"May Adonai bless you and protect you! May Adonai deal kindly and graciously with you! May Adonai lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace!" (Torah, Numbers 6:24-26) And Jesus said, "Allow the little children to come unto me. Forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God. Truly, I say unto you, unless you receive the Kingdom of God as a little child does, you shall not enter therein." (New Testament, Mark 10:14-16)

Sojourning at an Oasis Paradise

My purpose for living this life, and for writing this blog, is to understand the faith that links us to God. I wish to explore and discuss the reality at the heart of all of the world's religions. This is an immense task, but I know that God also has faith in us, trusting that we do desire the truth, as well as freedom, love and wisdom. Thus, as always, He meets us halfway. Even as God has given us individual souls, so we must each of us trace out an individual pathway to God. Whether we reside in the cities of orthodox religion, or wend our solitary ways through the barren wastelands, God watches over us and offers us guidance and sustenance for the journey.


Most of what you will see here is the result of extensive personal study, combined with some careful speculation. Occasionally, I may simply offer some Scripture or an inspirational text. I am a wide reader, and the connection of some topics and ideas to matters of faith and religion may not seem immediately obvious, but perhaps I may spell it out in the end... or maybe, you will decide that it was just a tangent. Anyway, I hope that you will find my meanderings to be spiritually enlightening, intellectually stimulating, or at least somewhat entertaining.

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

The Gender vs. Biology Debate

Some people following the ideology of "Woke" inclusiveness have proposed the idea that gender is a separate category from biological sex, and one's mind can have a different gender identity from the biology of the body. If this is so, then why are these "Woke" and LGBTQ+ ideologues so intent on chopping up kids just to make the two separate identities match? If you feel like your gender doesn't fit with your biology, maybe that's just the way it's supposed to be. Or maybe you just need therapy to adjust your mind to fit reality. Or, if that is still "changing one identity to fit the other," then maybe you should just get used to having both sides of the same coin and learn how to appreciate it.

I'm okay with allowing you to say that gender is fluid or a spectrum. It sounds odd, but that still doesn't change the FACT that biology is binary. If one child in 500,000 is born as a hermaphrodite, then let the parents choose which biology to "assign at birth." That child will probably be infertile anyway. He/she is going to have to decide which gender will predominate eventually, regardless. No one should presume to "fix" a child to be infertile when they grow up, if that's not the original problem already.

Our souls were created male or female, but they are incomplete without the body. It is likely, however, that our genitals were not intended, when God created Adam and Eve, to function exactly as they do now. In a fallen world, where we must struggle to stay alive, there is more need for an emphasis on children, so we have an unbalanced interest in sex. It is our obsession with it that is wrong. We ought to accept our bodies with the genitals we were given by God. This obsession with the flesh is driven by Satan prompting us to create chaos through pride and lust, and promoting child abuse and perversion. Chastity is the proper response to Satan's temptations. 

The LGBTQ+ transgender ideology is doubly wrong because it is not only a selfish and prideful rejection of God's intention; it is also an intrusion into other people's personal business and interference in their God-given identity. Why should anyone have the right to interfere with a family, or to cause harm to a child? Causing infertility is indubitably a great harm, and such intention is evil. There is no kind of surgery that can rebuild your body to become a fully-functional fertile member of the opposite sex. They don't care if you can't have kids! 

Only God has the right to say what is real and what is right. If you disagree, you are wrong. God says that sexual relations belong solely in a marriage between a man and a woman. And, marriage is supposed to be a loving covenant for the sake of procreation and raising children. How else were we meant to fill the Earth, to discipline and steward it? There have been many objections raised in this regard, but they always miss the point. God is the One who sets the rules. 

Anyone who claims that they were "born this way" deserves to hear the words of Jesus saying, "you must be born again." It applies equally to all of us because we have all been corrupted by the influence of Satan, ever since the Fall. If this is the way your own "inclination to evil" is bent, it is no worse a problem than someone suffers who has an inclination to anger, or pride, or greed. We suffer from an implanted inclination to serve our own desires, rather than having the orientation to love and desire fellowship with God. It is our duty to suppress this inclination toward evil, and to feed and support the inclination of our better nature in its search for God. "You must be born again of water and the Spirit" in order to enter the Kingdom of God. "The way you were born" of the flesh is irrelevant.

If you cannot bear the thought of living your life in a normal heterosexual fashion, in a family with children, do not feel that any disdain or contempt is being heaped upon you. There has always been a proportion of people in society who have chosen to live alone or to pursue a different calling. It is only our obligation to avoid such behaviors as would lead us to sin and thus to offend God. Chastity can be a calling to sainthood, offering a life just as filled with joy as the life of a parent, and perhaps gifted with more freedom. 

The life of a single person can be dedicated to service to the needy in society, or in search of a solution to some problem that has plagued us for millennia. As one with a religious calling, we can cultivate the Kingdom of God among the brothers and sisters, or we can teach other people's children the basics of how to live a good life. One does not have to suffer the pains of loneliness merely because one chooses to refrain from illicit sex. God has a plan and a calling for each of us, with the intention to help us to build a life full of joy, and a promise that our greatest hope might be fulfilled in the not so far future.