I recently had a discussion on Renegade Eye with a certain Daniel Hoffman-Gill, who insists that it is perfectly understandable why a person might choose to undergo gender reassignment, which of course is the modern euphemism for sex-change, doubtless an attempt to underplay the sexual components of the procedure.
Daniel, who seems to have taken to studying the Bible lately, insists that there are some unfortunate souls who are "born in the wrong body".
Of course, there is only one problem with that explanation. Daniel is-an atheist. Wrap your head about that one, if you can.
Now I'll admit, Daniel's views might be a bit more nuanced than I am giving him credit for-but I don't think so. As a general rule, a person who is an atheist doesn't believe in the soul. The body is all there is, and once that's gone, that's it.
That being the case, there is no possible way a person can be born "in the wrong body". The body is, in effect, the sum and substance, the total, of who he or she is.
To put it even more bluntly, a person who believes this, and yet also believes he or she was born in the wrong body is, in effect, suffering under a grave delusion that is almost akin to a psychoses. But hey-why stop with the atheists?
Daniel has stopped talking to me since I pointed all this out to him, but that's all right. He's studying the Bible now, after all. And in the meantime, should he ever find himself lonely and in need of female companionship, I have a pretty good idea as to who, and where-and to what-he might turn.
Well, we all want the things we can not have, right? If there is no other option, perhaps we can become that thing we most desire, as a last recourse.
Whatever the case, just remember, kiddies-once its gone, it can't grow back.
9 comments:
There is no such thing as an atheist.
Go ahead, ask someone that claims to be an atheist to prove that they are one.
Probably true to a point, but is that because we've been hard wired to believe deep down in a Creator, and if so, why and how? Is it an implanted urge from that same Creator, or is it a result of countless generations of societal programming>
Not so deep.
An atheist will insist he doesn't believe in God, and we'll just simply ask him to prove that he doeswn't believe in God.
For all we know, he's lying about not believing in God. Without proof, are we to just take his word for it?
So you're saying he might well be in a state of denial? I personally think everybody believes deep down in something, but they don't necessarily acknowledge it. They just don't understand it, and are at a loss to explain it, or any other explanation as to life, and how it and the universe came into being. God just happens to be the most convenient way of explaining the complexity that exists throughout the universe. There's no getting around it, until somebody somewhere comes up with a different, and a satisfactory answer.
Hoffman-Gill pretty much betrayed his true subconscious leanings in the course of the discussion I had with him on Ren's site. I honestly believe he got so upset about that he quit commenting other than anonymously. Go to his site now, and you will see several posts where he is talking about studying the Bible, though this is probably a study he is conducting to shore up his own assertions.
I stand by what I said to him. How can a person who is an atheist, and who therefore probably does not believe in the existence of the human soul, assert with a straight face that it is possible for a person to be "born in the wrong body"? It doesn't make sense.
There are some exceptions to this general rule, of course. Buddhists for example, at least those who practice the religion the way it was first set down, believe in the soul, though the concept is somewhat different than that believed by most religions, yet they do believe in it. Yet, at it's core, Buddhism is an atheistic philosophy with a spiritual bent to it.
That, however, I am quite sure is not what Hoffman-Gill was getting at.
The problem with atheism is it requires adherence to such an orthodox set of dogmatic principles, it is itself a fundamentalist religion in it's own right. It requires more of a closed mind than any fundamentalist Christian or maybe even Muslim sect could ever get away with.
You might want to check out a site on my blogroll called Secular Right. They are atheists, but they are political conservatives.
You're right about atheism being a fundamentalist religion. I'm surprised that there would be politically conservative atheists, because atheism in general requires such a rejection of rationality that it is suited for people incapable of rationality, such as leftists.
But no, I'm just turning the table a bit. Atheists want proof that God exists. I want proof they're not lying about not believing in God.
Lots of people don't go to church, make fun of the Pope, etc. Doesn't make them atheists.
I want proof. ;)
Yeah, I see what you mean now. You'll have to overlook me, Beamish, I can be pretty thick sometimes.
But there are more conservative atheists than you might think, and they tend to be solidly opposed to the antics of liberal atheists, in such things as court actions and lawsuits to try to force the so-called atheist agenda down the public's throats. They say it makes all atheists look bad.
In addition to the site I told you about before, there is also Moxie, who is also on my blogroll. You would probably like both of them, though Secular Right isn't known much for it's humor. Moxie can be funny, just maybe not quite as funny as she thinks she is.
You know the way it goes. A conservative vegan just eats his veggies. A liberal vegan wants to shut down the hamburger fast food industry.
Nazi is as Nazi does, those left-wing bastards.
I suppose it works the same for atheism. I'd suppose I'd never hear about a conservative atheist because it would never occur to them to demand it be known and acknowledged and accomodated. Not so with the Madalyn Murry O'Hair worshippers.
Sort of like openly gay people. You know the type, the ones who can't let a day pass without telling someone they suck dick and take it in the ass.
"Hi, I'm gay"
"And the point of telling me this is?"
They want you to know they're here and their queer, but otherwise they are just like you and me and everybody else in a lot of important ways, so you should accept them.
And that's true of many of them, I'm sure, but then there are the ones that want to make sure everybody that is gay isn't allowed the option of keeping their sexual preferences private.
I still say that, as a general rule, gay activists and many gays in general are the most bigoted, and for that matter ignorant motherfuckers-er, well, let's just say ignorant fuckers on the face of the planet.
When Barak Obama made the speech in San Francisco during the Pennsylvania primary, to the effect that many mid-western voters were hung up on guns and religion, he knew damn well what made up a large percentage of that San Francisco audience, and he was playing off their own ignorant prejudices and bigotries. I thought that was ironic as hell.
But anyway, you make a good point. Conservative atheists-or vegans, or gays, etc.-don't care about forcing their beliefs on everybody else, they just want to make their presence known as "not like those leftist nuts".
You won't see a conservative atheist demanding In God We Trust be taken off the dollar, for example, or demanding that public schools drop the word Christmas from their official calenders, etc, and I seriously doubt you would find conservative gays (such as Log Cabin Republicans and others) filing court suits to demand that some appellate court judges overturn the results of an election denying gay marriage rights, such as recently in Maine.
Liberals, unfortunately, don't really believe in democracy when it's not so convenient. They are all about enshrined laws protecting and otherwise benefiting large groups and empowering them through tax confiscatory social programs and the like, and marginalizing to as great an extent as possible everybody that doesn't dance to their tune.
Really, they've co-opted the word liberal to the extent it bears little relation to the original meaning of the word. Liberal and conservative should actually be complimentary though moderating forces.
I guess those days are way in the past.
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