622015-03-30T11:18:37.151-04:002015-03-30T11:18:37.151-04:00Gotcha. I don't think I have a conclusive logi...Gotcha. I don't think I have a conclusive logical "proof" to offer with regard to the genderedness of the soul. It is a description that fits my experience of myself (I experience myself both as masculine and as male) and seems to reflect the accounts that many people (both cis- and trans- gender) give of themselves. Certainly others may not experience themselves in that way, and that doesn't bug me :) My point in this post is that the claim is meaningful in that it does not contradict any extant Christian theological or scientific claims and is supported by individual accounts. It would be fun to put together a full post laying out my belief and position with regard to gender as a cosmic quality (I think human bodies are only a tiny portion of the many things which participate in gender in a number of different and interesting ways). <br /> I suspect that we get to functionally identical conclusions along different paths here and I agree that "It's time we start treating people with a little more dignity by thinking of them as actual people". My project is to demonstrate that there is nothing inherent to even conservative Christian theology which should prevent someone from behaving towards others in a way that we might both characterize as befitting their dignity as human persons. I further, very much, agree with you that it is extremely rude (and unwarranted) to question another person's account of their own gender. Yet that is specifically what many in the conservative church - Denny Burke springs to mind - are recommending. Hence this post.Billhttp://www.heavenandearthquestions.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-81883009634047113032015-03-28T13:07:13.314-04:002015-03-28T13:07:13.314-04:00I don't see thought that non-gendered objects ...I don't see thought that non-gendered objects reflect our idea of gender as proof of those objects having a gender. Something in that reasoning doesn't seem sound. For the record, I disagree with certain traits being labeled as feminine or masculine. I think we have moved beyond that to understand things like mercy, compassion, etc. are what they are. Perhaps we'd like to say they're "soft" or "feminine" but that doesn't mean if you have a lot of it, you're literally soft or literally a female, so describing it that way is doing more harm than good. <br />How can a soul have gender? Why would it have gender? And how would we know if it does? <br />I'm not objecting anyone's claims on the basis that they are violating something fundamental about themselves. I never reject anyone's claims of gender. How would I do that? Even asking them to list the reasons is extremely rude, let alone with the motivation to argue with them. Why would I do that? How is that any of my business unless I plan on procreating with them? It seems odd that I would want to talk about anyone's privates and whatnot. Not that I'm looking down on this conversation, because it is a topic of discussion in our society, but personally, would anyone ever confront someone on this? It's time we start treating people with a little more dignity by thinking of them as actual people.Nicholehttp://nicholelnelson.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-79902896143882620182015-03-28T12:13:40.963-04:002015-03-28T12:13:40.963-04:00Hmmm.. I think I would want to ask first about the...Hmmm.. I think I would want to ask first about the suggestion that qualities or words in gendered languages are "just rudimentarily constructed dialogues to frame a point of reference". I would actually suggest that the massive (though not total) overlap in the genders of non physically sexed objects (mountains, oceans, sky, earth, sun, and moon) between cultures would suggest (and I am working from both Kreeft and C.S. Lewis here) that our assessments of men and women as male and female, reflect a cosmic genderedness more fundamental than physical sex. Basically biological sex is only one of many things which reflect the more cosmic reality of gender.<br /> I am interested to know how a Christian would go about objecting to the claims of a transgender person without the attendant claim that the person was violating something fundamental about themselves (their gender). Thoughts?Billhttp://www.heavenandearthquestions.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-851644921970426752015-03-28T09:48:38.388-04:002015-03-28T09:48:38.388-04:00I never grew up with the belief that the soul is g...I never grew up with the belief that the soul is gendered, even as a conservative evangelical. Why would the soul have gender? God doesn't have gender! I grew up with the belief that, yes, certain human qualities (compassion and mercy versus just) are feminine or masculine, much the same way certain Spanish or French words are feminine or masculine, but aren't these just rudimentarily constructed dialogues to frame a point of reference? So far, I'm rejecting the notion that the soul has gender. Gender (sex) certainly has an influence on how we frame ourselves and relate to the world, and maybe more than the color of our skin, etc. but saying the soul has gender is like saying the soul has color. We can say it has color figuratively, but the very definition of soul means that it cannot have color.Nicholehttp://nicholelnelson.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-47053930324827884062015-03-21T16:35:24.718-04:002015-03-21T16:35:24.718-04:00"Thus, all else being equal, a well informed,..."Thus, all else being equal, a well informed, passionate teacher will always be a more effective educator than one who is more interested in teaching in general than in teaching the specific content." I love it. I have been saying this for years, since my oldest started school. Teaching anything - the enthusiasm of the teacher is key! Even how to drive a car.Cherylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11043869833008681929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-81435377847262761222015-03-21T15:17:33.652-04:002015-03-21T15:17:33.652-04:00You do make me think. Thank you. You do make me think. Thank you. Cherylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11043869833008681929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-52786992614281215132015-03-21T15:13:09.314-04:002015-03-21T15:13:09.314-04:00I just found your blog and have decided to start a...I just found your blog and have decided to start at the beginning and read it through and through. It is a great privilege to continue to see you grow and mature. Thank you. I had no idea that you had a blog. And I found out recently that Ben writes. Our God is so good to let me continue a relationship with the 'kids' from Ankara.Cherylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11043869833008681929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-89362406432390345752015-03-21T15:10:10.646-04:002015-03-21T15:10:10.646-04:00I remember the day I felt worthy/valued. It was i...I remember the day I felt worthy/valued. It was in Turkey on Balibalba Sokak when the words of Isaiah 43:4 and I read the words "you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you," I don't believe I had ever felt precious or honored before that moment. But God spoke to my heart and mind that day.<br />It is so true that we MUST find something good in everyone - and we totally miss the reality that that goodness is they are God's creation. Surely it is something to do or are. It is so simple that we miss it.Cherylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11043869833008681929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-43092935517741933262015-03-21T14:52:07.236-04:002015-03-21T14:52:07.236-04:00
well said Cathryn!<br />well said Cathryn!Cherylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11043869833008681929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-50862082895437302862015-03-19T20:38:13.124-04:002015-03-19T20:38:13.124-04:00That's a fair question, Bill. I'm not sur...That's a fair question, Bill. I'm not sure how I would test a person's gender claims. My lazy reply is that I would likely revert to the belief/assumption that a person who claimed a gender that did not correspond to their clearly expressed sex is simply incorrect. Again, I'm cheating philosophically, as that is a circular argument, but then, it's a well-known impossibility to prove a negative. I can no more disprove the claims of someone who believes their gender does not correspond to their sex than I can disprove that many people believe that their loved ones are reincarnated as cows and trapped in a wheel of time or that the world was made by a flying spaghetti monster. But I don't have a problem calling those positions wrong, either. And I still rather think that as a practical matter the onus is on the one making the claim. I will admit that in a small percentage of cases there is legitimate difficulty in determining sex via the "biological" method. But I reiterate that this is a small percentage. IMO it's a bit of a red herring re: our larger conversation. If we were discussing gender questions exclusive to intersex persons I think this would be more relevant, but as it stands I think--and you basically admitted--that the intersex transgender population is more or less and outlier. I will think more about your concluding question (testing the claim of a person who claimed a gender opposite their biological sense) but I fear I will probably not come up with an answer. Thanks for your interaction, and I hope you don't find me to be too much of a knuckle-dragger ;) daniel vancehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14918228884813020934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-19628330611678940222015-03-12T11:28:33.140-04:002015-03-12T11:28:33.140-04:00Hey Dan, thanks. I think those are legitimate ques... Hey Dan, thanks. I think those are legitimate questions and unarguably common positions and I appreciate your willingness to articulate them. I don't think you are trying to be offensive at all. <br />I am willing to grant that most of the time we do use biological morphology to determine a person's sex and I can grant that the fact that most of our culture takes the approach for granted, grants a sort of defaco burden of proof to anyone who wants to argue the claim. <br /> I do want to throw a quick caveat into your historical claim. There certainly have been cultures (Native American and Indian particularly) which have actually defaulted to a person's own account of themselves in determining gender, rather than seeing the person's biological morphology as determinative. However, it has not been the "western" tradition.<br /> As to why biology is problematic in determining gender, the problem comes down to slippery particularities. Morphologically, male bodies are just female bodies which have developed along different lines. This matters because some bodies move farther along those lines than others and some are incredibly close to the center. Furthermore, there are multiple "lines" involved in the movement and people progress farther along some of them than others.Hair growth, muscle development primary and secondary sex organ development, hormone levels, brain chemistry, and brain morphology all come to mind here.<br /> The result is that there is no clear line to be drawn between male and female bodies.<br /> I will be talking in a later post about your observation that people can be mistaken about themselves. My short reply is to agree that obviously they can be mistaken about themselves but that we can only be sure that they are mistaken when their claim contradicts something we are able to observe. As I have mentioned above, transgender people are not claiming that their bodies are different from what you would say their bodies are. Rather they are saying that their bodies are problematically contradictory to their genders. The person who claims to Napoleon is making a claim which we can test. How would you propose to test the claim of a person who claims to have a gender which is different from the assumed sex (they are generally using that gestalt morphological definition) of their body?Billiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05444391902853133843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-70981515296967346512015-03-08T16:22:44.059-04:002015-03-08T16:22:44.059-04:00Thanks for the tip about the preferred terminology...Thanks for the tip about the preferred terminology; it is definitely not my intent to be churlish. <br />Having said that, and in the vein of "simple mis-communication" I am a little confused that you would argue we shouldn't use biology to determine sex. It seems to me that sex is primarily a biological designation. I do get that gender is different than sex, and this is the larger question here. And while I'm not pushing hard for sex to be the determining factor in gender, it still seems the most obvious method to me. And I rather think the vast majority of people would agree with me--history certainly suggests this. So while you may be right that in a philosophy classroom the onus would be on me to defend my assumption, the practical truth is rather the opposite. If you (or anyone) propose that sex is not determinative of gender, what alternative do you offer and why? Perhaps I am simply a psychological Luddite, but an argument of self-determination simply does not persuade me. People are wrong about things--including their own natures--all the time. How many people have Peter Pan complexes? Or Messiah complexes? Or Megalomania, etc. etc. etc. I get that it's offensive to compare a transgender person to a mental patient, and I reiterate that it is not my intent to offend. But if the argument for trans peoples' gender determination(s) reduces, primarily, to "this is how I feel about myself," then my rebuttal is fair: a lot of people feel a lot of things about themselves, and some of them are demonstrably wrong. <br />I'm really not a troll: I fully appreciate that these are people we're discussing, and not positions. I absolutely affirm that God loves them, Christians ought to love them, and society afford them equal rights. But if we're after a greater truth in this conversation, or if you're hoping to change minds, I would have to say that at this point mine remains pretty firmly unconvinced.daniel vancehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14918228884813020934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-6079737913392771212015-02-22T16:25:48.992-05:002015-02-22T16:25:48.992-05:00OK, I think that there may be some simple mis-comm... OK, I think that there may be some simple mis-communication happening here. "Intersex" is the currently preferred term for people who used to be called "hermaphrodite". I am not claiming (and would not claim) that even a significant portion of transgender people are intersexed. <br /> As far as the use of biology to determine sex, things turn out to be fairly problematic even there, you are talking more about a sort of gestalt outcome of morphology, hormone levels and chromosomal makeup than about (as you have observed) a binary situation with distinct boundary markers. I will address in my following series, the question of the relationship between sex and gender (honestly I have been somewhat shocked at how reluctant people are to make the distinction). But as a short answer, it strikes me that the assumption that biology must determine gender is just that, an assumption. And while it is not exactly arbitrary (it is common enough in our society that I would categorize it as an unreflective assumption), it does need to be defended if you are interested in telling someone that they are wrong with regard to their own gender. In effect, if someone tells you "yes, my body is currently female, but I have a strong sense of myself as male" then the burden of proof is on you to defend the idea that that that person's sense of self is less determinative of their gender than their current physiological state.Billiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05444391902853133843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-74630967088819801702015-02-21T17:57:54.963-05:002015-02-21T17:57:54.963-05:00Bill, I am not going to interact with the entirety...Bill, I am not going to interact with the entirety of this entry, except to say that it is generally well-written and thoughtful. That said, I think that biological sex presents the best--or at the very least, easiest and most common-sense-- way to identify gender. I further think it presents a difficulty for some of your claims above. Your argument about the existence of trans people invalidating this method because they repudiate some Platonic ideal test of sorting people into two genders seems to me to be the definition of a faulty dilemma. Why must the putative test only result in two genders? Isn't it possible (and biologically accurate) to have determinations of XX, XY, and XXY? The reason I mention it is because a large amount of trans people are not, in fact, hermaphroditic (I'm sorry if that term is offensive--this is not a conversation where the language niceties are well-known to me--I use it only for precision). If Flores, or any person, were to argue that biological sex is the determining factor in gender it seems to me that it would present an argument that effectively repudiated the gender claims of many trans people; namely, those who are not biologically XXY. But I certainly could be missing something! Submitted with the charitable, philosophical intent I hope with which I hope it will be received.<br />PS Sorry for the deleted entries; I was having trouble editing. That, and my five kids kept distracting me!daniel vancehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14918228884813020934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5805290335961306135.post-15564214623510900322015-02-21T17:54:44.351-05:002015-02-21T17:54:44.351-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.daniel vancehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14918228884813020934noreply@blogger.com