Category Archives: Science

Bill Lockwood: Foundation of True Science 0 (0)

by Bill Lockwood

Christians need to recognize the foundational importance of the Bible’s doctrine of Creation.  It is not a periphery issue, but is in reality the basis of the Bible as well as true science as well.  How is the case that the Bible’s doctrine of creation is the foundation of true science?

First, scientific investigation is based upon the concept of rationality.  Rationality is simply drawing the conclusions as warranted by the evidence.  That is, the law of correct thinking.  But what is “correct thinking” if atheism and its doctrine of spontaneous generation is true?  If reason is just a physical sensation … there is no reason for the atheist or evolutionist to say that he is using his mind and the theist is not.  Matter in motion would have produced in the atheist his atheistic arguments and matter in motion would have produced in the theist his faith in theism.  There is no reason why one should be accepted as the true insight into reality over the other.  Atheism or evolutionism gives us no confidence that it could possibly be the true insight into reality.

Second, scientists admit that the foundations of true science are found in a Christian world-view. Stanley Beck, an evolutionist writing in Bioscience (1982), confessed that the basic premises of science find their foundation or origin in Christian theology.  That is to say, that since the world was created by a divine Creator and man was created in God’s image, therefore nature makes orderly sense, man is able to decipher its operations, and true science becomes possible.  If the world, on the other hand, was a mere product of jumbled masses of atoms and our brains were nothing more than jumbles of matter and electrical impulses, science itself becomes nonsense.

Third, some evolutionists confess that given evolution (as opposed to Creation), man has no free moral choice.  William Provine, who died in 2015, was a professor in the Department of ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the distinguished Cornell University, lectured at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1998. His remarks included the following: “Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) No life after death exists; 3) No ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) No ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) Human free will is non-existent.” Provine spent the balance of his time discussing “free will” because he noted “the first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them.”

Provine was exactly right, given his naturalistic premises. There would be no such thing as free will if the general theory of evolution is true. These considerations alone ought cause professors of science today to rethink commitment to the ungodly doctrine of evolution. Creation gives man his only basis for True Science. 

Ryan T. Anderson: Transgender Ideology Is Riddled With Contradictions. Here Are the Big Ones. 0 (0)

by Ryan T. Anderson Ph.D.

People say that we live in a postmodern age that has rejected metaphysics. That’s not quite true.

We live in a postmodern age that promotes an alternative metaphysics. As I explain in “When Harry Became Sally,” at the heart of the transgender moment are radical ideas about the human person—in particular, that people are what they claim to be, regardless of contrary evidence. A transgender boy is a boy, not merely a girl who identifies as a boy.

It’s understandable why activists make these claims. An argument about transgender identities will be much more persuasive if it concerns who someone is, not merely how someone identifies. And so the rhetoric of the transgender moment drips with ontological assertions: People are the gender they prefer to be. That’s the claim.

Transgender activists don’t admit that this is a metaphysical claim. They don’t want to have the debate on the level of philosophy, so they dress it up as a scientific and medical claim. And they’ve co-opted many professional associations for their cause.

Thus the American Psychological Association, in a pamphlet titled “Answers to Your Questions about Transgender People, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression,” tells us, “Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.”

Notice the politicized language: A person’s sex is “assigned at birth.” Back in 2005, even the Human Rights Campaign referred instead to “birth sex” and “physical sex.”

The phrase “sex assigned at birth” is now favored because it makes room for “gender identity” as the real basis of a person’s sex.

In an expert declaration to a federal district court in North Carolina concerning H.B. 2, Dr. Deanna Adkins stated, “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.” Adkins is a professor at Duke University School of Medicine and the director of the Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care (which opened in 2015).

Adkins argues that gender identity is not only the preferred basis for determining sex, but “the only medically supported determinant of sex.” Every other method is bad science, she claims: “It is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female.”

This is a remarkable claim, not least because the argument recently was that gender is only a social construct, while sex is a biological reality. Now, activists claim that gender identity is destiny, while biological sex is the social construct.

Adkins doesn’t say if she would apply this rule to all mammalian species. But why should sex be determined differently in humans than in other mammals? And if medical science holds that gender identity determines sex in humans, what does this mean for the use of medicinal agents that have different effects on males and females? Does the proper dosage of medicine depend on the patient’s sex or gender identity?

But what exactly is this “gender identity” that is supposed to be the true medical determinant of sex? Adkins defines it as “a person’s inner sense of belonging to a particular gender, such as male or female.”

Note that little phrase “such as,” implying that the options are not necessarily limited to male or female. Other activists are more forthcoming in admitting that gender identity need not be restricted to the binary choice of male or female, but can include both or neither. The American Psychological Association, for example, defines “gender identity” as “a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or something else.”

Adkins asserts that being transgender is not a mental disorder, but simply “a normal developmental variation.” And she claims, further, that medical and mental health professionals who specialize in the treatment of gender dysphoria are in agreement with this view.

Transgender Catechism

These notions about sex and gender are now being taught to young children. Activists have created child-friendly graphics for this purpose, such as the “Genderbread Person Graph.” The Genderbread Person teaches that when it comes to sexuality and gender, people have five different characteristics, each of them falling along a spectrum.

There’s “gender identity,” which is “how you, in your head, define your gender, based on how much you align (or don’t align) with what you understand to be the options for gender.” The graphic lists “4 (of infinite)” possibilities for gender identity: “woman-ness,” “man-ness,” “two-spirit,” or “genderqueer.”

The second characteristic is “gender expression,” which is “the way you present gender, through your actions, dress, and demeanor.” In addition to “feminine” or “masculine,” the options are “butch,” “femme,” “androgynous,” or “gender neutral.”

Third is “biological sex,” defined as “the physical sex characteristics you’re born with and develop, including genitalia, body shape, voice pitch, body hair, hormones, chromosomes, etc.”

The final two characteristics concern sexual orientation: “sexually attracted to” and “romantically attracted to.” The options include “Women/Females/Femininity” and “Men/Males/Masculinity.” Which seems rather binary.

The Genderbread Person tries to localize these five characteristics on the body: gender identity in the brain, sexual and romantic attraction in the heart, biological sex in the pelvis, and gender expression everywhere.

The Genderbread Person presented here is version 3.3, incorporating adjustments made in response to criticism of earlier versions. But even this one violates current dogma. Some activists have complained that the Genderbread Person looks overly male.

A more serious fault in the eyes of many activists is the use of the term “biological sex.” Time magazine drew criticism for the same transgression in 2014 after publishing a profile of Laverne Cox, the “first out trans person” to be featured on the cover.

At least the folks at Time got credit for trying to be “good allies, explaining what many see as a complicated issue,” wrote Mey Rude in an article titled “It’s Time for People to Stop Using the Social Construct of ‘Biological Sex’ to Defend Their Transmisogyny.” (It’s hard to keep up with the transgender moment.)

But Time was judged guilty of using “a simplistic and outdated understanding of biology to perpetuate some very dangerous ideas about trans women,” and failing to acknowledge that biological sex “isn’t something we’re actually born with, it’s something that doctors or our parents assign us at birth.”

Today, transgender “allies” in good standing don’t use the Genderbread Person in their classrooms, but opt for the “Gender Unicorn Graph,” which was created by Trans Student Educational Resources. It has a body shape that doesn’t appear either male or female, and instead of a “biological sex” it has a “sex assigned at birth.”

Those are the significant changes to the Genderbread Person, and they were made so that the new graphic would “more accurately portray the distinction between gender, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality.”

According to Trans Student Education Resources, “Biological sex is an ambiguous word that has no scale and no meaning besides that it is related to some sex characteristics. It is also harmful to trans people. Instead, we prefer ‘sex assigned at birth’ which provides a more accurate description of what biological sex may be trying to communicate.”

The Gender Unicorn is the graphic that children are likely to encounter in school. These are the dogmas they are likely to be catechized to profess.

While activists claim that the possibilities for gender identity are rather expansive—man, woman, both, neither—they also insist that gender identity is innate, or established at a very young age, and thereafter immutable.

Dr. George Brown, a professor of psychiatry and a three-time board member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, stated in his declaration to the federal court in North Carolina that gender identity “is usually established early in life, by the age of 2 to 3 years old.”

Addressing the same court, Adkins asserted that “evidence strongly suggests that gender identity is innate or fixed at a young age and that gender identity has a strong biological basis.” (At no point in her expert declaration did she cite any sources for any of her claims.)

Transgender Contradictions

If the claims presented in this essay strike you as confusing, you’re not alone. The thinking of transgender activists is inherently confused and filled with internal contradictions. Activists never acknowledge those contradictions. Instead, they opportunistically rely on whichever claim is useful at any given moment.

Here I’m talking about transgender activists. Most people who suffer from gender dysphoria are not activists, and many of them reject the activists’ claims. Many of them may be regarded as victims of the activists, as I show in my book.

Many of those who feel distress over their bodily sex know that they aren’t really the opposite sex, and do not wish to “transition.” They wish to receive help in coming to identify with and accept their bodily self. They don’t think their feelings of gender dysphoria define reality.

But transgender activists do. Regardless of whether they identify as “cisgender” or “transgender,” the activists promote a highly subjective and incoherent worldview.

On the one hand, they claim that the real self is something other than the physical body, in a new form of Gnostic dualism, yet at the same time they embrace a materialist philosophy in which only the material world exists. They say that gender is purely a social construct, while asserting that a person can be “trapped” in the wrong gender.

They say there are no meaningful differences between man and woman, yet they rely on rigid sex stereotypes to argue that “gender identity” is real, while human embodiment is not. They claim that truth is whatever a person says it is, yet they believe there’s a real self to be discovered inside that person.

They promote a radical expressive individualism in which people are free to do whatever they want and define the truth however they wish, yet they try ruthlessly to enforce acceptance of transgender ideology.

It’s hard to see how these contradictory positions can be combined. If you pull too hard on any one thread of transgender ideology, the whole tapestry comes unraveled. But here are some questions we can pose:

If gender is a social construct, how can gender identity be innate and immutable? How can one’s identity with respect to a social construct be determined by biology in the womb? How can one’s identity be unchangeable (immutable) with respect to an ever-changing social construct? And if gender identity is innate, how can it be “fluid”?

The challenge for activists is to offer a plausible definition of gender and gender identity that is independent of bodily sex.

Is there a gender binary or not? Somehow, it both does and does not exist, according to transgender activists. If the categories of “man” and “woman” are objective enough that people can identify as, and bemen and women, how can gender also be a spectrum, where people can identify as, and be, both, or neither, or somewhere in between?

What does it even mean to have an internal sense of gender? What does gender feel like? What meaning can we give to the concept of sex or gender—and thus what internal “sense” can we have of gender—apart from having a body of a particular sex?

Apart from having a male body, what does it “feel like” to be a man? Apart from having a female body, what does it “feel like” to be a woman? What does it feel like to be both a man and a woman, or to be neither?

The challenge for the transgender activist is to explain what these feelings are like, and how someone could know if he or she “feels like” the opposite sex, or neither, or both.

Even if trans activists could answer these questions about feelings, that still wouldn’t address the matter of reality. Why should feeling like a man—whatever that means—make someone a man? Why do our feelings determine reality on the question of sex, but on little else? Our feelings don’t determine our age or our height. And few people buy into Rachel Dolezal’s claim to identify as a black woman, since she is clearly not.

If those who identify as transgender are the sex with which they identify, why doesn’t that apply to other attributes or categories of being? What about people who identify as animals, or able-bodied people who identify as disabled? Do all of these self-professed identities determine reality? If not, why not?

And should these people receive medical treatment to transform their bodies to accord with their minds? Why accept transgender “reality,” but not trans-racial, trans-species, and trans-abled reality?

The challenge for activists is to explain why a person’s “real” sex is determined by an inner “gender identity,” but age and height and race and species are not determined by an inner sense of identity.

Of course, a transgender activist could reply that an “identity” is, by definition, just an inner sense of self. But if that’s the case, gender identity is merely a disclosure of how one feels. Saying that someone is transgender, then, says only that the person has feelings that he or she is the opposite sex.

Gender identity, so understood, has no bearing at all on the meaning of “sex” or anything else. But transgender activists claim that a person’s self-professed “gender identity” is that person’s “sex.”

The challenge for activists is to explain why the mere feeling of being male or female (or both or neither) makes someone male or female (or both or neither).

Gender identity can sound a lot like religious identity, which is determined by beliefs. But those beliefs don’t determine reality. Someone who identifies as a Christian believes that Jesus is the Christ. Someone who identifies as a Muslim believes that Muhammad is the final prophet. But Jesus either is or is not the Christ, and Muhammad either is or is not the final prophet, regardless of what anyone happens to believe.

So, too, a person either is or is not a man, regardless of what anyone—including that person—happens to believe. The challenge for transgender activists is to present an argument for why transgender beliefs determine reality.

Determining reality is the heart of the matter, and here too we find contradictions.

On the one hand, transgender activists want the authority of science as they make metaphysical claims, saying that science reveals gender identity to be innate and unchanging. On the other hand, they deny that biology is destiny, insisting that people are free to be who they want to be.

Which is it? Is our gender identity biologically determined and immutable, or self-created and changeable? If the former, how do we account for people whose gender identity changes over time? Do these people have the wrong sense of gender at some time or other?

And if gender identity is self-created, why must other people accept it as reality? If we should be free to choose our own gender reality, why can some people impose their idea of reality on others just because they identify as transgender?

The challenge for the transgender activist is to articulate some conception of truth as the basis for how we understand the common good and how society should be ordered.

As I document in depth in “When Harry Became Sally,” the claims of transgender activists are confusing because they are philosophically incoherent. Activists rely on contradictory claims as needed to advance their position, but their ideology keeps evolving, so that even allies and LGBT organizations can get left behind as “progress” marches on.

At the core of the ideology is the radical claim that feelings determine reality. From this idea come extreme demands for society to play along with subjective reality claims. Trans ideologues ignore contrary evidence and competing interests, they disparage alternative practices, and they aim to muffle skeptical voices and shut down any disagreement.

The movement has to keep patching and shoring up its beliefs, policing the faithful, coercing the heretics, and punishing apostates, because as soon as its furious efforts flag for a moment or someone successfully stands up to it, the whole charade is exposed. That’s what happens when your dogmas are so contrary to obvious, basic, everyday truths.

A transgender future is not the “right side of history,” yet activists have convinced the most powerful sectors of our society to acquiesce to their demands. While the claims they make are manifestly false, it will take real work to prevent the spread of these harmful ideas.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

THF: https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/transgender-ideology-riddled-contradictions-here-are-the-big-ones


Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, where he researches and writes about marriage, bioethics, religious liberty and political philosophy. Anderson is the author of several books and his research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices in two separate cases. Read his Heritage research.

Scientific Socialism 0 (0)

Scientific Socialism “This labeling became a weapon.

by Bill Lockwood

One of the lesser remembered items regarding communism is that Karl Marx, the founder of modern forms of communism, dubbed it Scientific Socialism. Marxism, as a philosophy, was claimed by Marx to be “scientific.” This label was habitually used by him “to distinguish himself from his many enemies. He and his work were ‘scientific,’ they were not” (Paul Johnson, Intellectuals). This labeling became a weapon. With the seeming onslaught of socialism engulfing America today, we would do well to learn the lesson of “labeling.”

Karl Marx

First, by expressing his theory as “scientific socialism” Marx was expressing his kinship with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. “He felt he had found a scientific explanation of human behavior in history akin to Darwin’s theory of evolution.” However, just as today, Darwin’s theory was the unprovable thesis that began on the assumed premise that the explanation of the world had nothing to do with God. Communism begins and ends with atheism. This goes a long way in explaining how American culture has changed into an irreligious one.

After reading Darwin’s Origin of the Species, Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels. “Although developed in a coarse English manner, this is the book that contains the foundation in natural history for our view” (Quoted by Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler, Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany).

As pointed out by Weikart, “many pacifists, feminists, birth control advocates, and homosexual rights activists … were enthusiastic Darwinists and used Darwinian arguments to support their political and social agenda.” Darwinism, like Marxism, is an entire worldview. As German biologist Arnold Dodel stated in in 1904, Darwinism is a “new worldview” which actually “rests on the theory of evolution. On it we have to construct a new ethics … All values will be revalued.”

Magnetic Pull

Second, to label Marxism “science” exerted a “magnetic pull” on the intellectual class of the United States which had already rejected a God-centered worldview. Many Americans, from the Civil War period forward, adopted a materialistic view of the world. This included President Woodrow Wilson, who was himself a “historical materialist.” This notion basically states that material conditions alone determine the course of history. Man’s spiritual nature is excluded from consideration. This concept appealed to elitists such as Wilson who was bred in the halls of higher education. It appealed to their vanity.

As a matter of fact, Darwin’s theory of evolution was and is at the bottom of the entire “progressive” movement—which is nothing less than socialism. This doctrine of “historicism,” Wilson’s faith, is described as the evolutionary theory applied to history and politics (Ronald J. Pestritto, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism). This, in turn, was rooted in Hegel’s philosophy; precisely the scholastic who influenced Karl Marx. There is little difference between Marx’s dialectic, which he borrowed from Hegel while emphasizing that economic conditions of men determine the course of man’s development and Wilson’s historicism, which posited that history must run a predetermined materialistic course and one cannot transcend one’s historical environment (Pestritto). For Marx, all of reality was framed in “economics”; for Wilson, all of reality was framed in the historical time-frame from which one could not escape.

All of this is simply materialism—there is no reality beyond the material world—but labeling it “scientific” gave it an air of snobbish superiority. After all, once one sides with the “infallibility” of “science,” the “theories” spawned in those halls are beyond review by the rest of us ordinaries.

Ironically, Marx was anything but a scientist. He not only was temperamentally unfit to be a scientist, for there was nothing scientific about him, but in a “deeper sense he was not really a scholar at all.” Marx was not interested in finding truth, but merely in proclaiming theories whether they squared with reality or not (Johnson, 54).

Marx, along with his fellow communists, were only interested in devising weapons for building a totalitarian dictatorship and for “fomenting unrest and ill will between man and man everywhere in the world.” And wherever class warfare rages there is the hobgoblin of communism—scientific socialism.

Free Thinkers or Christians: Who are the Real “Idol Worshippers?” 0 (0)

Free Thinkers or Christians: Who are the Real “Idol Worshippers?”

by Bill Lockwood

According to Greg M. Epstein, humanist “chaplain” at Harvard University, those who believe in God worship idols. At least, this is the essence of his position. This must be the case since Epstein says that “belief in God is … a by-product—of two of the most important architectural features of our minds: archways of our brains that produce the spandrel of faith–what cognitive scientists call ‘causal reasoning’ and ‘theory of the mind.’” In other words, God is merely the product of our imagination.

This is consistently the atheist position. Humanist Manifesto II asserted that modern science “affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces” and that the “total personality is a function of biological organism.” The reason, per Secular Humanism, that “no deity will save us” is because there is no deity. And since idolatry is “to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25)—that which man has created—Christians must be the idol-worshippers for having “created” God in our minds! Thomas Altizer of Emory University popularized the “God is Dead” “theology” in the 1960’s in which he asserted the same in so many words. To Altizer all religion was the by-product of man’s imagination which was is nothing less than humanity “grasping for power.” Idolatry.

Richard Dawkins, who has sensationalized the theory of evolution, tries to get more creatively sophisticated with the entire scenario. Still committed to the belief that religion itself is the creation of the human mind, Dawkins suggests that “religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate by-product of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful” (The God Delusion). This would be, he proposes, like the analogue of steering by the light of the moon for a moth, which produces slavish gullibility. “Religion can be seen,” he concludes, “as a by-product of the misfiring of several of these modules …” of the brain, “equivalent of the moths’ celestial navigation, vulnerable to misfiring in the same kind of way …” (209).

Religion: A Creation of Man?

All of the above proposals are merely variations of the same concept: that religion and belief in God is the product of mechanical pressures in our minds. Two things must here be noted.

First, if all thought, including religious belief, is nothing more than matter in motion–mere mechanical functions– there can be no blame for any product of the mind. If “nature” is all there is, as Humanists maintain, then the thought processes of my brain are merely the haphazard product of purposeless impulses. What is blameworthy about any conclusion that it draws? Thinking itself would be the result of random energy. Dawkins may call it a “misfiring” of brain modules, but who is to be blamed for physical malfunction? There can be no responsibility where there is no free will. Yet, secular humanists refer to themselves as “free-thinkers!” They themselves are not even “free vibrators” if their position is right!

Is Dawkins controlling the “firing mechanisms” in his brain and I am not? This position empties itself of any possibility of value judgment. And how is “misfiring” of brain modules to be remedied? A good clunk on the head? Perhaps placing of chemicals into the cerebral system. An electric shock? Isn’t it strange how evolutionists from Epstein to Dawkins and beyond write books as if to educate and inform the mind while all the while insisting that beliefs are the result of physical electrical impulses of random energy.

Second, if, as the Humanist Manifesto II states, “the total personality is a function of the biological organism,” this must include any product that flows from my mind, including Secular Humanism itself! Upon what basis would “belief in God” be labeled as “idolatry” while atheism is proclaimed logical? Both positions are the result of random vibrations. Perhaps it is the Humanists and evolutionists who need a jolt or two of electricity. Or, in Dawkins’ terms, who is to say that religion and belief in God is not the proper firing of brain modules in the brain and evolution is the misfire? Interesting it is that humanists can never seem to apply with equal force criticisms against their own position. How can they level the charge of “idolatry” against anyone?

Idolatry is the worship of one’s own creation, yet if humanism be true, humanism itself is the creation of mankind. Or, in the words of Greg Epstein, “belief in Secular Humanism is the by-product of two of the most important architectural features of our minds: archways of our brains that produce the spandrel of faith—what cognitive scientists call ‘causal reasoning’ and ‘theory of the mind.’” Secular Humanism thus becomes idolatry.

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Man the Supreme Jerk 0 (0)

Man the Supreme Jerk

by Bill Lockwood

Some have thought it an insult to be called a “jerk.” And yet, there are philosophers who pride themselves on their naturalistic philosophy of life which makes all of us “jerks.” Man’s body is jerked through space by forces operating upon matter. His thinking consists of twitches of the nerves, a jerking in the brain. Naturalism pronounces the very verdict, on its adherents, at which we had arrived, i.e. that the naturalists are nothing but a bunch of irresponsible jerks.

If one doubts this verdict, listen to Delos McKown, one-time head of the philosophy department at Auburn University. This is from his book Myth-Maker’s Magic, p. 31. “Moreover, the more we understand our brains by ‘chemicalizing’ their functions, the more the person is ‘biologized,’ and the greater our success in mapping the human genome, with its myriad markers of predilection and vulnerability, the more difficult it will be to see human beings as a little lower than the angels. A little higher than the animals, but of their kind, is more like it!

Furthermore, some studies in neurophysiology indicate that our brains select among alternatives before delivering to consciousness intuitions of choice. If so, what of the vaunted ‘free will’ upon which so much of western religion, morality, and jurisprudence is based? With notions of deity held hostage to cosmology, with the alleged spark of divinity in us deeply doubted, and with free will at risk, what stock can be placed on intimations of immortality? Precious little, if any, it would seem.”

Of the many things that could be said about the above representative statement from a major university philosophical department, consider the following facts he says he believes: Man is nothing more than an animal. A “higher kind” they would say, but upon what basis will that determination be made? With these types of devaluing assessments, little wonder that so many young people at the university are confused. The Mind of Man is nothing more than “chemical” fluids acting by “physical” stimuli.

Is it not amazing that, in an apparent effort to reject a God-centered worldview, supposedly brilliant professors offer a position that completely undermines everything, including its own position? If this is the truth regarding thought and the mind of men, then “thought itself” is no different the salivation of a dog. It is solely the result of physical and chemical stimuli. To change one’s opinion, therefore, just physically bang that person on the head. Once again, man, the supreme jerk. Man has No Free Will if McKown is correct. The power of intelligent choice completely evaporates when one strives to eliminate God from his or her thinking. But anything that undermines everything has undermined itself.

Thankfully, the philosopher has it wrong. Man is not merely a “supreme jerk.” David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, praised God in Psalm 139, “For you [God] formed my inward parts.” “Inward parts” is translated in the KJV as “reins” but the idea is the “seat of feeling”—or moral sensitivity. Continuing, David writes, “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb, I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” How much more dignity has man when considered in light of his Maker’s revelation than viewed through the philosopher’s stone!

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Homosexuality is Not Genetic 0 (0)

Homosexuality is Not Genetic

by Bill Lockwood

There is no “gay gene.” As much as the anti-religious crowd dislikes that fact and in spite of the cultural pressure to discover some biological factor that is responsible for homosexual behavior, no “gay gene” has been found. At a recent 2015 meeting of the American Society of Genetics scientists presented their “gene-based algorithm” which supposedly could predict male homosexuality with 70 percent accuracy.

But as Yasmin Tayag observes in an article entitled, How to Talk about the “Gay Gene” Without Being Homophobic or Wrong, Step one: Don’t Call it a “Gay Gene,” “The scientists from UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine discovered that methylation, a form of DNA modification, in certain regions of the genome differed between homosexual and heterosexual identical twin brothers. What they did not find were the elusive ‘gay genes.’”

But Tayag’s headline says it all, doesn’t it? We need to learn “how to talk” about it. No science. No biological fact. Certainly, no Bible. Just cultural instructions on how to address the issue. This reaches back to the restructuring of our language two decades ago when “sexual preference” was politically replaced by “sexual orientation.” The homosexual agenda works off of a high pressure belief-system which molds our anti-God culture from education to entertainment to politics by making it socially incorrect to suggest that homosexuality is a choice that people make. Science comes later, if at all.

Isn’t this exactly how liberalism works? Political pressure for society to conform to its worldview—worry about facts later. Charles Darwin floated the theory of evolution and suggested that science would discover evidence for change in the rocks as time moved forward. “Discovery” mattered little. What was important was that the doctrinaire was altered and it became “out-of-touch” to express an objecting opinion. See also how human-caused Climate Change deniers are being persecuted for being suspicious of political mandates that “the science is in!”

Back to supposed Gene-caused homosexuality.

From the radical left UK blog called The Guardian this recent observation was written by Simon Copland (7-10-15):  “This is the major problem that advocates of a gay gene face. Our sexual desires and ideals change based on our society at any given time. Do proponents of the gay gene believe that those in Ancient Greece … had a greater prevalence of a gay gene than we do today? Do our perceptions of female beauty change over the times because of shifts in the genes of straight men?” “Of course this still doesn’t answer the question of where our sexuality comes from.

When faced with this criticism, proponents of the gay gene ask the question, ‘Why would people choose to be gay in a world where homosexuality is so persecuted?’ We live in a society where non-heterosexual sex is still highly discriminated against, so why are there homosexuals in this world?” Homosexuality is a choice. Further, where in America are homosexuals jailed for their “choice to be gay?” Seems like County Clerks are jailed for Christian beliefs and the military is cracking down on Christian views—certainly not homosexual ones.

Copland, in answer to where sexuality “comes from,” offers: “The answer is complex, and we don’t really know all the factors involved. But look at the current research and you can see that social conditions still play a major role.” I would say “the decisive role” is more like it. Then follows this from Copland, For example, whilst almost all of the focus of research into the gay gene has focused on gay men, research into female sexual desires has continued as well.

In 2006 for example,  HYPERLINK “http://www.csw.ucla.edu/publications/newsletters/academic-year-2006-07/article-pdfs/Dec06_Garnets_Peplau.pdf” Linda Garnets and Anne Peplau presented research they described as a “paradigm shift” into female sexuality. Their research found that women’s sexual orientation is potentially fluid, shaped by life experiences and can change over the course of a life span. Of particular importance they found that female sexual orientation is “shaped by such social and cultural factors as women’s education, social status and power, economic opportunities, and attitudes about women’s roles.”

This pro-homosexual outlet says that sexual “orientation” is due to “attitudes” and “social and cultural factors.” Copland concludes, Where does this leave us? Clearly we do not know how sexuality is created and why some people end up with different sexual desires than others. But if we look at our history it is clear that it is not due to some inherent genetic marker.  HYPERLINK “http://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2014/opinion/an-evolutionary-view-of-gay-genes”

Jenny Graves at La Trobe University in Australia suggests that what is likely is that both men and women will inherit genetic variants leading to them being “somewhere between very male-loving and very female-loving”. Or, as I would describe it, we have human-loving genes. Homosexuality therefore is not due to genes, but develops, as  HYPERLINK “http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/apr/22/julie-bindel-i-m-a-lesbian-but-i-wasnt-born-this-way-video” Julie Bindel says, due to “a mix of opportunity, luck, chance, and, quite frankly, bravery.” (emp. added)

As The Guardian put it, “People have searched for centuries to find biological reasons for sexual desires. But what if it all comes down to choice?” Good question. The ramifications of homosexuality being a “choice” are gigantic. From the Supreme Court and flowing through our collegiate classrooms and entertainment industry, America itself has re-structured marriage and therefore our entire society to conform to demands of the homosexual doctrine. But the few pulpits that have remained undaunted by a hedonistic civilization and continue to announce that homosexuality is sinful — and therefore is oriented to choices we make and NOT biology — are nearer the truth than anointed cultural leaders.

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