Will the harming of trans children cause secular leftists to reconsider their values?

The more we learn about the effects of transgender “affirming care” on children, the more I wonder whether atheists will realize their mistake in rejecting Christianity. It’s becoming really obvious that secular leftism leads to evil. Atheists are going to have to choose between the social approval of being “smart” and the objective moral law they have been fighting against with their votes.

Let’s start with an article from the The Federalist, talking about a two-part episode of the New York Times podcast. The episodes talk about a lesbian mother and her child Grayson, who was born a biological woman and is attempting to transition to a man.

It says:

Grayson had already gone through the bulk of puberty, so was not given the option to ingest pills that would stunt her body’s natural transition to womanhood (a common prescription among trans-affirming doctors). Instead, she was offered pharmaceuticals that would suppress her estrogen and increase her levels of testosterone. Her voice deepened and she grew facial hair, two consequences that will be irreversible, as conceded by Grayson and her mother.

The Times reporter also admitted that there could be irreversible consequences, for example permanent loss of bone density and potential infertility.

Here’s an article from the radically leftist Washington Post, written by a person who has sex-reassignment surgery at age 19.

Surgery unshackled me from my body’s urges, but the destruction of my gonads introduced a different type of bondage. From the day of my surgery, I became a medical patient and will remain one for the rest of my life. I must choose between the risks of taking exogenous estrogen, which include venous thromboembolism and stroke, or the risks of taking nothing, which includes degeneration of bone health. In either case, my risk of dementia is higher, a side effect of eschewing testosterone.

What was I seeking for my sacrifice? A feeling of wholeness and perfection. I was still a virgin when I went in for surgery. I mistakenly believed that this made my choice more serious and authentic. I chose an irreversible change before I’d even begun to understand my sexuality. The surgeon deemed my operation a good outcome, but intercourse never became pleasurable.

We really need to pass a law allowing children who experience regret at being groomed by LGBT activists to sue them for damages. Then maybe all this grooming of children by “compassionate”  “diverse” “inclusive” “tolerant” “accepting” “affirming” secular leftist groomers would stop.

This next story was covered by Tucker Carlson:

And written up in Life Site News:

 Google-owned video giant YouTube recently deleted a clip highlighting Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson’s interview with a “detransitioner” who is speaking out against the harm transgender ideology poses to young people.

Helena Kerschner explains that “when I was fifteen, I was introduced to gender ideology on Tumblr and began to call myself nonbinary. Over the next few years, I would continue to go deeper and deeper down the trans identity rabbit hole, and by the time I was eighteen, I saw myself as a ‘trans man’, otherwise known as ‘FtM’. Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I made an appointment at a Planned Parenthood to begin a testosterone regimen. At my first appointment, I was prescribed testosterone, and I would remain on this regimen for a year and a half. It had an extremely negative effect on my mental health, and I finally admitted what a disaster it had been when I was 19, sometime around February or March 2018.”

“When the disillusionment fully set in, I stopped the testosterone treatment and began the process of getting my life back on track,” she says. “It has not been easy, and the whole experience seriously derailed my life in ways I could never have foreseen when I was that fifteen-year-old kid playing with pronouns on Tumblr.”

She tells her story in her own words on her SubStack.

Now, I brought this case to the attention of an atheist friend of mine from Seattle, who has previously voted for candidates who support same-sex marriage, gay rights, late-term abortion, infanticide, and even adults having sex with children. He votes to make sure that atheist morality is enacted into law, and can’t be judged by Christians. I wanted to see what he thought about the possibility of children permanently losing bone density and becoming infertile. I’m really hoping that as the evidence of harm to children from secular leftist policies comes out, that he changes his mind about voting for secular left policies.

What useful things can Christians learn by studying metaphysics?

I have a little experience with metaphysics – just what I learned from a few lectures by the wonderful Christian professor Dr. J. P. Moreland. What I remember from those lectures is that metaphysics can be useful for defending the reality of non-physical minds, and dogmatic skepticism is self-refuting. But I found a nice, easy article by Tyson James to give us a real overview of metaphysics.

His article is on Worldview Bulletin.

He starts like this:

One day, a close church friend asked me, “What is metaphysics?” Dr. Paul Gould notes in a previous article that local bookstores often locate the subject of metaphysics somewhere around tarot cards and astrology. It may be surprising, then, for some to learn that metaphysics is actually the name of a very important field in philosophy.

So, what is metaphysics to philosophers and what in the world does it have to do with Christianity? These are actually very important questions, since metaphysics is a subject which touches on some of the most fundamental elements of the Christian faith.

So, I looked down the list and he has these:

  • Is there a first cause?
  • Do we have free will?
  • Are there any unchanging truths?
  • What are space and time?
  • How do things which change maintain their identity over time?
  • Is the physical universe all there is?
  • Are objective morals real?

This is what he has to say about the one I remember:

How do things which change maintain their identity over time? Christians believe that the same person who was a sinner may also accept Christ, be saved from his sins, and enjoy eternity with God. But some people say that there is no “self” which maintains identity over time, that we’re just collections of atoms which change every time an atom is gained, lost, or rearranged. So, answering this question is important for showing that the same person who is lost without Jesus may be saved and restored in Jesus.

As a software engineer from an immigrant family, reading philosophy is as painful to me as a root canal. I just keep thinking “why do I have to know this if no one will pay me to know this?” But I like to win apologetics battles more, so I have forced myself to learn a little about some of the topics in his list. Every good Christian apologist knows how to defend philosophical attacks, like the problem of evil, religious pluralism, postmodernism, physicalism of minds, the hiddenness of God, rational unbelief, animal pain, etc. And we know how to go on the attack with objective morality, mind-body dualism, persistent identity through time, free will, etc. Not to mention first cause arguments, but I try to only think about that as a scientific problem. Metaphysics is useful for many of these tasks.

Anyway, metaphysics. Let me find you something useful to teach you some metaphysics. Here is a good short essay from Dr. John Depoe, who defends the reality of the non-physical minds, which is also known as “substance dualism”, because there are two substances – your body and your mind.

He writes about the persistent identity argument for the soul:

Another argument supporting substance dualism is that one maintains personal identity through change. Even though one is continuously going through physical changes and experiencing different mental states, a person continues to be the same person. If persons were identical with their physical parts or mental states, they would cease to be the same persons as these changes occurred. Therefore, it is necessary to postulate an immaterial, substantial self that endures through change.

Suppose that someone believes that people do not maintain identity through change and concludes that the previous argument for substance dualism fails. This denial of personal identity through change, I contend, presents untenable difficulties. First, there is one’s own awareness of being the same person through change. Moreover, if one is not literally the same person through these changes, how can a person maintain long-term goals and desires?

If you are your body, and your body is always changing, then you aren’t the same person now as 5 minutes ago.

There are many other good arguments for real non-physical minds. First of all, we know about the existence of at least one non-physical mind. God. That’s who brings the physical universe into being. He’s not physical. And there is also our first-person awareness of our mental state, our experience of consciousness, our ability to think about other things (“intentionality”), and our experience of free will.

So you see, this is all very practical, even if it frightens my practical West Indian parents if I talk about it too much.

Knight and Rose Show – Episode 2: Becoming Bulletproof on the Battlefield

Welcome to episode 2 of the Knight and Rose podcast! If you missed our first episode, please give it a listen. We got an amazing review of episode 1 from a Christian woman working in IT, who really nailed what we are aiming for with this podcast. We are now up on Apple, Google, and Spotify. If you like episode 2, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our new Youtube channel.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode 2:

Episode 2 Summary:

How can you get started with discussing your faith? In this podcast, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss best practices for defending your faith. We compare what the Bible teaches to the view of faith that is popular among Christians and churches. We explain the approach we’ve used in our workplaces. We describe who we think has done the best job of promoting Christianity in hostile environments, such as the university. Finally, we recommend two new apologetics resources.

Speaker biographies

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

Notes

At one point in the podcast we were talking about policies that incentivize criminal behavior, and I said “cash bail”. I was talking about the decision of some states to abolish “cash bail”, which makes it easier for criminals to get released after being arrested.

References

Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights by Dr. Francis J. Beckwith

Who Killed HealthCare?: America’s $2 Trillion Medical Problem – and the Consumer-Driven Cure by Dr. Regina Hertzlinger

More Guns Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws by Dr. John Lott

Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Dr. Thomas Sowell

In Intellectual Neutral” by Dr. William Lane Craig. (video version here)

The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos edited by Dr. William A. Dembski, Dr. Casey Luskin, and Dr. Joseph M. Holden

Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer

Podcast RSS feed:

https://feed.podbean.com/knightandrose/feed.xml

You can use this to subscribe to the podcast from your phone or tablet. I use the open-source AntennaPod app on my Android phone.

Podcast channel pages:

Video channel pages:

Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license