A gender related question

[rodheadlee]

21 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Do you have such memories and recognition? I don't.

Recognition on a subconscious plane. That would be the best way of explaining it. The first time I laid eyes on my wife 52 years ago I knew that I knew her from before and that we should spend this life together. That we would be forever together. I had never heard of the Church yet either. I grew up in the late sixties early seventies maybe that had something to do with it too.

Perhaps I get the same feeling from some of my best friends and relatives.

[mfbukowski]

26 minutes ago, the narrator said:

No, and I do not know anyone who has a memory of the premortal world. Do you? Without a brain, where would those memories even be retained?

Science.  It's not about that.  It's about paradigms that give one meaning and are justified by spiritual experience.

That view seams to assert that we could not remember "our lives" and could not be judged for what we allegedly did during our lives.

That is certainly not part of the standard LDS paradigm,which I think is what we are discussing here.

TV would be witchcraft if we lived in the 16th century- certainly it is hazardous to judge spiritual matters by scientific standards

 

 

 

[DT_]

1 hour ago, katherine the great said:

I personally think that a knowledge of biology is much more useful in answering that question than revelation. To my knowledge the Lord has never answered science questions through revelation. In fact President Hinckley said to leave scientific questions to scientists.
 

I understand, you just made a perfectly valid point. I'm a bit confused because you said, "I think the church can make whatever rules they want. But I think church leaders educating themselves in biology would be a great step" when I asked if a transgender man should receive the priesthood.

[mfbukowski]

5 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Recognition on a subconscious plane. That would be the best way of explaining it. The first time I laid eyes on my wife 52 years ago I knew that I knew her from before and that we should spend this life together. That we would be forever together. I had never heard of the Church yet either. I grew up in the late sixties early seventies maybe that had something to do with it too.

Perhaps I get the same feeling from some of my best friends and relatives.

Agree.  I knew we would marry on sight.  She looked completely familiar to me in it's etymological sense.

 

[jkwilliams]

30 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Recognition on a subconscious plane. That would be the best way of explaining it. The first time I laid eyes on my wife 52 years ago I knew that I knew her from before and that we should spend this life together. That we would be forever together. I had never heard of the Church yet either. I grew up in the late sixties early seventies maybe that had something to do with it too.

Perhaps I get the same feeling from some of my best friends and relatives.

This is just a reminder that other people experience life differently than I do. Not discounting your experience, but I have not been blessed with such experiences. 

[the narrator]

26 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

I grew up in the late sixties early seventies maybe that had something to do with it too.

Is this a reference to lysergic acid diethylamide becoming illegal?

I'm just kidding. I think the story of how you met your wife is beautiful (and the very plot to Saturday's Warrior)--though it also reminds me of several men I knew as a single adult who had "revelations" that they were supposed to marry someone they just met (who straight up rejected those supposed revelations).

I don't want to dismiss SW marriage, but the billions of interventions into free agency from the first humans to both of your marrying that were necessary for that meeting to happen does seem a bit problematic if one accepts the LDS obsession with free agency. (I'm a determinist, so that's all fine with me, I think.)

[rodheadlee]

25 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

This is just a reminder that other people experience life differently than I do. Not discounting your experience, but I have not been blessed with such experiences. 

Neither has my wife. We were just discussing it and she said no she didn't think she knew me from before.

Her reason for choosing me was purely physical.

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by rodheadlee

[CV75]

6 hours ago, the narrator said:

I know what you are saying, but that doesn't mean what you are saying makes sense. For example, I could say "Squares have three round sides." Surely you know what each of those words mean, but I assume you would agree that it lacks sense. Or I could go with something that doesn't contain an immediate logical incoherency and say, "My kettle told me that Pluto always felt silly being called a planet," or, "The door smells like seven." Just because I'm saying those words doesn't mean they have sense.

What do you mean by "appearance"? Something has an "appearance" to me because photons of light reflecting off physical object entering my eyes at various wavelengths stimulate different rods and cones in my retina that send signals through my optic nerve that my brains then interprets and reconstructs into mental images. Is it your opinion that light also reflects off of spirit bodies, or is it possible that the "appearance" of a spirit body does not involve light at all and instead exists as a mental image--such as when I close my eyes and "see" my children by imagining them jumping on a trampoline?

That statement might make sense by considering the rest of my post along with it.

Squares do have three round holes under certain conditions, and the other two sentences could make sense when the kettle speaks in a dream, or as part of a story; synesthesia explains the door smelling like seven.

If you are practicing semantics / Logic 101, fine, but you might have a more productive conversation by seeking to understand descriptions rather than force rigid definitions. What part of my description needs more "fleshing out" for you?

Edited August 10, 2022 by CV75

[the narrator]

5 minutes ago, CV75 said:

What part of my description needs more "fleshing out" for you?

The part where you say that unembodied non-biological spirits are sexed or gendered.

[the narrator]

9 minutes ago, CV75 said:

the other two sentences could make sense when the kettle speaks in a dream

Yes. Precisely. In a dream. 

[jkwilliams]

35 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Neither has my wife. We were just discussing it and she said no she didn't think she knew me from before.

Her reason for choosing me was purely physical.

 

We definitely weren’t love at first sight, as we met when I handed her a stool sample. It was another 3 years before we started dating. But we knew pretty quickly we were in love and got engaged 4 weeks later. 

[Chum]

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

We definitely weren’t love at first sight, as we met when I handed her a stool sample.

Yeah. I keep being surprised that this doesn't work.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Chum said:

Yeah. I keep being surprised that this doesn't work.

My wife hates it when I tell people how we met, for some reason. 😂😂

[Calm]

6 hours ago, pogi said:

I would not be surprised if someday the priesthood was not limited to men outside the temple.

If we want to bring the temple into the world (at least into our homes), it does make sense that officially expanding acting with priesthood authority to endowed women outside the temple walls would help do this, imo.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, the narrator said:

Clearly the Lord has blessed you.

There are many advantages to being a convert.  I had not previously considered this one, lol.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

I think I agree with you that the notion of spirit gender is kind of odd. Gender itself is a complex subject, and it's not just determined by the genitalia one has. Besides, do premortal spirits have genitals? If not, in what way are they gendered? Obviously, the church teaches that gender is eternal, but I'm having trouble making sense of it. 

Does it make sense to you to say “sex is eternal”?  Because my guess is that is what they meant and while still complex, it is somewhat less complex than trying to discuss “gender”, which is now technically defined as basically a nonbiological state of mind/experience of life, a social construct?

However, in casual discussion like her, “gender” is often used interchangeably with “sex” and can lead to talking past each other.

[jkwilliams]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

Does it make sense to you to say “sex is eternal”?  Because my guess is that is what they meant and while still complex, it is somewhat less complex than trying to discuss “gender”, which is now technically defined as basically a nonbiological state of mind/experience of life, a social construct?

However, in casual discussion like her, “gender” is often used interchangeably with “sex” and can lead to talking past each other.

Does that mean intelligences are sexed? I understand the Proclamation in terms of church doctrine, but I’ve never really considered the issue. But don’t mind me. I’m just thinking out loud. 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Besides, do premortal spirits have genitals? If not, in what way are they gendered?

I liked the temple ceremony when it showed what looked like blueprints prior to creation, I thought it was a great analogy.  The way a spirit is taught in the Church is it exists in the same form, though of a more refined material that allows it to fit inside a physical body.  Technically this could be possible because physical forms are not actually solid, there is a lot of space to fit spiritual particles between the physical subatomic particles we are ultimate made up of.  The issue would be whether these spiritual particles interfered with the bonds that keep the physical particles linked/in the vicinity of each other as is necessary to form physical shapes.  My guess is that spiritual energy bonds do not interact directly with physical bonds, thus allowing a spirit to exist in the same space as a body.  However, there is likely another form of bonding that can link physical with spiritual, something that occurs when a spirit is placed with the physical body that will correspond with it in mortality.  I don’t believe it is an exact match.  There is enough correspondence though that the physical body can be said to ‘house’ the spirit, even though I don’t see what is likely a somewhat mature spirit fitting inside a fetus or even a baby or toddler, but I supposed we might have been much smaller in the preexistence and one effect of having mortal bodies is it allows our spirits to expand.  I just have a hard time imagine a bunch of baby spirits sitting around the feet of the Father, listening intently to him explain the Plan of Salvation, though babies throwing tantrums like Lucifer did when rejected has a certain satisfying image to it.  
 

If one could morph what is likely an adult or at least a teen spiritual body into a baby form that is then identical with its physical body at sometime prebirth, it seems the spirit is a lot more malleable than it’s presented and the idea of sex in the sense of mirrored spiritual organs for physical organs gets problematic for me, especially if one assumes the spirit joins the physical body prior to it assuming a fully human appearance.  If the spirit joins the physical at conception, is the spirit originally in the form of the embryo?  Does the spirit then look like a blob and then a slightly more complicated blob?  Or does it join it when closer to the final form.  Or is there only some correspondence and the body grows over time to fill the corresponding physical space the spirit was always filling?  This would require spirits being able to occupy the same spiritual space as there would be overlap of spirits at times (think of when a parent is holding their child…where would the baby’s larger spirit be?  But this would perhaps make sense as we talk about the Holy Ghost being able to dwell within us.  If those two spirits can occupy the same space, why not more?  Only not permanently as spirits can because the spirit of a physical body must stay centered on its physical form perhaps…parent and child separate and stop overlapping when child takes a nap and parent goes off to work after cuddle time is over, for example.

I could now start speculating in a completely different way, that our spirits merely communicate with our physical bodies but exist elsewhere and that is why adult spirits can ‘occupy’ baby bodies or a spirit can be perfectly formed, but their physical body lacking parts or having less than perfect ones.

We aren’t really given much direction on how the physical interacts with the spirit, imo, we only know there is correspondence.  We teach in primary that the body is basically a covering (glove to be precise https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/manual/primary-2/lesson-3?lang=eng ) for the spirit.  Easy to imagine, but doesn’t really work as our bodies are not hollow forms, but ‘solid’.  I wonder if revelation actually supports this or if it is extrapolated.  People have spoken of seeing the spirits of children as well as adults and our spirits all look like how we looked at sometime in our life, but does that really make sense when our spirits have existed eons prior to the creation of our physical forms?  We could speculate the form of the spirit pushes the body to form a certain way, but does that mean the form of the spirit is also dramatically changing as we grow and age out?  And how does that work with how DNA creates the form of our body.  While our spirits might influence what DNA is chosen, there are only two versions of genes to choose from, mom and dad’s, and that would limit how close one could get to an exact match.

All this amounts to my speculation is our physical forms are an approximation of our spiritual ones, but how they communicate so they move together or perhaps just as the spirit wills (perhaps the spirit is off somewhere closer to Kolob, sitting on a couch with a VR system operating its body remotely), who has a clue?

——

Which brings me back to gender/sex…how that works is going to be all speculation imo as the most revelation we have received on the subject imo is there is a correspondence, but if it is corresponding form with form or emotional and/or mental attributes with physical form or most likely imo, both and likely more aspects of our spiritual being we lack awareness of and words for, who actually knows?

[Calm]

3 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Does that mean intelligences are sexed? I understand the Proclamation in terms of church doctrine, but I’ve never really considered the issue. But don’t mind me. I’m just thinking out loud. 

If the above post is too long and rambling, let me summarize by saying I think what makes us sexed now has existed since we were intelligences, that there are a collection of attributes that correspond to female expression more than male expression and the reverse.  And as we develop through eternity, our spirits were formed by God into a material expression of male and female and continued to develop, eventually becoming ready for our physical forms which approximate these female/male spiritual forms that express the eternal female/male attributes our eternal natures possess.

——

it is pretty easy to assume we all are male or female as this is supported by scripture (male and female, created he them).  But I don’t view as sex as polar opposites, so it would be more like there a dividing line like we have for describing someone as medium or tall in height (though not arbitrary because the division is created by all knowing God for the purpose of allowing intelligences/spirits/souls express themselves best by putting them in the form that matches their capabilities) and those on one side of the division are female and those on the other are male and it is the entire collection of qualities that attract us to choose to exist as one form or the other (one can think of the choice being based on the average of each attribute’s male and female tendencies if one wanted).

Still I am open to that teaching in scripture being an assumption by errant humans who had divided the world into male and female and instead mortality is actually more complex..that Adam and Eve were definitely male and female, but in combining their attributes in their children it may result in more variations to better fit the variety of eternal selves because sex in mortality is used to express more than just reproductive abilities (which abilities boil down really in my view to ‘do you naturally produce an egg or sperm or neither’ with the last being the grey area).  However, only two sexes if one assumes sex is expressing more than just reproduction ability seems unrealistic given the range of variation of personalities and the expression of what we have labeled sexual in humanity.  So my speculation is sex is likely about reproduction and that is why it is treated as binary (egg/sperm).  We mortals have just expanded sexual application and made it into confusion because sexual attraction was used by God or developed through evolution (which amounts to the same thing in my view) to ensure reproduction occurred.

 If there is no sexual attraction in the eternities, if eternal couple/romantic attraction is based on other attributes that can be chosen by the individual to be used as sexual attraction is used in mortality, variation of sexual attraction as in the here and now disappears as an issue.  I added the attribute of being a good father and being noncritical to sexual attraction to come up with my version of marriage attraction, someone I not only could imagine really enjoying doing all those things together that lead to having sex and of course sex itself, but someone I wanted to be married to.  If we remove sexual attraction from the marriage equation (because being perfect we could be sexually attracted to pretty much anyone if sexual attraction is actually based on sexual compatibility), all the other attraction attributes are still there, after all.  Iow, it will be something besides ‘is the sex and romance good between us’ that make us want to eternally bond as a couple with another, because the answer to the sex question is likely “yes” for if not everyone, so many that is becomes meaningless as a factor of choice.  However, one attribute which might be sticking around, while not actually sexual attraction as we define it in mortality, but reproductive attraction…can we eternally reproduce (whatever the heck that means) to create our own family within God’s greater family with the other….which is why eternal sex (what is labeled gender in the Church) is important for those who desire exaltation.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

5 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

This is just a reminder that other people experience life differently than I do. Not discounting your experience, but I have not been blessed with such experiences. 

Never had that sense.  Have had the sense that something was just right without being able to explain why until later when I knew the person more.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Calm

[CV75]

3 hours ago, the narrator said:

The part where you say that unembodied non-biological spirits are sexed or gendered.

You've got me mixed up with someone else--see how easy it is to get confused? And confuse yourself?

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

Yes. Precisely. In a dream. 

And what do you think you are you doing now -- dreams are thoughts. And why did you omit "Precisely. In a story." And why did you omit examples from your own fantasies which directly affect your body, transactions and interpersonal relationships? Is synesthesia an aspect of thought also? Are the 4 ways a square can have 3 holes just as invalid?

Why can't you stay on the topic of gender?

Edited August 11, 2022 by CV75

[Calm]

3 hours ago, DT_ said:

I understand, you just made a perfectly valid point. I'm a bit confused because you said, "I think the church can make whatever rules they want. But I think church leaders educating themselves in biology would be a great step" when I asked if a transgender man should receive the priesthood.

Not Katherine, but….

My belief is scientific knowledge can help us know what questions to ask of God to reveal to us as well as inform revealed knowledge and the reverse is true as well.  Revelation may help guide us in what we examine empirically (such as happened with my daughter and diabetes) as well as inform scientific knowledge…we know how to purify water, what should we now do with that knowledge, love our neighbour by giving them the means to purify their sources of water perhaps?

So having greater awareness of the biology, psychology, sociology, etc of the transgender experience can help in creating more productive/effective revelation, imo, because I think God takes joy in us using our brains as well as our hearts and will bless us for doing so.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Calm

[CV75]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

Does that mean intelligences are sexed? I understand the Proclamation in terms of church doctrine, but I’ve never really considered the issue. But don’t mind me. I’m just thinking out loud. 

President Oaks explained, in reference to the Proclamation, “the intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation and as used in Church statements and publications since that time is biological sex at birth.” https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/october-2019-general-conference-first-presidency-leadership-session?cid=HP_NWSRM_10_2_19

The qualifier “at birth” provides the context that this instruction is for mortals managing their purpose and identity in this life from a religious perspective. That gender is also an essential characteristic of premortal and eternal identity and purpose does not necessitate the same mortal biology to operate in these other estates, or in paradisaical Eden, or in translated Zion above, etc. They each have their own laws governing their inhabitants’ physiology, behavior, and other life processes and functions in their respective environments, each set of laws supporting gender.

So yes, "sexed" in a premortal, "pre-birth" context, following a distinct set of laws which are translated into mortality's set of laws. Some focus has been placed on genetics and organic information coding, but these are but the means of connecting a pre-defined spirit with subsequent element in a mortal environment.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, the narrator said:

I'm a determinist, so that's all fine with me, I think.

Read up on compatiblism

 

[manol]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

My guess is that spiritual energy bonds do not interact directly with physical bonds, thus allowing a spirit to exist in the same space as a body... There is enough correspondence though that the physical body can be said to ‘house’ the spirit, even though I don’t see what is likely a somewhat mature spirit fitting inside a fetus or even a baby or toddler...

Perhaps our physical body is actually INSIDE our spirit, rather than the other way around.

3 hours ago, Calm said:

This would require spirits being able to occupy the same spiritual space as there would be overlap of spirits at times (think of when a parent is holding their child…where would the baby’s larger spirit be?)

Yes, and I'm not sure that physical proximity is even necessary for spirits to "overlap".  By way of analogy, physical proximity is not necessary for two beings with radios to "overlap" and commune as long as their radios are tuned to the same wavelength.  Christ said that "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them", and I suspect he was talking about his proximity to them being a literal shared spirit-level energy - the "gathered together in my name" aspect - rather than a proximity based on physical geography, but it I suppose could be either or both.  

(See the book "Kything: The Art of Spiritual Presence" by Louis Savary and Patricia Berne, for an easy-to-read introduction to this sort of thing.)

3 hours ago, Calm said:

I could now start speculating in a completely different way, that our spirits merely communicate with our physical bodies but exist elsewhere and that is why adult spirits can ‘occupy’ baby bodies or a spirit can be perfectly formed, but their physical body lacking parts or having less than perfect ones.

I think there is validity to this paradigm as well, such that we may literally and intentionally NOT be "playing with a full deck" down here, which would make judging one another a futile endeavor. 

Edited August 11, 2022 by manol