gender an eternal concept and reality?

[_Sethbag]

Not according to this article which mentions that sex chromosomes that lead to differentiation between male and female in the sorts of animals we eventually derived from actually evolved 145 or so million years ago.

Once again, the way the world actually appears to be contradicts Joseph Smith's "male/female mammal god throughout all eternity" worldview.

One of the things that most convinces me that the LDS church is manmade, and its doctrines likewise inventions of man, are the oh so many ways in which the worldview of Mormonism, or the worldview that Mormonism started out with, having to do with this Earth, its origin, natural history, the genesis of our species, how long our species has been around, the peopling of the various continents, and on and on, all seem to be contradicted as evidence has come about as to how things really were/are.

Mormonism's modern day prophets, and the prophets of the Bible whom Mormonism usurps as their own Ur-Mormons, don't seem to have gotten anything right at all.

Mormonism's story simply describes a fantasy world that doesn't, and never did, exist, while the real world tells a different story.

"Line upon line", or they were just making it up as they went along? You decide, but I think it's pretty obvious.


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[_bcspace]

Not according to this article which mentions that sex chromosomes that lead to differentiation between male and female in the sorts of animals we eventually derived from actually evolved 145 or so million years ago.

Once again, the way the world actually appears to be contradicts Joseph Smith's "male/female mammal god throughout all eternity" worldview.

If God uses evolution to get to homo sapiens, how is this a problem for the notion of pre-existing male and female spirits? All that has to happen is to get the right spirit into the right body. Of course God does give us weakness as the scriptures say from time to time......

[_Sethbag]

You're making excuses again.

[_Danna]

I have never heard a christian apologist explain why there are human chimeras, especially male/female chimeras. What sex is a human male/female chimera.

Here is a brief overview:

What happened to Jane is a much rarer. Rather than a simple exchange of blood, she and her fraternal twin merged in utero, leaving only one fetus. The cells in her body are a mosaic of genes from both of the original embryos. The cheek cells from which the genetic testing was done were from one of those embryos, but at least some of the cells in her ovaries came from the other.
...
Many human chimeras show no overt signs of their condition. Others have more obvious physical findings. Doctors at the University of Edinburgh in 1998 had a patient referred to them for an undescended left testicle. However, when they examined him they could not find a second testicle. Instead they found something quite unexpected, an ovary and a fallopian tube. Their patient was a chimera formed from the fusion of male and female embryos. While this is a dramatic finding, most chimeras show more subtle signs, such as mismatched eyes, or parti-colored hair.

And as twins become more common, we will get more chimeras in the future. Not only from IVF, but as twinning becomes more surviveable, natural rates will increase as well. I have not seen figures for human chimeras, but if 8% of fraternal twins are blood chimeras, it may be a lot more common than we realise to get embryos fusing. It is only where a chimera has mixed sex organs (i.e. ovaries and a penis) that it really gets noticed. For all we know Thomas Monson could be a male/female mix.

A person with both male and female sex organs is in an obviously confusing position. In many cases it can be due to developmental conditions, and the person's DNA is either XX or XY. But a chimera is BOTH XX in some places and XY in others.

What gender is a chimera's 'spirit'? Organs themselves can be a mosaic of DNA types. So it is not possible to say that the brain determines 'actual' sex.

And where the brain itself is a mosaic of two different DNAs (even XX and XY), the original source would have been two separate embyros. After combination both donors are contributing to the personality, a 'thought' could involve interaction between neurons from both donors. What does this say about sex, gender, the spirit, and 'unsoulment'?

What is the status of a chimera with a genetically male brain (XY), but the body and reproductive organs of a genetic woman (XX)? And yes, this really happens.

So, come the millennium, if you were presiding over the priesthood panel delegated to 'sort out' a chimera with a mosaic brain and sex organs, what would you do?

[_bcspace]

You're making excuses again.

You're not understanding LDS doctrine and/or science again.

[_squawkeye]

Boy Seth you are really going to look dumb and eat your words when the US puts a colony on the moon and find a bunch of folk already there about 6 feet tall and dressing like Quakers. Just wait and see!

[_bcspace]

Boy Seth you are really going to look dumb and eat your words when the US puts a colony on the moon and find a bunch of folk already there about 6 feet tall and dressing like Quakers. Just wait and see!

I think it more likely they'll find statues of Oliver B. Huntington and Philo Dibble with inscribed messages about the dangers of believing third and forth hand accounts.

[_Seven]

I have never heard a christian apologist explain why there are human chimeras, especially male/female chimeras. What sex is a human male/female chimera.

Here is a brief overview:

What happened to Jane is a much rarer. Rather than a simple exchange of blood, she and her fraternal twin merged in utero, leaving only one fetus. The cells in her body are a mosaic of genes from both of the original embryos. The cheek cells from which the genetic testing was done were from one of those embryos, but at least some of the cells in her ovaries came from the other.
...
Many human chimeras show no overt signs of their condition. Others have more obvious physical findings. Doctors at the University of Edinburgh in 1998 had a patient referred to them for an undescended left testicle. However, when they examined him they could not find a second testicle. Instead they found something quite unexpected, an ovary and a fallopian tube. Their patient was a chimera formed from the fusion of male and female embryos. While this is a dramatic finding, most chimeras show more subtle signs, such as mismatched eyes, or parti-colored hair.

And as twins become more common, we will get more chimeras in the future. Not only from IVF, but as twinning becomes more surviveable, natural rates will increase as well. I have not seen figures for human chimeras, but if 8% of fraternal twins are blood chimeras, it may be a lot more common than we realise to get embryos fusing. It is only where a chimera has mixed sex organs (i.e. ovaries and a penis) that it really gets noticed. For all we know Thomas Monson could be a male/female mix.

A person with both male and female sex organs is in an obviously confusing position. In many cases it can be due to developmental conditions, and the person's DNA is either XX or XY. But a chimera is BOTH XX in some places and XY in others.

What gender is a chimera's 'spirit'? Organs themselves can be a mosaic of DNA types. So it is not possible to say that the brain determines 'actual' sex.

And where the brain itself is a mosaic of two different DNAs (even XX and XY), the original source would have been two separate embyros. After combination both donors are contributing to the personality, a 'thought' could involve interaction between neurons from both donors. What does this say about sex, gender, the spirit, and 'unsoulment'?

What is the status of a chimera with a genetically male brain (XY), but the body and reproductive organs of a genetic woman (XX)? And yes, this really happens.

So, come the millennium, if you were presiding over the priesthood panel delegated to 'sort out' a chimera with a mosaic brain and sex organs, what would you do?

Great post Danna. It was the study of this issue that troubled me as a TBM on the pre existence/gender doctrine. People with this condition do not feel they have a male or female spirit trapped inside. They feel that they are both.

The gender issue is so important to Mormons for eternal procreation but how are men going to have sex & spread their seed without blood in their resurrected bodies?
I think these Priesthood holders are going to be disappointed at Celestial baby making. Look at what we can already do here on earth with IVF!

[_Sethbag]

Boy Seth you are really going to look dumb and eat your words when the US puts a colony on the moon and find a bunch of folk already there about 6 feet tall and dressing like Quakers. Just wait and see!

[_Jason Bourne]

In spite of BCs posturing, the idea of evolution, at least as far as how man was created, causes great problems for LDS and Christian doctrine as well. Fundamental to the need to a savior and atonement is Adam's fall. If Adam was not real then I do think there are problems for the rest of the plan of salvation.

Of course God could have created some lower species of sub human for whatever purposes outside of the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve could still have been created as the first intelligent man and woman. But even so, doesn't DNA and studies of Modern man show we came out of Africa about 250,000 years ago? How does that reconcile to Adam and Even and a fall of man?

Personally this is one of the most troublesome issues regarding my own faith and beliefs.