Gender: It Only Takes Two

Gender: Its About Reproduction, not Feelings

First. Why bother to argue?

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15)

We are entering a new era of persecution of Christians in the West. All the more dangerous because it is subtle and insidious. We all think we could emulate the courage of our Christian brothers and sisters in Muslim countries confronted with severe persecution, But can we resist the barely noticeable forms? One Mediaeval bishop fumed over the actions of most of the Christians in the lands that had just been invaded by Muslims: instead of paying the “tax” of half their possessions to remain Christian, they converted to Islam. Our trial is of this sort.

Of course we are free to remain “Christian” if we keep it secret – or at least private. Of course one can be a Christian politician - as long as one leaves Christian belief outside parliament hall! One can, for now, go to church – as long as the new “civic religion” is espoused alongside Christ. But from John the Baptist down through the ages the martyrs and “confessors” (those who would not renounce Christ even under torture) have all rejected this enticing option.

No! If we love God we must proclaim Christ as Lord of all. If we love our neighbour we must not only live out the commandments of God, we must proclaim them as the way to live to please God.

This brings us into conflict with the devil. This makes us Christ's “soldiers and servants” to thwart the devil's plans to bring our once more-or-less God-fearing societies to ruin and to usher in a life of misery to humans whom God loves. As Jesus said “the thief comes to kill and destroy: I have come so that they may have life – life in all its fullness.” So if we are active on Christ's side, we are in the devil's way – he will attack us, he will stir up human dupes to persecute us – he will stir up all the social pressures of a society drifting under his thrall to silence us.

So whilst I hesitated to use the verse from Peter's first letter because it specified “the hope (of heaven) that you have” His first recipients were being ostracised because they no longer indulged in the decadent lifestyle of the time and the reason was their new allegiance to Christ and their obedience to God's laws prompted by the sure and certain hope of a resurrection from the dead to unimaginable glory with Christ in heaven.

So yes. I think the verse does apply to us today standing firm and speaking out against the forces pushing our societies away from God to their ruin. The message to us is:

a) Be prepared to give an answer.

b) do it with gentleness and respect.

This will be hard when abuse is heaped on us – as it will be, when we are falsely accused of being “...phobic”, when we are accused of being “haters” when it is we who are the object of the “hate speech”, when even school children are being taught that all who disagree with the devil's project are “religious nutters” who are to be denigrated and resisted. And when schoolchildren are in fact (as they are right now) being trained in resisting all who question the “new morality”.

Today's answer to a mantra….

Mantra “gender is not binary”

This whole nonsense of “gender fluidity” that is being shamelessly promoted to our children is built on a cobweb of lies and pseudo-philosophy. This is one of its strands.

Children are being taught, both in school and by television that gender is “non-binary”. In England the BBC has put our video clips enticing children to believe that gender is just something “society assigns to them at birth” and has nothing to do with the genitalia they possess. In Australia our publicly funded ABC television is coaxing young children to believe they may be trans-gender or homosexual etc.

The driving point of all these indoctrinations is that gender is about feelings, not biological facts. I hope to say more in another blog, but for brevity today I suggest that is the point to hit back with the truth: sex or gender is about biology not feelings – or society. It is about one's putative role in reproduction. Of course you don't actually have to reproduce to be male or female – but your gender determines and is determined by the role you could, would or do play in the reproductive process.

Earthworms aside, just about every insect and animal (and ever most plants) have two sexes: the female provides the egg and the male provides the sperm which fertilises it.

So too in humans: female provides the “egg” cell which when fertilised will develop into a baby, male provides the sperm which fertilises it. There is no room for any third – let alone twenty or thirty or fifty other genders! Yes there are some individuals with chromosomal and birth defects – but just as with other birth defects that does not affect what is “normal” any more than babies born with six fingers negates the fact that like most vertebrates, humans are pentadactyl.

So my short answer to the mantra is:

No, that is not correct. Gender is the biological role in reproduction. Reproduction needs an egg and a sperm: female and male: there can only be two genders. Female and Male,

Two PLus Two Equals Five

2+2 = 5 If The Party Says So

So said a character in Orwell's “Nineteen Eighty Four”.

Not so silly now as it sounded 70 years ago. OK we really do have the “impossible” futuristic technology he put in his novel, but that's not the important part – tyrannies have never lacked for spies and informers! What is important is the government messing with our minds until we will say anything we're told to believe, even when we know its not true. Like agreeing 2+2 = 5.

Once a regime has that sort of control over us we are really loosing our humanity and becoming their robots.

This is happening to us in the “free West” right now!

OK looking back I guess it has been worming its way in for at least 50 years. But at first it was so gradual that we didn't notice at all. Think about it. Our society accepted that “free love” which is to say gratuitous sex, was risk free; that abortion was nothing; that adultery didn't matter; and so forth. Well, I didn't believe that, and likely yo didn’t either, but that makes us the odd ones out! Then came AIDS. What a flurry of propaganda to make us believe it was not a consequence of gay sex! This is likely where the propaganda first pushed us over the line into saying something we knew was not true.

And churches were part of the propaganda machine! I once put in my parish newsletter a precis of an article in a Medical Journal that just gave the scientific findings. The epidemiology was clearly that anal sex was the basic transmission route for AIDS in the First World. The heterosexual infection rate in Africa which was so often used in propaganda was in fact due to factors peculiar to Africa (high promiscuity and poor health care combining to give genital sores which provided a direct blood-to-blood transmission route in vaginal sex) Did I ever cop it from the bishop! They hadn't invented the word “homophobic” then but that was what he accused me of, and told me to stop saying bigoted things like that. Science had to be silenced.

As it happens I wasn't and still am not homophobic. We are all sinners and we all have idiosyncratic weaknesses that we struggle against. The weight society or church puts one one sin against another is often counter-intuitive. There's an old joke: “If a man comes to you church drunk on alcohol, you throw him out, but if he's drunk on money you make him an elder.”

Back to the story: As you know Christians were told they had to say homosexual acts were not a sin. Many complied. Well that was saying 2+2 = 5. Sure, if I had to list sins by their harmfulness, homosexual acts would be way down the list. Sure, being same-sex attracted is not a sin. Just as being attracted to a person of the opposite sex outside of marriage is not itself a sin. It is the specific act (like adultery) that is the sin.

Then came same sex marriage: “Marriage Equality”. Now for those “without Christ and without hope in the world” who am I to judge them if they manage to find happiness in a same sex relationship? Good luck to them. But when the government demands that I say that same sex marriage is equal to marriage between a man and a woman we are in “2+2 = 5 if the Party says so” territory.

Well in Australia just before Christmas that happened (by a 60% popular vote), and in some 20 other countries it had already been legislated.

Did it stop there? Not likely! The process has just speeded up. As I said last post “gender fluidity” is being taught in schools, parents are prohibited from protecting their children from this this terribly harmful outright lie. Today I read in the newspaper that one state wants to legislate to make it a crime not to (for example) call a man who “self identifies” as female “he” instead of his preferred “she”.

Here it is now coming right out in the open! We are being told to speak the lie. We are being told to say “2+2 = 5” or be treated as criminals!

Now this has nothing to do with LBGTI “rights”. Don't be fooled into following that red herring! This is about radicals messing with our minds. Quite likely once they have established their new upotia-on-earth, LGBT's will be ruthlessly eliminated. But first Christianity has to be eliminated, and they are prepared to take their time laying the groundwork. Jesus said “I am the Truth ...” The Bible makes its claims on human hearts because it is true.

Once people say “there is no truth except what the government tell us” Christianity, Liberty, and Science are all swept away.

This brave new “utopia” will just be another North Korea look-alike

Retaking the High Moral Ground

Retaking the High Moral Ground

What are the Critical Requirements for progressives (or if you prefer “collectivists” or “statists”) to hold the high moral ground? The answer is surprisingly simple.

Their real agenda is evil. So they must hide this behind a false facade or turn morals upside down. Either way the powers behind the scenes need to convince the bulk of their followers who are likely to be people who are basically good at heart and either convince or compel the rest of society.

The second trick has been tried from time immemorial. Isaiah 5.20 says “Woe to those who call good evil and evil good” so nothing new there – or once again people have found that “old tricks are the best tricks”

The first – putting a mask of “good” over a reality of evil is the basis of all traps and the game of all would-be dictators. Don't let the quarry see what is really coming – they would run away! Rather make it look attractive. So the cheese in the mousetrap is ever so inviting to that quivering little nose – but the hidden reality is sudden death. The dictator always promises liberty, prosperity and anything else that will entice the people to acclaim him leader. What they receive is so very different! I hope to look at this next time

So two critical requirements of claiming the high moral ground for progressives are turning morals upside down, and deception of their real agenda. Of course the “foot soldiers” of the progressive cause will have been taken in by the first, and totally ignorant of the second!

How have they managed to turn morals upside done in out time?

By replacing absolute moral standards with arbitrary ones.

We have had the enormous blessing of “Judeo-Christian” morality. This is based on the moral character of God – which is absolute and unchanging.

Limited human understanding of His nature, the powerful corrupting tendency of our fallen human nature, and ever changing human circumstances have led to popular morals being sometimes better, sometimes worse. But through all this, the revelation of God's nature supremely in Christ Jesus but also all Scripture; The reasoning of people whose consciences had been touched by God (yes, some of these were pre-Christian Greeks and Romans); And hard won experience over the span of history, have triumphed.

In the late 1960's all this began to change. We rebelled against the wisdom of our parents, we threw off – first in sexual morals – the existing rules. We started to tear down all the societal “fences” which had been laboriously placed to protect us from the forces of temptation, and the wholesale corruption of our system of morals.

Over the past 50 years this awful project has proceeded ever gathering speed.

God has now been pushed out as the rightful basis and standard of morals.

By breaking down all the old taboos, destroying the old rules, destroying even customs of manners and courtesy the hard Left have created an existential angst – no one knows what the rules are any-more – every situation has to be thought out from scratch – every situation is fraught with danger: creating a psychological void. Suddenly we feel we need rules!

But without God, what standard is there for rules: None! “We” have to make arbitrary ones!

Collectivism to the “rescue”! They not only provide the new rules but also the comfort: we are right because we all say we are right. Dissenters and rule breakers must be – and are - mercilessly dealt with. So the new human centered morality is built up, Like all human things its best endeavors will go astray and end up bad. Worse it originates in the hard Left who want to turn our freedom into slavery and our democracy into tyranny. So enough of these new morals will be upside-down in that they are deliberately dysfunctional and destructive. Think “gender fluidity” for a start!

How does one pull the rug from under this false moral high ground?

Keep stressing absolute morals!

Yup, we have been successfully psyched out of doing this, that's one reason they could win. We have to start and keep saying “there is God, so moral rules just are absolute”,

Applied to this crazy “gender fluidity” (it is based on a philosophy – that only the individual concerned can “know” a thing – (eg their gender) - that can only be described as complete lunacy)! We would say No! “God made us male and female” there are only two genders (genetic defects are just that: defects) If you have the correct number of sex chromosomes then you have either XX and you are female or XY and you are male. Your gender was not assigned at birth, it was built in to every cell in your body from conception! You are what you are and by genetic testing not just you, but everyone can “know” what gender you are!

Kingdoms Rise and Fall

Kingdoms Rise and Fall

The Ottoman Empire ended with WWI. Before that it had been styled “the sick man of Europe”. Before before that again the Roman Empire based in Constantinople had at one time been a flourishing and powerful civilisation, But by the time of the Muslim invaders had lost its inner vitality and fell.

Then in the Middle Ages, the centres of learning, of science, mathematics and philosophy were all in the Muslim East. But then they declined and the West advanced and with the Industrial Revolution completely dominated.

In England one can visit ruins of centrally heated Roman villas and baths that indicate a level of comfort at least that was not regained until the nineteenth century.

Perhaps in centuries to come history will say the same things about our time. Perhaps they will talk of the Anglo-American era, or use some other name for what will seem to them a tiny blip of “democracy”, middle class wealth, prosperity, health and scientific achievement. It may be millennia before what we enjoy now is regained – if ever.

Think for a moment what we take for granted.

Rule of law: this is fundamental to universal prosperity. It is in itself a superlative “good”. It is part and parcel of a free society. Historically it has not been common, let alone the norm. Even in our time, few third world countries enjoy it (that one reason for their poverty in places that abound in natural resources or rich soil). China as I write is sweeping away the last vestiges of rule of law as Xi Ping tightens his grip on power. Even Western nations are dallying with progressive socialist notions that “the end justifies the means” to discredit it.

Freedom from poverty: True “the poor are always with us”, but it is relative poverty, not the absolute poverty of the third world! We live in a time of wealth, not for the few but for the masses.

Good housing, clothes enough to keep us warm, food – not just for survival but in vast choice and quantity such that obesity is a common health risk! Natural energy for heating, cooling, lighting, labour saving machines and transport. We forget just how well off we are.

Science and technology. I can't even begin to catalogue the technologies that would have astounded our forebears even two hundred years ago! In the field of health alone we understand so much about disease that we can take effective preventative measures. (sewerage systems are possibly the biggest lifesavers ever). We have diagnostic tools that for most people are beyond our comprehension – bringing the danger that we simply equate them with the “voodoo” of folk medicine. We have surgery that improves and prolongs lives. We have antibiotics – but we risk loosing the race against microbes becoming immune to them. We have mass vaccination – but risk loosing communal immunity by pseudo-science convincing people immunisation is bad. And the politicisation of science we are currently seeing in the West risks destroying the core integrity essential to it and in turn destroying our ability for scientific achievement.

Freedom of speech, and religion. We have recently had a plebiscite on “same Sex Marriage” in Australia. 80% of voters responded. Of them 61.6 were in favour and 38.4 against. The only electorates where there was an overwhelming “No” vote were the predominantly Muslim enclaves. Firstly we have here illustrated why Muslims see us as decadent and irredeemably immoral, giving us some insight into why Islamist terrorists can recruit among home-born Muslims, and portending ill for the future. Secondly it shows that Judeo-Christian values have been rejected by the majority. Thirdly it is becoming apparent that this was not an end in itself but largely desired as a device to suppress freedom of speech and the suppression of Christianity. Time will tell how this plays out.

Education. Never has information been so readily available. The printing press was revolutionary in this regard. The internet is orders of magnitude more so. But information alone is not education. Training in the tools of “reading, writing, and arithmetic” is a big part. Learning a framework – whether of history, science, literature and so forth so that one has something to “hang” pieces of information on” and analytical tools to sift truth from error – or downright falsehood are essential to “education”. Discipline – then internalised as self-discipline, the duties we owe as well as the rights we should enjoy are all part of the socialisation that rounds out the education process. True we have universal schooling, we have a high rate of literacy (not universal – I found it Common in a farming community that wedding applicants would have the girl fill in the form because the boy only literate.)

But …. Asian countries are leaving us behind in the levels of training they are achieving. Not a good sign for our future. Worse, we are failing to teach the basic tools – in physics for instance not teaching the basic laws and how to apply then to new problems. In discipline … we have failed utterly and this is already coming back to bit us! Worst of all, Marxists, who have been infiltrating our education systems and training colleges for the past century have triumphed! Kids are being indoctrinated not educated. Socialist dogma is fed to them all the way through their school (and university) time. We are turning out young people convinced of the truth of socialist politics but ignorant of the devastating effect it has had on the lives of people and the wealth of nations wherever it has been implemented.

But wait there's more: Marxists are now using current tide in favour of homosexuality to introduce destructive teachings that even Marxist countries would stamp out – though of course their introduction into free societies to facilitate social destruction and revolution are part of their play-book. Homosexuality is being pushed to the extent that normal kids are being made feel they must be homosexuals. Gender fluidity is being pushed. (My wife yesterday had lunch with an old school friend who told her that one of her daughter's friends had just had a baby and the couple have announced that they will let the baby choose its own gender!) Boys and girls are being made to doubt that they really are male or female – and even have sex change operations at young ages when they cannot comprehend what they are doing and have not yet experienced the normal hormone rush of puberty. This is so terrible I do not have words to express my feelings! But it is happening in our schools!

My conclusion is that we have been living in a golden age – but also in a fools paradise. We are neglecting to do the hard things necessary to retain let alone improve what we have enjoyed.

As olden day civilisations succumbed so shall ours unless there is awakening.

Cult of Self

Self, Self, Self

No I am not going Communist, or even communalist in my old age! The idolisation of “self” in the modern West is quite different from the stress on the “individual” of say conservative USA.



The cult of self is most strongly seen in the youth of the political left, whereas the individualism of the conservative side has produced young men and women prepared to fight and die overseas as a patriotic duty. So this new cult of self is something quite different to the doctrinaire commune – individualist divide,



Self-centredness and selfishness are pretty basic human failings, but in the recent past in our societies they have been suppressed by the moral tone of the nation. The generations who fought the World Wars did not put “self” above all else. But at some time – I am guessing the mid 1960's with the sexual revolution and the alternative culture things changed. Now the children of that generation are acting out what their parents only dabbled with.



Of course it is not universal – there are still heroes, and we still praise and admire selfless actions. But as a social sentiment “self” is at a historic high.



We live in a world, trivially of “selfies” but more seriously of “self fulfillment” in careers, lifestyle and relationships. Sex has become a matter of momentary pleasure for self rather than as an expression of the “'till death do us part” and “let's have a family” love that it was created for.



This is in reality dysfunctional and whether we like it or not, reality rules! So we have broken hearts, broken marriages and broken people. Add to this the “gender fluidity” activists infiltrating schools stealing the innocence and perverting the minds of children and the tide of destruction of genuine happiness is becoming a tsunami!



I can only see two probable ends to this. Either a secular backlash which would be a harsh and merciless puritanism, or a “real” Christian revival where people could be changed and healed from the inside in an atmosphere of forgiveness and joy of salvation.



The other major dysfunction of this cult of self is in politics. The oft quoted Alexis de Tocqueville admired democracy as he saw it in America, but made the observation that democracy would only work in a solidly Christian culture.



One effect of Christianity being deliberately expunged from our societies is that democracy is in trouble. Yet it would be tragic if the democratic form of government that has evolved over more than a millennium in the West succumbed to some new Hitler or Mussolini!



Apart from the disturbing incidence of young people voicing dissatisfaction with democracy there is a problem at the heart of democracy in our nations. Aristotle said of democracy in his day (c. 350 BC) that if there were no overarching moral constraint the majority would say “Let us plunder the rich, by the gods it is just!” True we have constitutions limiting out democratic actions, but we are losing the overarching moral constraint. This is probably what de Tocqueville had in mind saying it would only work in a Christian milieux.



The evidence of our problem is cited in newspapers as “populism”. But really the rise of “populist” leaders (excluding the use of “populist” pejoratively by news media of leaders they simply don't like who win elections!) is only possible when voters are ruled by self interest rather than the good of the nation. Thus the cult of self has, is and will give us populist government – and this will destroy us!



There has recently been a snap general election in the UK. The ruling conservative party had a big majority and three years to run. They called the election thinking the opposition labour party, with its new almost Communist leader would be routed and they would have an even bigger majority. They very nearly lost the election all together – having to form a coalition with a minor party to even have enough seats to form a government! Why? A million young people registered to vote. The socialist leader promised to fling money at everyone – especially university students. (he was also going to nationalise a number of industries, but voters did not look past the money) Had he won and actually done these things the nation would have been brought to ruin, but voters looked at their short tern gain, not the state of the national economy (and their own long term gain!).



In many countries, the government is heavily in debt but increasing spending. Someone sometime is going to have to face the pain of repaying all this money – at interest! Yet all sides know that a party who offers “blood, sweat and tears” to get the country solvent again will never be voted in. So they all keep spending more than they can raise by taxes. This is madness - reality can't be put off indefinitely.



My preference is for a Christian revival that changes enough voters' hearts to put everyone's future well-being above the selfish desires of the moment – what's yours?