Zoidberg wrote:Here's a simple test: which one common characteristic do all men share, but women don't possess (other than "male spirit")? I'll wait patiently until you answer, which will probably be never if you are as intelligent as I think you are.
The opportunity to hold the priesthood if they are worthy ;P
Don't tell me that you didn't expect a smartaleck answer from me when you have a trap question.
And we are back to eternal marriage. Why are some of the people who chromosomally, phenotypically or otherwise deviate from "the norm" for the gender with which they identify, and have received surgery to "normalize" their genitalia, allowed to marry in the temple for eternity while the others aren't?
"Anyhow, I think there is a difference in intent when one gives it one's best shot in an ambiguous case and when one is unsatisfied with gender that isn't so ambiguous. "
I guess that still leaves those who haven't had surgery though. That, may very well be a policy issue just as I consider it a policy issue where the church requires a year wait for those who have a civil marriage just before going to the temple in the USA. I would like to see the year wait policy change.
It may also be that those who do not choose are simply not being obediant much like those who drink coffee. Coffee drinking isn't a big think in and of itself in my book, but I would be disobediant (in fact a promise breaker) were I to do so.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
asbestosman wrote:Anyhow, I think there is a difference in intent when one gives it one's best shot in an ambiguous case and when one is unsatisfied with gender that isn't so ambiguous.
You are disappointing me, asbestosman. I'll just wait for you to come up with a single characteristic, other than male spirit, that all men share, but women don't possess, and vice versa. This is going to be entertaining.
asbestosman wrote:Anyhow, I think there is a difference in intent when one gives it one's best shot in an ambiguous case and when one is unsatisfied with gender that isn't so ambiguous.
You are disappointing me, asbestosman. I'll just wait for you to come up with a single characteristic, other than male spirit, that all men share, but women don't possess, and vice versa. This is going to be entertaining.
you mean like... sperm? a prostate?
Remote control? Oh nevermind, he said "share".
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
asbestosman wrote:Anyhow, I think there is a difference in intent when one gives it one's best shot in an ambiguous case and when one is unsatisfied with gender that isn't so ambiguous.
You are disappointing me, asbestosman. I'll just wait for you to come up with a single characteristic, other than male spirit, that all men share, but women don't possess, and vice versa. This is going to be entertaining.
you mean like... sperm? a prostate?
Remote control? Oh nevermind, he said "share".
Ha ha. I'm a she. See, A-man, what is so unambiguous about gender?
Really, though, what do you find so unambiguous about your gender? Have you even done chromosomal testing? Really, just tell me how you differentiate between who is a man and who is a woman. Do you ask to see their private areas before you believe they are telling you the truth about their gender? Do you ask God? How do you tell?
by the way, there is apparently such a thing as a female prostate and some men are born without testes (anorchia), so no sperm.
"reason and religion are friends and allies" - Mitt Romney
Zoidberg wrote:Really, just tell me how you differentiate between who is a man and who is a woman.
What? If it can't be done reliably 100% of the time then the differences must be imaginary or ill-conceived? I know of no medical tests which work 100% of the time. When a doctor tests people for a disease, he will get it wrong from time to time. Why should gender be any different? Just because a doctor can make an error in judgment has no bearing on judged according to one's obedience to God and His prophets.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
Zoidberg wrote:Really, just tell me how you differentiate between who is a man and who is a woman.
What? If it can't be done reliably 100% of the time then the differences must be imaginary or ill-conceived? I know of no medical tests which work 100% of the time. When a doctor tests people for a disease, he will get it wrong from time to time. Why should gender be any different? Just because a doctor can make an error in judgment has no bearing on judged according to one's obedience to God and His prophets.
The problem for you - as have been pointed out clearly and politely several times - is that in genetic terms the human race cannot be divided into two groups capable of being labelled 'men' and 'women', with all other possibilities excluded. It is not a matter of the tests being unreliable, or hard to interpret. Rather, while most people have either XX chromosomes (women in the usual definition) or XY chromosomes (men in the usual definition), some have OTHER combinations
Since on grounds of faith you believe that there are male spirits and female spirits, with all other possibilities excluded, it is evident that there is a mismatch between your faith and genetics. You evidently have no problem with that, not because you can articulate a way of reconciling your faith and genetics, but because you feel comfortable 'putting such difficulties on the shelf' in the hope that God will sort them out for you.
OK - but be aware that many people on this board started that way, and all shelves have their breaking point.
I understand Abman's point, which is that notwithstanding all the ambiguous-sexed people in the world, they still each have either a male or a female spirit, and that whatever inconveniences they might suffer due to their abnormalities will be as nothing in eternity, much the same as the drawbacks of being retarded will be "made up for", or else just not matter, in the long run. I get that.
My response is simply this: nice save. Nice way to look a problem squarely in the face and just wave it off. The problem, from my point of view, is that the actual science and reality of our existence yet again simply does not match the LDS theological cosmology, and once again, the only thing LDS can do is shrug their shoulders and say oh well, I don't know, but I trust that God does, and somehow it works out.
Let's take stock.
So we have an American continent whose ancient peopling and history simply doesn't look like it has anything to do with the Book of Mormon story. That's ok, it really did even if we don't know how yet, and God knows, and somehow it all just works out.
The earth looks very old, and the human race looks like it's been around for many tens of thousands of years, with genetically modern humans having populated every continent but Antarctica many thousands of years before the Biblical time of Adam and Eve, causing all sorts of problems for the probably reality of that story. That's OK, we don't know how they are reconciled, but God does, and somehow it will all work out.
The past teachings of the LDS prophets on the circumstances of Adam and Eve, such as their being no blood in their bodies, no reproduction, and no death all seem to be in direct conflict with the general state of living things as they existed well before, during, and after any potential Biblical timeline for Adam and Eve. That's OK, somehow it all works out, even if we don't know how, and never will unless God chooses to reveal it. Which he so far hasn't.
The church teaches that Noah's Ark story is a real, literal event, whose scope was the entire world. This is directly contradicted by physical evidence from the earth. Oh well, somehow it all works out, and maybe someday God will reveal it.
The Book of Abraham appears to have been made up by Joseph Smith, rather than translated from the papyrus. Oh well, somehow he really didn't make it up, even though it looks like he did. We don't know whether it's lost scroll, mnemonic device, or direct translation, or whatever, but God knows, and maybe someday he'll tell us. In the meantime we don't know much of anything at all about the Book of Abraham, but that doesn't stop us from claiming categorically that the one thing that is impossible is that he made it up. Yes, that we're sure of.
Then we have problems like Tarski has brought up from time to time, about the unlikelihood of God being a homo sapiens, even a glorified one, since homo sapiens is an evolved species, and God would have been a member of some species evolved on another planet, and it's exceedingly unlikely that the exact same genetic species would evolve separately in different environments. Oh well, somehow it all works out, and maybe God will someday show us. Oh yeah, and we don't know that God has the same DNA as a human being, or even if he has DNA at all. Yeah, I know that The Dude pointed out that God is claimed to be the literal, physical father of Jesus, so since Jesus was born a homo sapiens, he must have had homo sapiens-compatible DNA from both mother and father. Oh well, The Dude is wrong, we're right, but we can't explain it, since God has not "seen fit" to reveal it to us.
And now we have the gender thing. LDS teachings, including through the Proclamation on the Family, specify that there are exactly two genders of spirit, male and female, and that every human being has one of these two spirit genders. The reality of human gender in the real, physical world is not nearly this clear cut, with people whose bodies are neither clearly male, nor clearly female, at all, with different conditions and possibilities existing. Oh yeah, we don't know how or why the physical tabernacles don't match the gender of the spirit that inhabits that body, but we do know that these spirits do exist, and have a distinct gender, and we trust that God will be on top of it all, and it'll all turn out in the end.
Anyone else here noticing that the LDS are faced with a whole hell of a lot of things where the earthly, real situation or story simply doesn't look like the LDS story is a part of it, and have to just dismiss it and claim we just can't know, and that someday God will have to tell us? At some point, an intellectually honest person has to take these contradictins and conundrums seriously and say hey, there's really something wrong here - I think I operate with some assumptions that maybe, just may not be accurate.
I would suggest it's that the Church is true no matter what. Drop that assumption, and a whole lot of explanations present themselves which just fall right into place, and which don't require one to shut off one's brain pending some unknown future time when God will come down and fix all the intellectual problems for us.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
Zoidberg wrote:Really, just tell me how you differentiate between who is a man and who is a woman.
What? If it can't be done reliably 100% of the time then the differences must be imaginary or ill-conceived? I know of no medical tests which work 100% of the time. When a doctor tests people for a disease, he will get it wrong from time to time. Why should gender be any different? Just because a doctor can make an error in judgment has no bearing on judged according to one's obedience to God and His prophets.
You keep thinking I'm presenting something other than the Church's eternal gender dichotomy to you. I'm not. I'm not saying that there is really no difference between ovaries and testicles or between having the SRY gene on your chromosomes and having none, either. That would be absurd.
You keep talking about obedience. If GBH told you your priesthood has been revoked and you now have to wear a skirt to Church, would you obey? The GAs are not dictating people with AIS, Klinefelter or Turner syndrome or who knows what else what gender they should identify with, so why are they dictating people who have what is now termed Gender Identity Disorder (and I don't believe it will remain a "disorder" much longer)? If people with AIS can somehow receive revelation from God or whatever you want to call it what gender to identify with, why is similar experience in people with GID discounted?
What do doctors and diseases have to do with anything? We are not talking about individual mistakes, we are talking about the criteria that make one either a man or a woman. And these criteria are extremely tricky and elusive, and arbitrary, which you are unwilling to admit for reasons I do not understand.
I would say that the only thing all men/women have in common is that they identify themselves as men/women. There are a few people who see themselves as neither, and I would hesitate to try to force them into the dichotomy.
This is not so much waving off the issue as refusing to see the inconsistency in the Church's treatment of "exceptions", which it has either shunned for years and years or never given a crap about.
Really, I only see two ways of reconciling the issue with your faith. You can either admit that the Church is wrong about gender being an eternal characteristic (of course, that would sort of undermine eternal marriage, eternal increase and pretty much everything else, but there might be a way around that in the future, when eternal marriage is extended to gay couples) or admit that the Church is being inconsistent in its treatment of LGBT people vs. intersex people. It should either allow transsexuals to go to the temple or maintain its current policies in regards to transsexuals and ban people who have unusual chromosomal combinations, genitalia or internal reproductive organs from the temple, as well.
Of course, there is a third way - consider it a non-issue because it doesn't affect your personal eternal salvation.
"reason and religion are friends and allies" - Mitt Romney
I believe that all the troublesome topics do affect one's salvation. Or, rather, they affect the judgment of the credibility we assign to those claiming to have the power and authority from God to dictate to us the terms of our salvation, by representing God for us on earth in matters of belief, obedience, etc.
If the prophets, seers, and revelators have no credibility then you should not believe them.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen