Does Actual Reality Exist?

In the past, when sharing information with their passengers, Air Canada would begin the announcement by saying “ladies and gentlemen.” That was their standard greeting. Recently, however, they made a change. Now when they make announcements, they begin by saying “everybody.”

In another recent development, a British doctor lost his government job as a medical assessor after more than three decades because he refused to address a man as “she” and “Mrs.” The person in question was a six foot tall man with a beard.

While these two stories are, in some ways, very different, the underlying issue is the same for both. There is a massive push, these days, to redefine the very notion of gender. For instance, when Facebook first rolled out, they gave people only two gender options (male and female). But beginning in 2014, they started upping the count. At that time, they expanded from 2 to 50 options. But even that was rapidly expanded to 56. Currently they offer as many as 71 – and they even have a custom option if none of the included ones suit you. What we have here is an attempt to actually redefine reality.

This point of view emerges out of a naturalistic worldview. Naturalism is the belief that the natural universe is all that exists – there is no God, nor any kind of transcendent reality. An extension of this thinking is that, ultimately, everything can be accounted for by empirical science.

Since biologically, there are only two genders – male and female –  you would think that Naturalists would be on board with the two gender approach. But if you thought that, you would be wrong. When it comes to gender choices, these Naturalists set aside their belief in science and propose a belief that has no scientific basis whatsoever. In order to accomplish this verbal contortion, they have made a semantic distinction between sex and gender. They define sex based on biology, so in that arena they do acknowledges two sexes. However, they have redefined the term gender as the role of a male or female in society (gender role), or an individual's concept of themselves (gender identity). Funny how words can just be arbitrarily redefined to justify an entirely new, and novel, understanding of what is real and what is fantasy – even if there is no objective basis for doing so.

I personally find it quite interesting how Naturalists look down on Christians and accuse them of living in a fantasy world because they believe in a God who cannot be measured or verified empirically, while at the same time believing they can just up and arbitrarily redefine words to create reality based on their own personal preferences – even if their created reality has no correspondence with actual reality.

But there is another internal contradiction that they allow. Since they consider gender to be fluid, they believe people can take actions to change their gender identity. In most cases, this is done simply by self-identifying as something other than one’s birth gender – no other action needed. They just deem themselves to be a different gender, and that supposedly makes it okay for them to engage in homosexual, or other forms of immoral, behavior. This doesn’t, of course, change them in any way, it only allows them to live out a fantasy. It does not reflect reality.

But they also go so far as to advocate sex change surgery. This way, they believe that one can actually become the sex they identify with in their gender identity ... except that it doesn’t work that way. They may take hormone treatments to change certain chemical processes in their bodies, and they may use surgical means to remove or attach certain bodily organs, but it does not change a person’s DNA. A person born a male will die a male, and a person born a female will die a female, no matter what medical procedures they undergo.

The truth is, in actual reality, there are only two genders. Anyone who tries to promote a belief that there are more are simply living in a fantasy world.

Freddy Davis is the president of MarketFaith Ministries. He is the author of numerous books and has a background as an international missionary, pastor, radio host, worldview trainer, and entrepreneur. Freddy is a graduate of Florida State University with a BS in Communication, and holds MDiv and DMin degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a popular speaker, particularly on the topic of worldview and its practical implications for the Christian life. He lives in Tallahassee, FL, with his wife Deborah. 

You may also contact Freddy at Leadership Speakers Bureau to schedule him for speaking or leadership engagements.

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