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I Was Not Assigned

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  • I Was Not Assigned

    Watch your words.

    -----------

    What is at stake with our words? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

    Last week, there was an announcement made at the chapel service here at NOBTS about free flu shots being given out for students. All we had to do was go to the student center and there would be some nurses there ready to give us our shots. Being one without health insurance now (Financial realities of being a seminary student), I decided to go and get one.

    Now this was a Christian hospital organization that was giving out the shots and so they had to ask me several questions, which I understand. I get the legal requirements. I don't blame them and I realize the sad reality of what many businesses are going through, but as an individual, I did take a firm stand.

    So in the middle of the usual questions that I expect, I get the one of "What is your gender identity?" I consider this to really be a nonsense question. Identity has no purpose here. How I feel about myself does not affect what I am at all. I can feel like I'm a cat and it's not going to change I'm a human. For a more realistic example, as one going through a divorce, I can feel numerous negative things many times. Those things are not true. Many Christians can struggle with feeling God doesn't love them. Doesn't make it true. The reason many people commit suicide is often connected with a negative feeling about them or their future that just isn't true.

    I am a man. That is it. I can take a look at my body and the way that I came out and realize that yes, I am a man.

    My next question I was asked was "Were you assigned that at birth?"

    At this I think my eyes glare, not in anger at the nurses. They have to do their job. It's in anger that this question is on here. I gave a direct answer. "No. I was born a man." I realize we could say I was born a boy who grew into a man, but the sex that I was born as was not something that was just decided. It was known when I was born.

    I also realize some people can bring up people who are intersex, but intersex and transgender are two very different things. One is a very physical condition and we have never sought to change our laws and society based on this condition. The other, transgenderism, is a psychological delusion and we are changing our society and laws to play along and real people are being the victims.

    Friends. This is a hill we cannot budge any on. This is about a battle for reality itself. I consider the far-left movement in our society to be in a war against reality and trying to eliminate any idea of male and female. It's as if we are being pushed into a political monism.

    The biggest aspect of this battle to watch is our words. I will use longer and clunkier terminology to avoid granting any grounds to the other side. I will not speak of a "same-sex marriage." A marriage by definition is the unity of a man and a woman. No. Something like polygamy doesn't change this, though it is wrong, as it is just one man with several women, but the man-woman aspect is there. The same would be for one woman with many men.

    When you say "same-sex marriage" you are speaking of a contradiction. You are speaking of a man-woman unit that is not man-woman. If we also make the definition of marriage fluid, we can make it to mean anything and then it means nothing. Why limit it to two people? Why make it consensual? Why make it lifelong? The word marriage has to mean something specific.

    I prefer to not even speak of a homosexual anymore. It makes homosexual more often an aspect of the person's identity and surely that won't change. It becomes something innate. I will easily instead speak of a person with same-sex attraction. What is central here is that this is a person.

    We must absolutely watch people who want to control our words and tell us there are things we cannot say. We have seen part of this when any monitoring is done of questions about vaccines or the 2020 election. Even if you think both of those are crazy conspiracy theories, it would be better to have them talked about and the ideas discussed. Shutting down discussion on any topic convinces more often people who think there is a cover-up.

    Keep in mind that in 1984, the goal of the editing of the language was not to come up with new words. It was to eliminate as many words as possible. Control the words people say and you can control the ideas that they are allowed to think about.

    The language war is essential.

    No. I was not assigned male at birth. I was born that way. I could jack up my body with as many hormones as doctors say and mutilate it with surgical procedures, and I will look like I am playing a part, but it won't change reality. Barring the return of Jesus Christ, I will die a male. Nothing will change that.

    There is too much at stake. Whenever you encounter language that is meant to shape what you think, do not give an inch to it. If you have to use long and clunkier phrases, that's fine. I would rather do that and be minorly inconvenienced than give in to fake reality and be majorly inconvenienced.

    In Christ,
    Nick Peters
    (And I affirm the virgin birth)


    What is at stake with our words? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out. Last week, there was an announcement made at the chapel service here at NOBTS about free flu shots being given out for students. All we had to do was go to the student center and there would be some … Continue reading I Was Not Assigned

  • #2
    We are in an era of enabling the deluded. It would be interesting to see how future historians will treat this. My bet is as a symptom for the fall of western civilization.

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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    • #3
      Smart people have to shut up so stupid people aren't offended.
      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

      Comment


      • #4
        Okay, so let's do this.

        How many wives did Jacob have? Were any of them married to him? Of the twelve sons who are credited as founding the twelve tribes of Israel, how many were legitimate? As far as I'm aware, actual biblical scholars accept that all four of Jacob's wives were married to him and that the unions between Moses and his wives, between Gideon and his wives, and between David and Solomon and their wives were all actual marriages.

        The point being that people have real lives, even with the Biblical tradition, that can't be defined away, no matter how convenient it might be to dodge a discussion on what makes for a legitimate marriage by pointing to a convention which is frankly more cultural than religious, and then deciding that that cultural tradition cannot be altered.

        Comment


        • #5
          One thing I think needs to be kept in mind is that many people with gender dysphoria fully realize they will never truly be the opposite sex, but are so desperate to stop the suffering they go through the painful physical procedures anyway. The ones that don't know this have been deceived by the "gender identity" movement and their extensive redefinition of words, and many of them are detransitioning once they find out the truth. Others are too afraid to do that after seeing how destransitioners are treated. There has also been a group of people who changed the term "transsexual" to "transgender", and then labeled themselves as "transgender" even they don't have gender dysphoria. This group has even attacked people with gender dysphoria, a verifiable mental illness in the DSM 5 for going through the procedures in order to fit in as the opposite sex. They seem to be the source of most of the confusion regarding the issue.

          The redefinition doesn't stop with modern terms they are even doing it to ancient Hebrew* other ancient languages and practices in an attempt to "prove" that ancient cultures had the same concepts regarding "gender", and that we are the outliers in rejecting it. I fully agree with fighting back against this kind of revisionism, but I'm not sure how to go about it when it is already so widespread.

          *If you look up the term "aylonit" which means barren, one of the first articles that pops up is one that tries to redefine it to "identified as female at birth" and the two types of "hamah", and "adam" which according to everything I can find means one who is that way by natural causes and one that is made that way due to the actions of men respectively. All of the terms that are redefined in the article are ones that refer to physical characteristics and not "gender identity".

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
            Okay, so let's do this.

            How many wives did Jacob have? Were any of them married to him? Of the twelve sons who are credited as founding the twelve tribes of Israel, how many were legitimate? As far as I'm aware, actual biblical scholars accept that all four of Jacob's wives were married to him and that the unions between Moses and his wives, between Gideon and his wives, and between David and Solomon and their wives were all actual marriages.

            The point being that people have real lives, even with the Biblical tradition, that can't be defined away, no matter how convenient it might be to dodge a discussion on what makes for a legitimate marriage by pointing to a convention which is frankly more cultural than religious, and then deciding that that cultural tradition cannot be altered.
            I accept that those were real wives of Jacob, but I also accept that was a borderline practice allowed theologically at the time and when Christ came, He spoke of one man and one woman and once those come together, the circle is complete and there needs to be no other addition to it.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post

              I accept that those were real wives of Jacob, but I also accept that was a borderline practice allowed theologically at the time and when Christ came, He spoke of one man and one woman and once those come together, the circle is complete and there needs to be no other addition to it.
              It wasn't a borderline practice. To say that having four wives was barely acceptable is to say that creating twelve tribes was barely acceptable. I chose the example because it can't be contradicted or even minimized. Jacob's multiple-marriage is the sine qua non for the very existence of Israel. It was, necessarily, the archetypical marriage arrangement for Judaism itself.

              Marriage is a based on the needs of the surrounding culture. When large numbers of men were regularly dying in battle, polygamy was common. When population growth was necessary to prevent conquest by a neighboring rival, polygamy was common. When these pressures eased, monogamy took its place. This was a numbers thing. Today, we find ourselves in a position where we don't need population to increase, where we can be more prosperous with less people, same-sex partnerships have found their day.

              Marriage is not, in any case, essentially religious, and even less so is it essentially Christian. Nick, you're going to have to bend on this. Most of the world doesn't accept your Jesus, and trying to force them to do so can only end badly for you. Failing to acknowledge the marriages of your fellow Americans because of your religious values is an unacceptable imposition to all and a "fighting words" insult to some.

              Listen, you can rail about how you'd never get gay-married all you like. Iif you don't personally wish to attend or in any other way participate in a gay wedding, that's your right, and like tattooing a capital "L" onto your forehead an act of sheer idiocy.

              Cause everybody knows that wedding's gonna be fabulous.

              Oh snap.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Juvenal View Post

                It wasn't a borderline practice. To say that having four wives was barely acceptable is to say that creating twelve tribes was barely acceptable. I chose the example because it can't be contradicted or even minimized. Jacob's multiple-marriage is the sine qua non for the very existence of Israel. It was, necessarily, the archetypical marriage arrangement for Judaism itself.

                Marriage is a based on the needs of the surrounding culture. When large numbers of men were regularly dying in battle, polygamy was common. When population growth was necessary to prevent conquest by a neighboring rival, polygamy was common. When these pressures eased, monogamy took its place. This was a numbers thing. Today, we find ourselves in a position where we don't need population to increase, where we can be more prosperous with less people, same-sex partnerships have found their day.
                Borderline refers to something less than the ideal for marriage that was allowed.

                [QUOTE}Marriage is not, in any case, essentially religious, and even less so is it essentially Christian. Nick, you're going to have to bend on this. Most of the world doesn't accept your Jesus, and trying to force them to do so can only end badly for you. Failing to acknowledge the marriages of your fellow Americans because of your religious values is an unacceptable imposition to all and a "fighting words" insult to some.[/QUOTE]

                Ooooh. Most of the world doesn't accept Jesus. I obviously have to bend. Here I was going around thinking most of the world was Christian. And let's see, marriage is not essentially religious? I argued for that.....oh.....nowhere! Marriage is a metaphysical reality. We cannot change it any more than we can change triangularity or squareness.

                Listen, you can rail about how you'd never get gay-married all you like. Iif you don't personally wish to attend or in any other way participate in a gay wedding, that's your right, and like tattooing a capital "L" onto your forehead an act of sheer idiocy.

                Cause everybody knows that wedding's gonna be fabulous.

                Oh snap.
                Yeah. If this is supposed to bother me, it's a weak attempt.

                Comment


                • #9
                  The only legitimate reason I can think of to ask such question would be if they thought that the flu shot could interfere or react with any hormones or blockers someone might be taking if they were transsexual.

                  I would have just said, that is none of your business.


                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                    Okay, so let's do this.

                    How many wives did Jacob have? Were any of them married to him? Of the twelve sons who are credited as founding the twelve tribes of Israel, how many were legitimate? As far as I'm aware, actual biblical scholars accept that all four of Jacob's wives were married to him and that the unions between Moses and his wives, between Gideon and his wives, and between David and Solomon and their wives were all actual marriages.
                    God uses flawed people in flawed situations to accomplish His purposes. Matthew's gospel goes out of its way to point this out in his account of the genealogy of Jesus.
                    The point being that people have real lives, even with the Biblical tradition, that can't be defined away, no matter how convenient it might be to dodge a discussion on what makes for a legitimate marriage by pointing to a convention which is frankly more cultural than religious, and then deciding that that cultural tradition cannot be altered.
                    I agree. People are born with real genes, that can't be defined away, no matter how convenient it might be for those who are mentally disturbed by their bodies.
                    Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                    Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
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                    I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I was a male nine months before I was born.
                      When I Survey....

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Nick, perhaps you should have responded to that awkward question with the text of Psalms 139:16.

                        ”Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, WHEN AS YET THERE WAS NONE OF THEM.”

                        The gender of every person was planned in God’s “book” even BEFORE conception takes place.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by 3 Resurrections View Post
                          Nick, perhaps you should have responded to that awkward question with the text of Psalms 139:16.

                          ”Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, WHEN AS YET THERE WAS NONE OF THEM.”

                          The gender of every person was planned in God’s “book” even BEFORE conception takes place.
                          I was about to hit Faber with that to "one up" him.
                          The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

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