To Seem, Rather Than To Be? (Trans Ideology)

[Kylie]

When combined with genetics?

I'm guessing about 100%.

No, not when combined with genetics.

Honestly, I don't get how you figured that's what I was asking.

It's like I was asking, "How much of what people drink is something other than water?" And you answered, "When we combine the non-water with the water, it makes up 100% of what people drink."

 

[Kylie]

How did I find out he has a penis?

I dunno. How do you decide that someone is a trans woman?

 

[didactics]

So if you knew a person was trans, you would deliberately use the wrong pronouns?

Well, I could just refer to them by their name only. However, if they insisted that I use their preferred pronouns, then I would explain that I'm not going to comply. That doesn't mean that I'm trying to appear rude. But now let me ask you a question. If I were to use traditional pronouns about a trans person, deliberately, then are you saying that I should be fired from my workplace over that?

 

[didactics]

I dunno. How do you decide that someone is a trans woman?

Someone who tells you they are transexual, and they are not lying, in the context that you did not know, does so because they want you to know.

 

[didactics]

Thanks for pointing that out. However, I was just pointing out that smart as St. Augustine was, he couldn’t conceive of the possibility of people inhabiting a yet to be discovered continent across the sea. He assumed that it couldn’t be because they would almost all be ignorant of any preaching of the gospel, and that for a long time.

Thinking this over, I’m not entirely sure what is meant by this sentence in the book: “God would not have allowed Christians to remain ignorant of unknown lands for so long.”


Elsewhere in the book, on page 23: “In The City of God Augustine distinguishes clearly between antipodes and sphericity. It seems that the earth is round, he says, but even if there is land on the opposite side, no one could ever have crossed the huge expanse of ocean to settle it.”

Note: Augustine, City of God, 16:9.



St. Augustine was well educated, but I guess in his time, no one knew that the tip of Russia and Alaska formed an ice bridge long ago. In the same way I’m being dogmatic about the issue of transgenderism, maybe I could be overlooking something here. What I claim is that people are either male or female. But as far as anomalies go, how marred can humans become by the curse of the fall? I’m supposing that there are limits, in that a male cannot have a female brain. There can only be deficiencies, but I don’t believe the male can have his brain mapped out just as a female.

@MehGuy @RDKirk

 

[Ken-1122]

So when you said "no longer" you meant "usually don't". k

What are you talking about?

 

[Ken-1122]

I dunno. How do you decide that someone is a trans woman?

Someone told me. If someone approached me talking about someone else's penis, I would call them to get away from me because the conversation is completely inappropriate, and would dismiss everything they've said.

 

[RDKirk]

Thinking this over, I’m not entirely sure what is meant by this sentence in the book: “God would not have allowed Christians to remain ignorant of unknown lands for so long.”


Elsewhere in the book, on page 23: “In The City of God Augustine distinguishes clearly between antipodes and sphericity. It seems that the earth is round, he says, but even if there is land on the opposite side, no one could ever have crossed the huge expanse of ocean to settle it.”

Note: Augustine, City of God, 16:9.



St. Augustine was well educated, but I guess in his time, no one knew that the tip of Russia and Alaska formed an ice bridge long ago. In the same way I’m being dogmatic about the issue of transgenderism, maybe I could be overlooking something here. What I claim is that people are either male or female. But as far as anomalies go, how marred can humans become by the curse of the fall? I’m supposing that there are limits, in that a male cannot have a female brain. There can only be deficiencies, but I don’t believe the male can have his brain mapped out just as a female.

@MehGuy @RDKirk

Remember that until Columbus, nobody knew that there were other continents not connected to the Eurasia/Africa land mass. Augustine was making a Christian argument against that proposition, because people on such a landmass would not be reachable by missionaries.

The actual contention with Columbus is that he believed the sphere was actually much smaller in circumference than the ancient Greeks had calculated, and that the expanse of ocean could be crossed by three ships with skeleton crews and loaded with supplies. The ancient Greek calculations were actually correct (within 90%), however...if the American continents had not existed, nobody would have heard of Columbus again.

 

[Ken-1122]

"Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say." SOURCE

Did you present adverse information about a target in order to discredit it or ridicule it?

Yes, when you said "this type of absurdity is a game I do not wish to play." You said it was absurd, and you said it was nothing more than a game.

So yeah, you were poisoning the well.

If someone told me there was some old guy who lives beyond the clouds looking over everyone’s shoulders keepin’ score, as a skeptic I would find such a claim absurd, and would likely call it so; but a theist who believes the idea might find the claim perfectly reasonable, and accuse me of being adverse thus accuse me of poisoning the well.

When I said the idea that someone can go around creating countless genders, and pronouns out of thin air, not based on science, not based on anything except whatever it is that is going on inside of their heads, and demand everybody else conform to their invention, I really do find that absurd. You might think this is perfectly reasonable and say I’m being adverse, but I believe absurd is an accurate description of such a claim.
So while I understand you might call my absurd label to be poisoning the well, I do not.

 

[didactics]

Remember that until Columbus, nobody knew that there were other continents not connected to the Eurasia/Africa land mass. Augustine was making a Christian argument against that proposition, because people on such a landmass would not be reachable by missionaries.

The actual contention with Columbus is that he believed the sphere was actually much smaller in circumference than the ancient Greeks had calculated, and that the expanse of ocean could be crossed by three ships with skeleton crews and loaded with supplies. The ancient Greek calculations were actually correct (within 90%), however...if the American continents had not existed, nobody would have heard of Columbus again.

I guess some things are a struggle to understand when it comes to what early church figures thought in detail. It seems evident that Augustine believed in the sphericity of earth. He didn't believe there was a landmass inhabited by people on the other side of earth, as he called antipodeans, for he reasoned that they couldn't have descended from Adam. As far as the statement I found about Christians not being able to get there and God not allowing them to be ignorant of it for so long, I haven't read into that to know about in more detail.

 

[didactics]

I know this was @Ana the Ist you were replying to. I wanted to chime in.

Did you just cite a dictionary definition at me as though it is authoritative? You realize that humans literally just made up language, right?
Words are useful if they convey the meaning you want to get across. When I say "Dave told me that he is going on vacation next week" the only meaning I want to get across is that "he" refers back to "Dave". I'm not trying to convey "Dave who has a penis". So who cares if we always used to think of sex and gender as being inextricably intertwined? They aren't. Big whup. Once you separate the ideas you can enjoy a nuanced position like I do.

I was listening to an episode of Answers News (07/20/22) where one host Bryan Osborne had this to say:



“By redefining gender is saying there’s no distinct gender roles, which redefines male and female, which redefines what the family unit should look like, actually undermines the family unit, and the family unit is the building block of society. And is that when given to us by God a biblical institution, you decimate the family unit you decimate society.”

 

[Moral Orel]

By redefining gender is saying there’s no distinct gender roles

That's true, which is fine because there aren't distinct gender roles. We've been realizing that since before the trans debate became a thing, though. Since myself and Ana do not believe there is a god(s), you're going to have to offer some sort of reasoning other than "God said so" to convince us otherwise. And if there aren't distinct gender roles, then the rest of the reasoning from that fella's Slippery Slope Fallacy simply doesn't follow.

 

[didactics]

That's true, which is fine because there aren't distinct gender roles. We've been realizing that since before the trans debate became a thing, though. Since myself and Ana do not believe there is a god(s), you're going to have to offer some sort of reasoning other than "God said so" to convince us otherwise. And if there aren't distinct gender roles, then the rest of the reasoning from that fella's Slippery Slope Fallacy simply doesn't follow.

In some sense you could be right. I shouldn't start the debate with transgenderism. It really started with a debate about redefining marriage; trans rights comes downstream from that. The focus should really be about arguing for the exclusivity of heterosexual marriage.

 

[Ana the Ist]

No, not when combined with genetics.

Honestly, I don't get how you figured that's what I was asking.

It's like I was asking, "How much of what people drink is something other than water?" And you answered, "When we combine the non-water with the water, it makes up 100% of what people drink."

Right....well honestly, when my previous post mentioned "stimulus" (environmental factors that affect our genetics) "response" (genetic reaction to stimuli) and "sentience" (ability to think about such things and to what degree we can consider them).....

And you're asking "what else makes up an identity?"

I had to think pretty hard to come up with the genetics which aren't affected by environmental stimuli.

I can't really think of anything else.

 

[Moral Orel]

In some sense you could be right. I shouldn't start the debate with transgenderism. It really started with a debate about redefining marriage; trans rights comes downstream from that. The focus should really be about arguing for the exclusivity of heterosexual marriage.

You actually need to hop in the Way-Back-Machine and start by arguing that males ought to go to jobs and females ought to stay home and cook and clean, which we started realizing wasn't necessary way before gay marriage. Nothing about LGBTQ is inherent in debates about gender roles.

 

[RDKirk]

That's true, which is fine because there aren't distinct gender roles. We've been realizing that since before the trans debate became a thing, though. Since myself and Ana do not believe there is a god(s), you're going to have to offer some sort of reasoning other than "God said so" to convince us otherwise. And if there aren't distinct gender roles, then the rest of the reasoning from that fella's Slippery Slope Fallacy simply doesn't follow.

You and Ana seem to be on opposite sides of the argument, though. I'm a Christian, but I seem to be on the same side of the argument as Ana.

 

[didactics]

You actually need to hop in the Way-Back-Machine and start by arguing that males ought to go to jobs and females ought to stay home and cook and clean, which we started realizing wasn't necessary way before gay marriage. Nothing about LGBTQ is inherent in debates about gender roles.

If I could ask your opinion, when do you think our culture started questioning gender roles? The post-war era?



Part of what sparked interest in starting this discussion was at the announcement of, What is a woman? documentary. I haven’t watched it yet. Some protestants have critiqued the film that it is pragmatic but it isn't grounded in a theological framework. Overall it is spot on.

 

[Kylie]

Well, I could just refer to them by their name only. However, if they insisted that I use their preferred pronouns, then I would explain that I'm not going to comply. That doesn't mean that I'm trying to appear rude. But now let me ask you a question. If I were to use traditional pronouns about a trans person, deliberately, then are you saying that I should be fired from my workplace over that?

If you can't understand why you should use the pronouns people ask you to, then there's nothing I can say.

 

[Kylie]

Someone who tells you they are transexual, and they are not lying, in the context that you did not know, does so because they want you to know.

The term is transgender, not transsexual.

And there are plenty of times when I've met a trans person and been able to tell that they are trans. No need for them to tell me.

 

[Kylie]

Right....well honestly, when my previous post mentioned "stimulus" (environmental factors that affect our genetics) "response" (genetic reaction to stimuli) and "sentience" (ability to think about such things and to what degree we can consider them).....

And you're asking "what else makes up an identity?"

I had to think pretty hard to come up with the genetics which aren't affected by environmental stimuli.

I can't really think of anything else.

Let's recap the conversation...

IThere is a huge amount of evidence to show that a person's identity is separate to the structures they have in their pants.

But it's still biological, right?

We aren't talking about souls here....are we?

I wouldn't say "soul" but rather "mind." Is a person's mind purely biological? I don't know.

Yeah the evidence is pretty strong there. We can erase who you are by destroying your frontal lobe. It's called a lobotomy.

But still biological if it's real.

True, but how much of our mind is formed from our experiences, not just the genetics?

Your experiences are a result of stimulus and response and sentience....so I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here....

Could you rephrase the question?

I'm asking how much of who we are is a result of that "stimulus and response and sentience."

When combined with genetics?

I'm guessing about 100%.

So there is a genetic and biological part of what makes us who we are, yet there is also a very large part that is built from the experiences we have. You can take two people who are genetically identical and give them different experiences, and they'll turn out to be very different people. I would suggest that the part of who we are that is formed from those experiences makes up a very large part.