Advocatus Atheist

The Economist published a piece on Dave Chappelle's "gender realism." The article is behind a paywall, so, of course, I couldn't read it. But the term "gender realism" stoked my ire. Look, if you think biological sex is purely binary -- man and woman, male and female, you're simply uninformed and, most likely, scientifically illiterate. That's on you. Not me. Not anybody else. Look, I get it. You were raised not questioning how the world works and you never cared to learn. That's fine. But, when it comes to biological issues -- don't get up on a pedestal and pontificate ignorance. Nobody wants that. Go out--read the up-to-date research--then get back to me. Gender is, for the most part, a social construct. There are tons of anthropology studies done on it as well as gender identity and gender representation in different cultures/countries across various time periods. Not hard to find. Lots of peer-reviewed papers are published all the time o...

  1. What are your pronouns? (If you don't mind sharing them) He is fine for me, personally. But personally, I don't believe in pronoun usage for gender identification as it creates a binary system where it pits the Personal Identity of the individual against imagined Other Identity of the external world by creating external boundaries that make it more difficult to traverse in one's own journey of growth and personal enlightenment. Logically, you can't say I prefer to be called an apple and not orange, thereby place yourself in opposition to another term, and still be considered non-binary. You've basically locked yourself into a binary box by adhering to an 'either this or that' naming system (a language game that would roil even Wittgenstein -- I say somewhat facetiously). The semantic game being: If you're not one thing -- you're something else. An 'either or' proposition which I think is setting up a false proposition -- in terms of the ...

I don't talk about religion much these days. Every once in a while, though, I'll get in the mood to look something up. After decades of religious research, I still hold a fascination for the subject matter. It just became too difficult to talk about with people of faith because -- at a certain point -- it's not about discovering new truths anymore but maintain old predispositions. Even so, I recently had a bit of a curfuffle over on a friend's post because a Christian apologist seemed to take offense regarding a quote that cited God as a She -- yes, as female. Although the quote was about a general theistic deity and not the Christian God, per se, he still went on a rant about using the proper pronouns when discussing God. I found this oddly amusing. Why would someone get so bent out of shape regarding the possibility of God being a She -- or possibly Alanis Morissette? As such, I mentioned Jesus may have used "She" when talking about himself as modern homosex...