Beware the Promises of Contemporary Gods
What the "science" of transgenderism produces is nothing more than radicalized cosplay.
It has taken a long time, but for many people, “science” has become both a religion and a god.
I think the ultimate example is the current wave of transgenderism.
Yes, there have always been people who believed they were born the wrong biological sex, but society has never sent those people the message that if they just believe hard enough, take enough irreversible drugs and have enough “affirming” surgeries, their dreams can come true.
There are licensed, medically, and scientifically trained psychiatrists and doctors telling people that science can make them whatever they want to be. Surrounding this cadre of scientifically trained professionals are hundreds of thousands of those trained in the soft sciences – psychologists, sociologists, other academic researchers and theoreticians – as well as a vocal movement of laymen including professors, teachers, activists and government officials, counting into the millions.
Of course, there is a biblical reference to the differences in male and female. In the very first book of the Christian bible, in Genesis Chapter 1, verses 26 and 27, it reads (I prefer the language in the King James Version):
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.’”
Doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not, or if you believe the Bible is the Word of God, there it is, the basis of male and female, as it has been for thousands of years – and in the Jewish Talmud for longer than that.
Every civilization had a creation story of how the world was created, and in each one of them there was the creation of human beings in two different forms, male and female. Nature was also similarly structured, with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish in the sea all exhibiting male and female characteristics and natural roles.
Even in Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories, the division between males and females is not considered evolutionary, he considered the existence of two sexes as a given and evolution was driven partly by sexual selection by the two based on a number of factors. He suggested that mating was a function of culture - that woman, and some men, will choose to mate with someone who is most suitable to their culture.
While noting that the evolutionary role of mating is procreation, Darwinism addressed homosexuality in this way (via the 2014 Cambridge Press book, “Sex, Reproduction and Darwinism”):
“…strict homosexuality seems to be rare: it is limited to humans, domesticated sheep and perhaps a few other unconfirmed species. This does not diminish the problem. According to some claims, over 1,500 species of animals exhibit atypical sex practices, such as same-sex mating, which includes full anal penetration in lions, giraffes, bison, and elephants. Gulls form lesbian relationships. Bonobos are a highly bisexual species. And male penguins form long-term homosexual relationships.”
The researchers go on to point out that such relationships do not produce offspring, and as such are a dead end branch on the evolutionary tree.
It must also be noted that the reproductive prerogative assumed in evolutionary theory merges with the biblical admonition in Genesis 1:28 to “…be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…”
It certainly seems that while history and historical science has always recognized that homosexuality is real (the Bible also does, and warns against the practice of it), it establishes such a rare, but naturally occurring, atypical human trait.
But nowhere in history, no branch of science, religion or culture has ever decreed that a man can become a woman or a woman become a man through belief and cosmetic surgery. Only medieval alchemists believed incompatible substances could be changed into gold through some magical process.
Until now.
I believe (without empirical evidence, of course), there are deviant and misanthropic scientific, psychological and political forces, who want to a poke finger the eye of God by proving for once and for all, nature is irrelevant and humans are their own gods - because whatever gods want, gods can create. Lead can be transformed into gold.
Transgenderism is an offshoot of the current cult of transhumanism – a belief that proposes that humans with augmented or altered capabilities will evolve into an enhanced species that transcends humanity – an altered existence called “posthuman.” The transgenderism cultists believe the resolution of gender dysphoria can be found by physically changing the body of a human to comply with their mental conception (or delusion if you prefer).
I don’t discount that there may come a time when alteration will be possible at a chromosomal level, but that day is not today. Today, the promise of “science” simply amounts to radical cosplay that includes cosmetic surgery, and in the case of young children receiving “gender affirming care”, irreversible butchery.
Not to trivialize transgenderism, because I believe it is a real and palpable mental illness, but parachute pants were a fad, a bad fashion idea and so was dressing in deconstructed linen and pastels like Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs – but we outgrew those fads and thank goodness, neither of those affectations were surgically bonded to our bodies.
Transgenderism is a cruel fad that will continue to irreversibility change and unnecessarily destroy the lives of many people, among them are children who lack the maturity to make the decision for themselves.
On point as usual, Mike.
But there is something about that word "science" that is misunderstood and I have got some of this idea from Nassim Taleb's wonderful book, "Antifragile." There is a thing called science and it has its applications. But only certain areas of knowledge are amenable to scientific methodology. Physics is the main one and it may be that all other things affected with that sobriquet are only subdivisions of physics; according the the late Dr. Asimov that certainly includes chemistry (his Ph.D.).
The things called "social sciences" are not sciences at all. They are recorded observations and some inferences which are drawn from them. You cannot apply the scientific method of hypothesis-experiment-conclusion to them.
My point is the pseudo-sciences like astrology, phrenology and psychology are efforts to raise these educated opinions to a level at which they do not, in nature, exist. They are opinions and opinions are not science. It is great deceit to pretend that passing fads like "transgenderism" is defensible in the way that Newton's laws are defensible.
It's theatre. It's a scam. It's another popular delusion, like tulipomania and the Mississippi River fraud.
I prefer the KJV Genesis Chapter 2 version which is not as politically correct as the story I grew up with:
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him,
19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed
I think it better sustains the point you are making.