‘What state is the church in when a Christian college fires a Christian lecturer for defending a Christian understanding of sexuality? This week, news broke of Dr Aaron Edwards, a lecturer at Cliff College, Derbyshire, a Methodist Bible college, who was sacked and even threatened with a counter-terrorism referral for sharing a tweet on human sexuality that went viral. The father of five was told that for sharing the Christian view of sexuality, he had brought “the college into disrepute.” Tim Dieppe is joined by Aaron on this week’s Round the Table, as well as Joe Boot, founder of the Ezra Institute, to discuss how changes in the UK Church’s doctrine on marriage and sexuality is leading to more confusion and cases like this. How are faithful Christians now to respond?’
Sexual Identity
All posts tagged Sexual Identity
‘Explaining the origin of sex is widely recognized as a major dilemma after 150 years of attempts to answer it by some of the world’s leading evolutionists. Since Darwin revolutionized the world with his theory, this “masterpiece of nature” is acknowledged as one of evolutionists’ most difficult evolutionary problems, second only to the origin-of-life problem.[1]
Sexual differences are widespread in animals, but no single rule explains them.
The dominant theory is that asexual reproduction somehow slowly evolved into sexual reproduction. However, the evidence is both overwhelming, and widely recognized even by evolutionists, that evolution by small steps cannot bridge the transition from asexual to sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction cannot occur until both functional and compatible male and female reproductive systems exist. If any part of any component does not exist, reproduction will not occur. Nonetheless, evolutionists continue to look for ways to solve the problem of the origin of sex. One current example is a study by Yadav et al.[2] This study, rather than solve the problem, actually illustrates how difficult it is.
Evolutionists not only readily admit that “eukaryotic sexual reproduction is a mystery,” but also that the “ubiquity of eukaryotic sexual reproduction is a mystery.” In other words, the fact that eukaryotic sexual reproduction exists everywhere in life, from invertebrates to vertebrates, from plants to insects and animals must be explained. Furthermore, a variety of very different types of eukaryotic sexual reproduction systems are observed (see list below). For example, fungi “undergo alternative modes of sexual reproduction (unisexual, pseudosexual, and parasexual) in the laboratory and in nature that share features with alternative sexual processes observed in animals and plants (parthenogenesis, hybridogenesis, gynogenesis, and apomixis).”[3]
Most animals, including humans, after birth live out their entire lives and reproduce as either one sex or the other. With some animals, and many plants, a variety of sex types exist. These will now be briefly described to illustrate the problem this poses for evolution.
The Basic Kinds of Sexual Designs
Unisexual refers to an organism that can reproduce without requiring both male and female gametes. Unisexual plants’ flowers contain either stamens or carpels, but not both. Examples in the plant kingdom include papaya, cucumber, maize, tapioca, pumpkin, musk melon, castor bean, birch, pine (using cones), and watermelon.
Bisexual plant flowers contain both stamens and carpels and require both male and female gametes to reproduce. Common examples include rose, sunflower, hibiscus, lily, and mustard. Attempts to determine patterns related to why some plants can reproduce unisexually, while others require bisexual support, have failed.
Simultaneous hermaphroditism exists in a single organism which has both types of reproductive organs when mature. Consequently, they produce both male and female gametes. In simultaneous hermaphrodites, self-fertilization is possible in some species, but absent in others. Examples include vascular plants, worms, snails, slugs, barnacles, bryozoans (moss), and trematodes (flukes).
Sequential hermaphroditism produces eggs (female gametes) and sperm (male gametes) at different stages in their life. The change from one sex to another is a normal event as part of the organism’s reproductive cycle. The change from male to female is called protandry or protandrous hermaphroditism, and from female to male is called protogyny or protogynous hermaphroditism. Sequential hermaphroditism is actually common in many fish, gastropods, and certain plants.
Bidirectional hermaphrodites possess the capacity for sex change in either direction, male to female and female to male, an alternation potentially repeated several times during the organism’s lifetime.
Pseudosexual includes animals that experience a tertiary physical attraction which mimics sexual attraction but no transfer of gametes occurs. The problem with this behavior is that it does not normally involve successful reproduction.[4]
Parasexual reproduction is a system that results in the recombination of genes from different individuals, but does not involve meiosis nor the formation of a zygote by fertilization as in sexual reproduction. The main examples include fungi and many unicellular organisms.[5]
Parthenogenesis, is a form of reproduction in which an egg develops into an embryo without being fertilized by sperm. It usually results in the development of a female; and very rarely males. Rotifers, along with several insect species, including aphids, bees, wasps, and ants can reproduce by parthenogenesis.
Hybridogenesis, also called sexual parasitism, involves the selective transmission of one of the parental genomes, while the other genome is renewed by mating with the corresponding species. [6]
Gynogenesis is a system of asexual reproduction that requires the presence of sperm but not the contribution of its DNA. The paternal DNA dissolves, or is destroyed by another means, before it can fuse with an egg. The egg cell then is able to develop, unfertilized, into an adult using only maternal DNA. Most gynogenesic animals are fish or amphibians. Why this reproductive mode even exists, given that it combines the disadvantages of both asexual and sexual reproduction, remains another unsolved problem in evolutionary biology.[7]
Androgenesis is the male equivalent of gynogenesis, where the father is the sole contributor of DNA. Thus a zygote is produced with only the paternal nuclear genes.[8]
Apomixis is asexual reproduction in which seeds are produced from unfertilized ovules. Examples include the genera Crataegus (hawthorns), Amelanchier (shadbush), Sorbus (rowans and whitebeams), Rubus (brambles or blackberries), Poa (meadow grasses), Nardus stricta (doormatgrass), Hieracium (hawkweeds) and Taraxacum (dandelions).
Attempts to Explain the Variety of Reproductive Methods Fail
In their PNAS paper (ref. 2), the authors attempt to theorize how and why organisms could have evolved so many different systems for mating-type determination. This, they claim, could advance the understanding of the evolution-of-sex problem itself. Actually, their attempt creates additional major difficulties for understanding the evolution of sex. For example, they write:
the systems by which sex is defined are highly diverse and can even differ between evolutionarily closely related species. While the most commonly known form of sex determination involves males and females in animals, eukaryotic microbes can have as many as thousands of different mating types for the same species. Furthermore,… several examples are also present among vertebrates suggesting that alternative modes of sexual reproduction evolved multiple times throughout evolution.[9]
It is widely recognized that the evolution of sex is an enormous problem: “no other problem has sowed as much confusion” as have attempts to explain the origin of sexual reproduction.[10] As Richard Dawkins asked, “why did sex, that bizarre prevision of straightforward replication, ever arise in the first place? … This is an extremely difficult question for evolutionists to answer” which he admitted he was “going to evade” due to “the difficulty which theorists have with explaining the evolution of sex.”[11] The late Lynn Margulis added in the introduction of her book on sex was so difficult that “becoming sexual [beings] is one [topic] which we will try to steer well clear of throughout this book.”[12]
How Yaiv et al., in their PNAS Article Deal with the Origin of Sex Problem
Yaiv et al. proposed that the variety of sex behaviors they documented did not evolve from some hypothetical original sexual reproduction system, but rather evolved multiple times. They openly stated that “sexual reproduction evolved multiple times throughout evolution.” The problem is, if sex is unlikely to have evolved once, it is far more unlikely to have evolved as many as 12 different times to explain the different sexual systems listed by Yaiv and noted above.
The authors’ phraseology implies that animals can choose their method of reproduction, as if it were a conscious choice made by the organism. They write,
some species have found alternatives to sexual reproduction, and prefer to grow clonally and yet undergo infrequent facultative sexual reproduction. These organisms are mainly invertebrates and microbes.[13]
Summary
Most evolutionists believe that evolution explains the origin of all types of sexual reproduction but struggle to determine when, how, and why sex evolved. The PNAS paper reviewed here is no exception. All past attempts fail, and the paper reviewed here, published in a leading American science journal, is another example of the norm. Now evolutionists have to explain the evolution of over a dozen types of sexual reproduction. But they must admit that sexual reproduction is evolutionarily conserved, meaning that, when examined historically, it has been shown to have not changed.[14] In other words, no evidence exists that any of the sexual systems the authors discussed have evolved. All evolutionists can do is attempt to speculate how one sex system could have evolved into another reproductive method.
References
[1] Trivers, Robert. The evolution of sex: A review of the masterpiece of Nature: The evolution and genetics of sexuality. The Quarterly Review of Biology 58(1):62-67, March 1983.
[2] Yaiv, Vikas, et al. On the evolution of variation in sexual reproduction through the prism of eukaryote microbes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120(10). 3 March 2023; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2219120120.
[3] Yaiv et al., 2023; ref. 2.
[4] Dias, Brian, and David Crews. Regulation of pseudosexual behavior in the parthenogenetic whiptail lizard, Cnemidophorus uniparens. Endocrinology 149(9):4622–4631, September 2008.
[5] Mishra, Abhishek, et al. Parasexuality of Candida species. Frontiers in Cell Infection Microbiology 11:796929; doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2021.796929, 2021.
[6] Lavanchy, Guillaume, and Tanja Schwander.
Hybridogenesis. Current Biology 29(3, 4):539, February 2019.
[7] Schlupp, Ingo. The evolutionary ecology of gynogenesis. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 36:399–417, 2005.
[8] Komma, Donald, and Sharyna Endow. Aploidy and androgenesis in Drosophila. PNAS-Genetics. 92:11884-11888; December 1995.
[9] Yaiv, et al., 2023; ref. 2, italics added.
[10] Bell, Graham. The Masterpiece of Nature: The Evolution and Genetics of Sexuality. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, p. 19, 1982.
[11] Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, p. 46, 1976.
[12]Margulis, Lynn, and Dorion Sagan. Origins of Sex. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, p. 3, 1986.
[13] Yaiv, et al., 2023; ref. 2. Emphasis added.
[14] Yaiv, et al., 2023, p. 1; ref. 2.’https://crev.info/2023/03/evolution-of-sex/
A lesbian mother says she regrets taking steps to transition her four-year-old son. She has since worked to reverse the mistake and said the process has been like “leaving a cult”.
Rose, who wishes to stay anonymous, raised her two sons as gender neutral with her wife, which was reflected in their clothes, toys and language.
When her four-year-old son said he felt like a girl, the mother encouraged him in his new identity – which she has now admitted was a ‘mistake’ that ‘haunts’ her.
Previously she described herself as an activist but now says she is a sceptic. She has written an essay published by Parents With Inconvenient Truth About Trans (PITT) called, “I am no longer a true believer”:
‘This experience for me has felt like leaving a cult, a cult that would have me sacrifice my child to the gods of gender ideology, in the name of social justice and collective liberation. I have left this cult, and I am never turning back.’
When her older son – who had always gravitated more towards women and had an affinity for feminine things – asked if he was a boy or a girl, she told him that he could choose.
She said: ‘I was leading my innocent, sensitive child down a path of lies that were a direct on-ramp to psychological damage and life-long irreversible medical intervention. All in the name of love, acceptance, and liberation.’
Her sons are now eight and nine years of age and live as boys. She had encouraged her eldest son to appear as a girl by changing his name, using female pronouns and female costumes. The social transition was met with praise by her peers.
A gender therapist also encouraged her to break contact with anyone who refused to affirm her son as a girl.
When her younger son, who was three at the time, said he wanted to be a girl like his brother, the mother realised she had made a mistake.
‘Our sons weren’t actually trans. It was something else,’ Rose said. ‘I had led my child into it. All I wanted was to go back in time and undo what I had done’.
Just before her son’s eighth birthday she told him that ‘males cannot be females’ – to which he at first was ‘mad and sad’. But the following day she said he felt ‘incredible relief’ at the revelation.
Now, she says her sons are both ‘blossoming and growing’ as boys – but that her mistake will be one that ‘haunts’ her forever.
She said: ‘The grief and the shock of what we did is so deep, so wide, so sharp and penetrating. How could a mother do this to her child? To her children?’
She added that she only realized her former beliefs were part of a ‘system’ now that she is out of it.
Binary spokeswoman Kirralie Smith said the trans cult is based on lies.
“No one can change their sex. It is impossible,” she said.
“It is a lie to entice children, or anyone, to believe they can be something they are not.
“It is cruel and unkind to put children on a pathway of transitioning that can never be realised.
“Thankfully this mother realised her mistake and took steps to rectify it.”’https://www.binary.org.au/decision_to_transition_four_year_old_haunts_mother?
‘Harvard Medical School students can learn about how to provide healthcare to “infants” who are LGBTQIA+, according to a course catalog description.
“Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development,” a regularly available med school course, promises to give students a chance to work with “patients [who] identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or asexual.”
“Clinical exposure and education will focus on serving gender and sexual minority people across the lifespan, from infants to older adults,” according to the course description.’https://www.thecollegefix.com/harvard-med-class-focuses-on-lgbtqia-infants-and-older/
If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Saviour you already know how ridiculous and anti-biblical the above video is.
Luke 11:2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
John 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also
Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
We very seldom watch anything on the ABC but did turn to it for a very short time New year’s Eve! NOTE, I said SHORT!
‘The ABC’s coverage of Sydney’s world-famous New Year’s Eve fireworks has been blasted online as “a disgrace” and out of touch.
As thousands of people flocked to Sydney Harbour to view the spectacle, some viewers of the national broadcaster were less impressed with what they saw which was led by Charlie Pickering, Zan Rowe and Jeremy Fernandez.
Following the Calling Country fireworks display over the Harbour at 9pm, the live music commenced which featured acts such as Tones and I, Ball Park Music, Vika & Linda, Dami Im, Morgan Evans and Tasman Keith.
A segment of the coverage was also dedicated to this year’s WorldPride Festival, to be held in Sydney, which included a performance from drag queen Courtney Act.’https://www.skynews.com.au/business/media/australian-broadcasting-corporation-cops-backlash-online-over-woke-coverage-of-sydneys-new-years-eve-fireworks/news-story/06596cf1e8ece9d302b843eb5f6c2603?net_sub_id=282058248&type=curated&position=1&overallPos=3
‘Brett McCracken is the senior editor and director of communications at The Gospel Coalition and an elder at Southlands Church. He released his ‘Best movies of 2022’ and unsurprisingly, at least one of the films is full of graphic sex and nudity.
Last year his top 10 movies featured many that were rated ‘R’ for language, violence, and frequently for scenes of sex and nudity. Then he released his top 20 TV shows, and they were also full of sex and nudity, including graphic scenes of homosexuality. He would later suggest that watching this sinful content makes him better at evangelizing. ‘https://protestia.substack.com/p/the-gospel-coalitions-2022-best-movies
Gay, homosexual, lesbian or any of the multitude of binary categories is never mentioned in the Creator’s manual! Sodomites are mentioned along with male and female. Romans Chapter One tells us all we need to know concerning what the Creator thinks of sex outside the relationship of one man and one woman. However, in spite of what the Creator’s manual tells us, society continues down the road of self-destruction!
‘One of the benefits of the political upheaval of the past several years is that no one is surprised anymore when the legacy media act more like partisan activists than objective journalists. In fact, such bias is what most of the public has come to expect from the news industry and is also why the vast majority of people disapprove of it.
Still, the lengths to which the media are willing to go to advance their own ideological agenda can sometimes shock even the most weathered press watchers.
The best example of this from the past year is the media’s deliberate distortion of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which is more commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The very fact that the bill is known as such proves my point. Leftist activists didn’t like that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was cracking down on the gender ideology agenda in public education. They came up with a dishonest nickname for the bill, and the media made sure it stuck.
Every single mainstream outlet, from Time magazine to the Washington Post, referred to this legislation as the Don’t Say Gay bill repeatedly, even after Florida officials made it clear that the bill in no way prevented students or teachers from saying the word “gay.” The word doesn’t appear in the text of the bill once.’https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/patriotism-unity/year-in-review-the-medias-biggest-lie-in-2022
whatyareckon 