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Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Tearing down walls > (No Subject)
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Pragma-Man
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 1/3/2002 8:46 AM (GMT -6) |   | Just wondering the moral and ethical implications of todays bio-technology.
Hypothetical:
Let's say a moral person (no sex sin in life) was born a hermophrodite. We'll call him Tracy. Tracy's parents decided at birth that he should be surgically altered to reflect a single gender and the parents chose male. But later Tracy lives to the age of 25 knowing he was born a hermaphrodite.
At 25 he decides to have a sex change operation because he thinks he should have been a female.
Question:
From a biblical Christian perspective, is it a sin for Tracy to have a sex change? | | Back to Top | | |
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Semeia
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522
| Posted 1/3/2002 1:52 PM (GMT -6) | | I don't think the Bible addresses this, but I am not a Bible scholar so I don't really know. However, being female, I cannot even imagine how horrible it would be if I felt the way I do and yet my body was male. And I'm a very aggressive female. Heck, if I wasn't so girly-looking some of my friends probably would think that I WAS male!
If the technology exists to fix this sort of situation, it is hard for me to imagine withholding it from someone suffering in this predicament. What I have read about this kind of surgery is that people who want to have it must undergo years of therapy beforehand, take hormones for at least a year so that their body begins to change in other ways, and crossdress for a period of time. All of this is to prevent making a terrible mistake with the surgery, and altering a person's body when what they were suffering from was a deep psychological problem which surgery will not solve.
Whether or not it is a sin to have a sex change operation to me is not the most relevant factor. It is a sin to kill another human being, and yet if someone was threatening to kill my child, and killing him was the only way to stop him, I would willingly commit that sin. Christian ethics is not the Pharisaical obsession with good and evil, it is rather an action in favor of life--such as Jesus' healing of the woman on the Sabbath, breaking a commandment in order to give her one less day of suffering, while at the same time giving the Pharisees an object lesson on what Christian ethics looks like.
What brings Tracy the most life in this situation? Telling him he must remain as he is, no matter his lifetime of suffering? Or using medical science to undo a terrible mistake?
Jesus broke a commandment for one single day less of suffering for a woman. He didn't say, "Come back tomorrow; we have the Law to consider."
There is an argument to be made that Jesus didn't really break a commandment, and that it is not really a sin to kill someone to prevent them from killing your child. But that goes to the same point, really: that these things are not at all as cut and dried or as obvious as we Christians think they are. There is probably a great deal of human behavior that we think IS NOT sinful when it IS, and a great deal that we think IS that IS NOT. I wonder if there is a camera at heaven's gate, to capture the expression on each person's face as they find out what the real deal is, like those pictures they take at Camp Snoopy as you splash down the big chute on the log ride? (That might qualify for the 'worst analogy' contest. But I'm going to stick with it because I think the look on our faces is going to be approximately the same... )
Semeia
"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/3/2002 2:44 PM (GMT -6) | | I read only the title. The actual story was different.
(Pragma, I was trying to be invisible! I didn't mean to post. 'Thought it was about a simple sexchange, but it is about something else.)
Edited by - potonwheel on 01/03/2002 11:35:24 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Pragma-Man
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 23
| Posted 1/3/2002 6:27 PM (GMT -6) | | POW,
Don't get what you mean. The title asked is it wrong, and the story lead to the question is it a sin to get a sex change. Pretty much the same and the title, right?
Pragma | | Back to Top | | |
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