A gender related question

[the narrator]

1 hour ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

I think you are ascribing to me a position I don't actually hold. 

I must have been confused then when you said: " I don't believe that premortal gender is completely different from how "gender" is used in relation to biological bodies." --which, I guess, I correctly assumed that you believe there were similarities between the two. Or are you saying that you believe similarities exist, but have absolute no idea what those are or in what sense they may exist?

1 hour ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

My position is that it is the height of hubris to declare something "nonsensical" when we have NO information (revealed or observed) about the operational aspects of an unembodied, spiritual world.

I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by "nonsensical." I am not using that in a disparaging way; rather, I am using that term in a Wittgensteinian sense to mean that there is no understanding or clear language that communicates meaning (aka sense) to what is being said.

[CV75]

3 hours ago, the narrator said:

Perhaps you ought to graduate from 2nd and 3rd grade before jumping into 4th grade? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Can your OP question be even answered without understanding in what sense premortal unembodied, nonbiological spirits are gendered?

Given that persons with connected spirit and element are gendered in various states (paradisaical, mortal, translated, resurrected, etc.), it would seem that they would also be gendered all along the spectrum of personage. Given that Adam and Eve represent the pattern, and we have no witness or record of other-/non-gendered persons in the various states, it would seem that spirits, without a body, have gender, since a person most fundamentally exists as spirit (D&C 93:33), and we have the concept of a personage of Spirit."

[the narrator]

5 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Given that persons with connected spirit and element are gendered in various states (paradisaical, mortal, translated, resurrected, etc.), it would seem that they would also be gendered all along the spectrum of personage. 

Not necessarily. I assume you accept that various physical attributes--such as hair and eye color, facial structure, body shape, etc--that you gain at birth because of DNA from your parents continue with your resurrected state. (And I guess one could suppose that a person's post-mortal spirit retains some aspects of the physical characteristics they attained through conception and birth--though I have no idea what it means for an unembodied spirit to have colored eyes or hair or a particular body build.) On the other hand, I assume you agree that it does not make sense for a premortal spirit to have physical attributes that have not yet been determined by the very particular chromosomal pairings that occur during a person's conception. If my assumptions are correct, then it would seem the same would apply with sex, which is also determined by a person's chromosomal pairings during conception, which antedate a person's spiritual creation by, I guess, billions of years.

[CV75]

47 minutes ago, the narrator said:

Not necessarily. I assume you accept that various physical attributes--such as hair and eye color, facial structure, body shape, etc--that you gain at birth because of DNA from your parents continue with your resurrected state. (And I guess one could suppose that a person's post-mortal spirit retains some aspects of the physical characteristics they attained through conception and birth--though I have no idea what it means for an unembodied spirit to have colored eyes or hair or a particular body build.) On the other hand, I assume you agree that it does not make sense for a premortal spirit to have physical attributes that have not yet been determined by the very particular chromosomal pairings that occur during a person's conception. If my assumptions are correct, then it would seem the same would apply with sex, which is also determined by a person's chromosomal pairings during conception, which antedate a person's spiritual creation by, I guess, billions of years.

I'm saying that Adam and Eve were created spiritually before they were created physically upon the earth, male and female. The rest is "window dressing." Some inheritable features are essential for life and some are not. The person is the spirit who acts upon the element with which it connects, following a preestablished, perfect form and frame which are only fully established after the resurrection. This spiritual template is mechanically/genetically/digitally -- choose your science -- translated in indeterminate degrees of variety and viability in the post-Fall environment.

[DT_]

On 8/8/2022 at 10:57 PM, pogi said:

I would hope that the church would base their decision on the persons feelings/lived experience, rather than phenotype or genotype.

Do you believe a transgender man should receive the priesthood?

[DT_]

20 hours ago, katherine the great 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 to understanding the vast amount of variation that is normal in our species. 

I see, do you believe church leaders receive revelation?

[carbon dioxide]

11 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

I think you are ascribing to me a position I don't actually hold.  My position is that I have no position on premortal gender because we know so very very little about spiritual existence.  My position is that it only takes the least bit of imagination and ingenuity to come up with a speculative framework on how premortal gender could maybe possibly potentially operate.  My position is that it is the height of hubris to declare something "nonsensical" when we have NO information (revealed or observed) about the operational aspects of an unembodied, spiritual world.

We do have the brother of Jared experience with the Lord and he sees the spirit body of Christ and it is of the same form or look as he would be in the flesh.  I think this would apply to us as well.   We may not have had a physical body but our spirit appearance or form of male and female did exist in the premortal world.  We were not float clouds of gas.

[katherine the great]

15 hours ago, DT_ said:

I see, do you believe church leaders receive revelation?

Why do you ask?

[the narrator]

16 hours ago, CV75 said:

I'm saying that Adam and Eve were created spiritually before they were created physically upon the earth, male and female.

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.

10 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

We may not have had a physical body but our spirit appearance or form of male and female did exist in the premortal world.

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?

[pogi]

16 hours ago, DT_ said:

Do you believe a transgender man should receive the priesthood?

It sure would be helpful to have a definition of gender before such decisions are made. 

I am no prophet, and I don't understand all the reasons for a gender specific priesthood, but I would not be surprised if someday the priesthood was not limited to men outside the temple.  That would make these questions moot. 

[mfbukowski]

On 8/8/2022 at 2:08 PM, the narrator said:

Please enlighten me on what it means--what sense it has--for an unembodied, non-biological spirit to be sexed or gendered.

Well if we want it to "make sense" in a scientific way, fergitaboutit!  NONE of it works scientifically and it's not supposed to!

It's a testimony thing, either you accept it or not.

All we can do is go by our hearts and what gives us a coherent (by our own standards) purpose in life!

 

[mfbukowski]

40 minutes ago, pogi said:

It sure would be helpful to have a definition of gender before such decisions are made. 

I am no prophet, and I don't understand all the reasons for a gender specific priesthood, but I would not be surprised if someday the priesthood was not limited to men outside the temple.  That would make these questions moot. 

IFF there really is no coherent reason in the LDS paradigm for such a belief.  Either it is yet unknown or uninvented yet by the Official Makers of the LDS Paradigm! 

I can make up stuff, but they keep forgetting to ask me.

I mean why do men NOT get blessings in the temple that women get?

Unknown or uninvented?

Edited August 10, 2022 by mfbukowski

[provoman]

On 8/7/2022 at 3:25 PM, Fether said:

“Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”

Are chromosomes a perfect way of figuring out what a person’s true and intended physical gender is?

From a non-religious standpoint “gender” is a social construct. So who really is to say what means female or what means male.

[the narrator]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Well if we want it to "make sense" in a scientific way, fergitaboutit!  NONE of it works scientifically and it's not supposed to!

It's a testimony thing, either you accept it or not.

All we can do is go by our hearts and what gives us a coherent (by our own standards) purpose in life!

 

I'm not asking for a scientific explanation. I'm asking what a person means when testifying that premortal spirits are gendered.

[DT_]

2 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Why do you ask?

I'm interested in your opinion. Do you think church leaders need some knowledge of Biology to receive revelation on this matter? 

[katherine the great]

54 minutes ago, DT_ said:

I'm interested in your opinion. Do you think church leaders need some knowledge of Biology to receive revelation on this matter? 

Well this is the topic of the thread:

”Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” Are chromosomes a perfect way of figuring out what a person’s true and intended physical gender is?”

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.

 

[rodheadlee]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

I'm not asking for a scientific explanation. I'm asking what a person means when testifying that premortal spirits are gendered.

It means that in the premortal life my wife was always a female and I was always a male and we were destined to find each other in this life. I knew her then, I know her now, and I will know her in the next life, and if not then there too.

[the narrator]

2 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

It means that in the premortal life my wife was always a female and I was always a male and we were destined to find each other in this life. I knew her then, I know her now, and I will know her in the next life, and if not then there too.

Okay, so what do you mean when you say your wife was female as a premortal spirit?

Also, why do you say you knew her in the premortal life? Is that like a Saturday's Warrior thing?

Edited August 10, 2022 by the narrator

[rodheadlee]

9 minutes ago, the narrator said:

Okay, so what do you mean when you say your wife was female as a premortal spirit?

Also, why do you say you knew her in the premortal life? Is that like a Saturday's Warrior thing?

The opposite of male. I don't know what Saturday's Warrior thing is.

[the narrator]

4 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

The opposite of male.

Okay, so what do you mean when you say a premortal spirit is male? Or are you saying that you are just using these words without any sense of what they mean in this context?

9 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

I don't know what Saturday's Warrior thing is.

Clearly the Lord has blessed you.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, the narrator said:

Okay, so what do you mean when you say a premortal spirit is male? Or are you saying that you are just using these words without any sense of what they mean in this context?

Clearly the Lord has blessed you.

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. 

[rodheadlee]

15 minutes ago, the narrator said:

Okay, so what do you mean when you say a premortal spirit is male? Or are you saying that you are just using these words without any sense of what they mean in this context?

Clearly the Lord has blessed you.

If you don't know, I can't explain it to you. Don't you have any memory of the premortal life? No recognition of people you knew there?

Thank you. 

[the narrator]

27 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

If you don't know, I can't explain it to you. Don't you have any memory of the premortal life? No recognition of people you knew there?

 

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?

[jkwilliams]

28 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

If you don't know, I can't explain it to you. Don't you have any memory of the premortal life? No recognition of people you knew there?

Thank you. 

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

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, the narrator said:

I'm not asking for a scientific explanation. I'm asking what a person means when testifying that premortal spirits are gendered.

I think the person is asserting that we are made in the image of God the Father, which is part of the standard LDS paradigm story.

In my atheist days I used to ask people if mankind created God or God created us.  It seemed pretty clear that we made up God as crutch to get over death as an oblivion.

But now I see it both ways at once, both the secular view and the LDS view are actually compatible if you postulate God "exists" as an exalted Human- embodied and immanent and made of material flesh-  as a kind of Ubermensch who represents the Perfect Human - the embodiment of that Idea in almost a Platonic sense- whom we try to emulate, and do in fact worship.  

He exists as paradigm- which of course is "unprovable" in a scientific sense, yet becomes a moral paradigm as we imagine what such a Being may require of us.

And then one's "conscience" or "Still Small Voice" or "Holy Ghost " speaks to our hearts - through direct experience, we believe, of this Being, we then have "empirical evidence" in say, testimony experiences that others have "verified" and correspond to ours.

And of course such experiences can be justified through intellectual schools of thought like phenomenology and pragmatism as being "true".

Billions world wide claim they have had spiritual experiences.

And the LDS paradigm justified by experiences of millions of LDS is that God is in our image- AND we in His- because we are beings of the same nature, yet he is infinitely farther advanced then we are.

One might say that God is as "real" as other experiences generated by our brains- as, say, the color "blue".   And that this has been justified by experiencing versions of "the still small voice.

So when one says that God or even unembodied spirits are "gendered" one is affirming and re-iterating their view that we have similar bodies and spirits as embryo gods ourselves.

THIS is the paradigm which gives their lives meaning, and gives meaning and context to a sentence "testifying that premortal spirits are gendered."

Part of the meaning of one's own life becomes entwined into the idea that the purpose of life is to emulate God as the Exalted Human that we all are.

We are his children and somehow in ways we cannot understand (yet) He and Mother who are gendered can and do create gendered spirits.   THAT is the belief that gives meaning to millions of lives.

Yet of course we also have the privilege of deciding our own purposes and whether or not such a detail in the standard paradigm is justified in our own testimony of the spirit.  And if it is contradicted,we must I believe, follow our own version of the standard paradigm if our version varies from it.

For me,the prime directive is always "follow your own conscience/still small voice/revelations/ Holy Ghost!

Why?

Because that is why these experiences EXIST.   Progression simply cannot exist without diversity, or we lose our prime gift- agency!

We must all find our own paths which the Great Tutor teaches each of us individually.

That's my story and I am sticking to it!