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I would love challenging questions about my faith if anyone is still here.
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So to simplify (correct me if I'm wrong), you claim there's a 'male principle/essence' and a 'female principle/essence' which are different aspects of divinity given to each person... and under these assumptions I can see why you'd infer a fundamental difference between each. And my understanding of theology is not even close to be sufficient to be able to engage with this on a, well, theological level.
Though I do have two questions:
First, you say "every rational creature is called into existence by one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity" (italics are mine). Yet so far you've only mentioned the son and the spirit. Logically that means there's a rational creature called into existence by the father; what would that be?
Second, I feel there's a contradiction between on one hand the idea of an essence, a fundamental quality which would necessarily apply to the soul, the very being of a person; and on the other hand the Y chromosome, which you call a "logical bifurcation", but which is purely physical and only a relatively small fraction of what makes a person a person. I'd say this mixes the spiritual and the physical levels in a way that is hard, if at all possible, to reconcile, which brings me to my next point, see below.
This is a little bit more tricky, but every individual either had at least 1 Y chromosome at the beginning of their life ( usually conception but it can be different for twins ) or they didn't. Its a logical bifurcation of sorts so to speak. So people with intersex bodies (as well as gender nonconforming people) would either be men called into existence by God the Son or women called into existence by God the Holy Spirit.
I'm coming from a biological background, and the sex of a person is so much more complex than merely the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. Splitting people into men and women is best understood as a societal model, a simplification which works well for most people in most situations. But as is often said in science, all models are wrong, though some are useful. The sex of a person is composed by different factors, including chromosomes, hormone levels, primary and secondary sexual characteristics, and while statistically speaking most of those traits will tend to be either all male or all female, within a given individuum they can vary independently from each other (and often not in a binary way). After all, humans are living organisms, and diversity, in all aspects, is perhaps the most important characteristic of organic life.
For more on this, I can recommend watching this youtube video (you can skip the intro, it's not relevant); it has a visually approachable presentation, and cites useful sources for further reading.
Point is, the reality of human biological sex is complex, as is gender (a social concept usually tied to yet independent of sex), and if you want your theological approach to be representative it needs to account for this reality.
That is almost correct; a different Divine Person would be doing the calling into existence like the intro of Idle Slayer.
1. Angels of course; angels don't have bodies and were called into existence at the beginning of time.
TO BE CONTINUED
There is no obvious contradiction; a non-proof and a contradiction aren't exactly the same thing.
Almost all models in science are oversimplifications and some are more useful than others.
TO BE CONTINUED
My approach is perhaps better explained in numbers than in words (I'm on the autism spectrum so I like numbers better anyhow):
Identity Samples:
.231332122... - Male
.122231332... - Angel
.311222322... - Female
TO BE CONTINUED
Would you call (XXY) a different sex than (XY)?
I call all the combos with a Y male (XXY,XY,etc.) and the others I call female (XX,XXX, etc.).
TO BE CONTINUED
Does this seem a little... schizophasic... to anyone else? Where are you getting those ternary sequences from, Soggy?
Anyways, Komissar, I think you're coming from a filthy... ideological... sociology-or-some perspective. Yuck. Ptew. Soft "sciences"
I feel you end up confusing sex with gender and sex with sexual characteristics. Sex controls sexual characterics, but sexual characteristics do not define sex. I haven't watched the Matt Walsh doc, but he seems less wrong than that video implies.
Biologically - maybe more zoologically - I've watched enough NatGeoWild to know - you can split organisms into about 4 categories:
Male - producing small gametes - sperm, pollen
Female - producing large gametes - ova
Hermaphrodite - producing both
Sexless - producing none (eg. amoeba)
Course, I'd put "sterile" into a defective male/female/hermaphrodite rather than the sexless one.
So the entirety of that which makes one male or female relates to the gonads. Ovaries for females, Testes for males, Ovotestes (or both ovaries and testes) for hermaphrodites, none for none.
This is great because you get sex with none of those dirty differing sexual characteristics getting in the way. Not even all mammals have XY chromosomes. The human Y chromosome is disappearing. Birds have ZZ(M)-ZW(for female) sex chromosomes. Fish change sex depending on how the water feels that day. Different animals have different hormonal systems. Male seahorses carry the pregnancy. Most birds lack external male genitalia (ducks don't). Anglerfish females are bigger than males.
The system works well and you can apply it to humans. Get rid of all iphone setting save for Testes, Ovotestes, Ovaries, None. And you've got it. So, border cases, people with complete androgen insensitivity who have undescended testes, but otherwise appear female are male. People with a male/female phenotype, but no defined gonads are sexless. Though I'd count them all under the umbrella term intersex which would be more a descriptor and less a sex in itself. Though maybe they don't have to *stay* sexless. Has science gone this far yet? I'm sure someone in China done it.
Human biological sex is simple. Gender is more complicated.
Also, matching chromosomes is dumb. The important bit is the SRY gene usually on the Y. Though very rarely it can be found on the X chromosome or not be found on the Y. The SRY gene formes the testes.
@sciller45
Matt Walsh is a grifter and a fanatic. I've seen parts of interviews from his doc, and am sadly familiar with many of his other 'opinions', and it's pretty transparent that he has no intentions of honestly engaging on the subject.
Instead, here's a Nature article that might interest you, titled Sex redefined.
And yeah, gender is also complex. That's a whole additional layer that essentialist thinking like s.o.g.'s just doesn't take into account at all, it just flattens everything down to a reductionist binary ideology that has to be constantly reinforced at every corner of our society for the sake of upholding abusive power structures. This isn't just "soft" sciences: evidence from biology, anthropology, archaeology, history and, yes, psychology and sociology too, attest that. Humans are humans first, we're all much more alike to each other and yet much more diverse than a simple X and Y split. Or do you really think that a handful of base pairs on a reduced chromosome is enough to split humanity in two entirely different types of being, and judge their social and moral worth accordingly?
Anyway, I'm done with 'challenging questions' for now, unless you have any for me on that topic (I might make a separate thread if that's the case).
I like that penultime paragraph. "if biologists continue to show that sex is a spectrum, then society and state will have to grapple with the consequences, and work out where and how to draw the line."
Well there. Gonads is my line. It's discrete as it gets, it's grounded in zoology, generally accepted in my experience, and it actually means something. Like when Fish were redefined to kick out the dolphins.
“My feeling is that since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter,” says Vilain.
Again, thinking of sex in this way conflates it with gender rendering the term useless. You can't throw away a term that doesn't work for... 1 in 4500.
But I keep getting the feeling this isn't what it's about. I don't think a, er... traditional western view of gender and sex is incompatible with a non-essential description, so it's not about that.
I don't get the... Well the patriarchy thing. It seems to me the natural product of biological differences. Nothing's being reinforced, and the idea that women are acting against their own interest genuinely feels conspiratorial. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe.
It's not impossible, but neither is the idea that aliens built the pyramids. NatGeo was good for me. History Channel not so much.
Sure, Patriarchal structures like those existed. Reminds me of those Albanian Women. If all the children were women, one would be chosen to pretend to be a man so people wouldn't think their family lineage were cursed. But today? Here? Really? Maybe it's some... accidental overfocus on sex?
Why would splitting people into male and female lower their worth?
What would your ideal world look like? A world in which the patriarchy didn't exist? How would men and women act towards each other? Would they exist at all? What would be a... practical analogue world look like? Like, the ideal world "in real life"? For 30 years you rule the world, and reshape it into what?
I'm totally hijacking this thread, I'm sorry. And obviously, what I said in my very long CT100 post was wrong. I very much did not learn.
You seem to be getting angry and forgetting entirely my identity samples thread; constructive conversation concerning axioms does not come easily.
(This is also why I prefer working with numbers; look at the Merriam Websters definition for the word literally and you'll see why.)
Mathematics tends to use essentialist thinking; the entire discipline wouldn't exist without it. For me, it is the clearest syntax in which to express myself.
Anyway I've been making progress in understanding objection 2. All male formally ordained clergy.
Since the Holy Trinity is the set of Infinity-sub1 iterations of the non-null power set of {Father,Son,Holy Spirit}, transubstantiation (a necessary function for priests) would somehow represent (1-Infinity;finite to infinite) whereas forgiveness of sins would represent (Infinity-1;infinite to finite), which would somehow bizarrely explain why only men can be ordained priests. Deacons somehow follows from Holy Orders being the Sacrament, which most closely corresponds to {Father,Son,Holy Spirit} in the first iteration of the non-null power set of {Father,Son,Holy Spirit}.
Identity Samples:
.231332122... - Male
.122231332... - Angel
.311222322... - Female
@sciller45 I will make a separate thread, and reply to your comment there. That way we won't risk getting completely off-topic. There's potentially a lot to address, so I'll take my time to formulate it in as deliberate and concise a way as I can (no promises).
Just tidying up here
"But just to be sure, you believe (in simplified terms) that every person is an evil sinner by nature and can only find redemption through belief in one specific deity?"
That is almost correct; more precisely I would say that almost every person is guilty of original sin through a weird hypothetical process and can only find redemption through eventually (though not necessarily right away) joining the Church.
As to abortion, the key difference is belief in the existence of spirits, specifically demons. In the event that hordes of evil demons are constantly trying to take over people's bodies, autonomy lies in the OPPOSITE direction (more laws vs. fewer laws) than modern liberals tend to believe it lies.
That is almost correct; more precisely I would say that almost every person is guilty of original sin through a weird hypothetical process and can only find redemption through eventually (though not necessarily right away) joining the Church.
- Isn't the whole "Jesus dying for our sins" bit supposed to have removed original sin?
- What's more important: personal belief and connection to God, or membership with the Church?
As to abortion, the key difference is belief in the existence of spirits, specifically demons. In the event that hordes of evil demons are constantly trying to take over people's bodies, autonomy lies in the OPPOSITE direction (more laws vs. fewer laws) than modern liberals tend to believe it lies.
Yikes!
In a survey last year by the Mental Health Foundation, entitled Spirituality and mental health: voices and realities, several respondents said they had been damaged by exorcism. The charity warned that the notion of demonic possession could be extremely damaging when linked to people with a label of mental illness and "risked conflating notions of evil and ill health."
"The charismatic movement wants to demonise mental illness so they can deal with it through exorcism. [...] But persuading vulnerable people that they are possessed gives you a great deal of power over them. It's a form of emotional abuse."
Mr Parsons said sexual abuse, homosexuality and unwanted pregnancy were often seen as routes for demonic possession. "Imagine telling someone who has been raped they're now possessed - that is terribly abusive."
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/may/02/socialcare.mentalhealth1
"Isn't the whole "Jesus dying for our sins" bit supposed to have removed original sin?"
Not completely yet for everyone, but it will eventually for all those who will be saved.
"What's more important: personal belief and connection to God, or membership with the Church?"
I would say personal belief and connection to God, but the one will eventually lead to the other so to speak.
I would say personal belief and connection to God, but the one will eventually lead to the other so to speak.
But why? Theologically speaking, why?
After all, you yourself said not to donate at this point, that the abuse bothers you, and rightly so: this kind of abuse is systemic to the Church, and has been going on everywhere it is for centuries; the Church still to this day protects the abusers whenever it can get away with it. And it's no surprise: the Church itself is a structure of power, power through control and abuse. Control over the individual, social and political spheres; control through guilt, through elitist hierarchies, lobby groups. Sexual abuse, emotional abuse, spiritual abuse and so many other forms. Historically the Church is built on such foundations; it has simultaneously been used as a tool by, and itself used, 'wordly' powers and governments to assert its dominance over any other forms of thought and social structures; it has vilified people who are different because of its own ignorance and rigid dogmatic mentality, it has scammed its own people (see i.e. the indulgence scam), it has profited off of colonialism and arguably still profits from neocolonialism...
So yeah, while I'm not spiritual myself, I can respect the spirituality and beliefs of other people as long as it's not harmful... but the Church has objectively done so much harm, I don't understand why it can lay claim to any kind of legitimacy. And I'm not defending evangelist or other forms of religious institutions, either, but those are not the subject here.
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