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Philosophy/religion

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Can God make mistakes?

130 replies

DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 13:24

If you're a Christian - of any denomination - do you believe that God can make mistakes by putting people in the wrong bodies? I am thinking specifically of transgender people, obviously.

If you do believe that God can make mistakes, how do you connect this with the rest of your faith?

If you don't believe that God can make mistakes, how can you explain why transgender people feel the way that they do?

I am a Christian and my (atheist) friend asked me about this and I just didn't know how to answer her. Of course I don't believe that God can make mistakes - I KNOW He can't make mistakes. So how does that make sense within the context of the feelings of transgender people?

Was just wondering what other Christian's personal thoughts were about this.

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Vincitveritas · 26/08/2022 15:59

Thanks picklemewalnuts😊

DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:02

Glittersparkle76 · 26/08/2022 15:17

I genuinely can't comprehend in this day and age how people can still believe in God?,the Bible is the biggest fairy tale ever told and how can people really think there's a big man in the sky looking down on everybody?.Jesus did exist,there's scientific proof of that but as him being the son of God?,biologically it's impossible.Jesus was no more than a magician/conman who made people believe he could make wine from water or rise from the dead!.
If there was a God why would he allow babies to have cancer,or be raped and murdered while the murderer is allowed to live?.Why would he allow severely disabled people to be born severely disabled and have no quality of life,or for people to have such a shit life and suffer so much pain while others seem to breeze through life and are so fortunate?,it makes no sense to me.
The Church is the biggest cult ever known to man.

So sorry you feel this way. What a sad comment.

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picklemewalnuts · 26/08/2022 16:04

Do start a thread to talk about that if you want to, Glittersparkle.

DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:05

Vincitveritas · 26/08/2022 14:36

Your initial question was, 'Do you believe that God can make mistakes by putting people in the wrong bodies?' So I think it was relevant to ask. I am a Christian by the way and it wasn't meant to be antagonistic.

Hello! Sorry, I didn't think you were being. I was more curious as to whether people see a divide between disaster/diseases and transgenderism which many people (as far as I have seen) say that this isn't any kind of illness/mental illness (although I know others feel differently) and if so, how do they view it in light of their understanding of God?

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DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:08

Youweremybrotheranakin · 26/08/2022 15:59

I believe transgenderism is a human/societal issue.

The society we live in encourages and profits from people disliking themselves, believing there is something wrong with themselves.

I fully support other people to live in peace as they wish, but I don’t think God created transgenderism, humans did.

Our society perpetuates the trope that your value is based on your appearance and how well you fit into narrow desired stereotypes.

I don’t believe I was created for judgment by other humans (& the media). I was not born for that purpose.

"I believe transgenderism is a human/societal issue.

The society we live in encourages and profits from people disliking themselves, believing there is something wrong with themselves."

This is really interesting - your whole comment is. I really agree with this, although didn't realise until I read your comment. Thank you!

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picklemewalnuts · 26/08/2022 16:09

@MolkosTeenageAngst that's a really interesting post. I don't see chronic illness and disability as the same as neurodiversity.

I have a chronic illness. It's definitely a failure of body parts that should work better. I'm a bit broken! I take various medicines to address that.

Neurodiversity is more about things working differently, rather than not working. So neurodiversity may well bring strengths as well as failings.

My chronic illness brings no strengths, bar perhaps the ability to sit around not doing much for many hours! I don't get inconveniently restless, that's for sure!

DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:14

MolkosTeenageAngst · 26/08/2022 15:03

What about neurodisabilities like autism or ADHD etc; many neurodiverse people feel that being neurodiverse is an intrinsic part of them and very much positive thing but there are others who struggle and wish that they were neurotypical. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a difference. Why did god make this difference bough?

Clearly if there is a God then ‘he’ intended to give people different and even difficult things to deal with. Being transgender doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but that also doesn’t mean it was a mistake for god to make somebody transgender if you don’t believe god makes mistakes. Perhaps being transgender was the trial/ journey that god intended for those people to help shape them. I don’t understand why it has to be a mistake just because it isn’t a ‘bad’ thing. ‘Bad’ and ‘good’ are human concepts which may not be on god’s radar, god might not be looking at the many different types of people that have been put on the world in terms of whether the things they are going to go through are good/ bad.

I’m not a Christian and don’t believe in god but from talking to those who do and who worked alongside me as missionaries in some very devastating places my understanding of Christianity is that life on Earth isn’t the endgame, the end game is eternal life in heaven where things like your physical body won’t matter and it is your spiritual soul which matters. The trials and tribulations we face on earth are part of the journey towards heaven, they are things that can feel good or bad but which ultimately won’t matter in the end. What matters is building that relationship with god as you journey through your life regardless of the things that you face within life and working to follow god’s teachings in your day to day life. Putting a transgender person is the ‘wrong’ body is no more a mistake than giving a person a disability or chronic illness, it’s just a part of the journey that person has to work through on their way to becoming close enough to god to make it into heaven and receive eternal life. Ultimately at that point the physical body won’t matter.

A transgender person choosing to transition to rectify the fact they are in the ‘wrong’ body is presumably no different to a person with a chronic illness or disability receiving surgery or treatment etc to try and change, cure or alter that. If a person with a cleft lip gets in surgically fixed that doesn’t mean God made a mistake in making them that way, it means that was part of their journey and you could argue god also made the treatment which enabled them to be cured. The same with being transgender, if they were born with the ‘wrong’ body but can treat that with hormones and a social transition you could argue god made those things possible as well and that it was part of the intended journey for that person.

I don’t really understand why you are wanting to separate being transgender from all of the other things people do to ‘fix’ or change their minds or bodies (eg: surgery, transplants, prosthetics, amputations, medications, therapies etc) or why you think this issue specifically would be a mistake?

Hi, thanks for your comment! I really enjoyed reading it. It was very interesting and I get what you're saying. The reason I'm trying to separate being transgender from having a disability that requires corrective surgery is merely because the transgender people I know have expressed insult about the idea that being transgender can be compared to an illness. For example, one of my friends was extremely upset on reading an article where being transgender was considered by the author to be a type of mental illness. So I was under the impression that this wasn't a popular opinion and that it was wrong to consider being transgender in this way? I'm not living in the UK at the moment (and haven't been for a few years now, so have been absent while this issue has become more prominent, so my main exposure to this is through friends (transgender and not transgender), Mumsnet, and the media. The country I live in is very different and this is not an issue that most people here are even aware of so I might have got this wrong? But her feelings were so strong about this issue that I got the impression that this was the general consensus in the UK - that it was insulting and demeaning to imply that being transgender could be compared to a disease/illness/mental health condition.

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DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:18

If it's relevant, I have ADHD and have never considered this in any way a mistake on God's behalf. I've never really considered it in as negative in any way, although it can be a struggle, but rather more an essential part of my being that makes up who I am and what God intended to be 'me'. But I suppose the difference is that most people with ADHD (that I know of) don't feel that there is a mistake with them, or anything 'wrong' with them, rather it's just a slight difference. Whereas there's the issue with transgender people feeling that they're born in the 'wrong' body and that's what I'm wondering about specifically. 'Wrong' implies a mistake, whereas 'slightly different' doesn't.

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DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:20

"Neurodiversity is more about things working differently, rather than not working. So neurodiversity may well bring strengths as well as failings."

Thank you @picklemewalnuts , this is put far better than what I was trying to say!

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picklemewalnuts · 26/08/2022 16:21

It's a really interesting question, DaisyJoy!

DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:34

picklemewalnuts · 26/08/2022 16:21

It's a really interesting question, DaisyJoy!

Thank you! I'm glad to hear you say that as I know it's a sensitive issue and was a little nervous that it might offend! I am interested in it too!😊

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GoldenOmber · 26/08/2022 16:36

I don’t think God can make mistakes by definition - God is a perfect act of being. I was born with a disability, so it’s an imperfection, but calling it a mistake sounds like God building me out of Lego and putting in the wrong block and going “oops.”

Also don’t really believe in gendered souls, so I don’t think it is possible to have a soul that’s essentially female inside a body that isn’t.

Fink · 26/08/2022 16:53

Views on transgenderism vary a lot between different Christian denominations. I'm Catholic. We believe that gender dysphoria is in the mind rather than the body, i.e. God didn't give the person the wrong body, but for whatever complex reasons they are not comfortable with the body they're in. We would look to get the person therapy/psychological help rather than altering their body.

The longer, ranty, version: Personally, I believe that a lot of the obsession with trans issues (I'm not talking about the very small minority of people who have always felt this way and have happiy transitioned without most people who meet them later in life being any the wiser than they were ever any different, but the huge explosion recently in trans and other gender identities) comes from a narrowing of what's seen as acceptable for men and women, possibly led by companies who have seen they can sell a lot more if everything is gendered, so your kids need two bikes rather than handing down the outgrown one because a boy can't possibly be expected to ride a girl's bike etc. From a Christian perspective, gender is a complex matter which is in many ways a social construct. As a Christian, there are limits to this idea (i.e. we do believe that there are fundamental differences between men and women) but I'm happy with e.g. boys and girls enjoying sports and games which are more stereotypically associated with the opposite sex, or wearing whatever clothes/hair/make up you want, or boys being sensitive and quiet, and not considering that to be in any way indicative of a confused gender identity (as some teenagers in my dc's school are being led to believe). Where a young person presents to me as transgender, I want to first find out what it is about the other/another gender identity that they think better describes who they really are. Often it comes down to either things like I've listed above, or girls realising that women have a raw deal in society and wanting to opt out of that for themselves. Neither of these are truly transgender. Where people are actually transgender as a stable identity (a very small percentage of the young people who explore the question of their gender), I believe they often have underlying traumatic experiences which have caused them to reject their body, and so they need appropriate professional to process and deal with that. It's complicated, but the bottom line is that I don't think God put anyone in the wrong body.

picklemewalnuts · 26/08/2022 16:54

Most things we wrestle with strike me as being effectively micromanaging, in comparison to God's perspective.

The question about the woman who had 7 husbands... the answer was that Heaven isn't like that.

God's kingdom isn't functioning on the level of detail that humans get bogged down in. It's both bigger and smaller!

I don't think that's theology though, just my perspective! When we get stuck on something, we're usually asking a question that God's not that interested in! In my perspective that includes same sex marriage and whether women should cover their hair or teach in church. Sometimes we're given teaching that related to the situation at the time- protecting the vulnerable, encouraging order- and try and interpret it as being a cosmic command.

Vincitveritas · 26/08/2022 16:54

Yes, thanks for asking and you're quite brave considering the current climate! Unfortunately I don't have the time or headspace at the moment to have a decent debate on the subject.

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 26/08/2022 16:54

I suppose it depends which god you are talking about. I don’t think most of the faithful would consider that that Allah or His Prophet could ‘make a mistake’. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about Hinduism or the various animistic religions to be able to offer an opinion, maybe someone who is attached to them will comment.

Judaism and so by extension Christianity seem to hint that God can change His mind, after the Flood for example and I think in Elijah there is a phrase about ‘repenting Him of the evil.’ In terms of individual suffering , you raise the great question that even the Doctors of the Church have been unable to answer ( Augustine in particular was very troubles by the benign nature of God allowing suffering). I suppose that is why Faith and Hope are regarded as major virtues.

Personally, I think that many of us are born in the ‘wrong’ body, in that we are unable to achieve what we would like, or are subjected to suffering. That’s where faith and resignation come into play. I think the problem with transgender is is that it seems to be based on a rather restrictive view of individual potential, and that the medical and even social ‘ transitions’ are basically ineffective. People are chromosomally defined and limited. It is not the same as needing a new kidney, for example, because it cannot be achieved. So it seems misguided both spiritually and physically as a goal.

I hope someone from religions other than Judéo- Christianity can explain their position - or that someone more professionally theological than me can expand or correct.

rose69 · 26/08/2022 16:58

People realised that God (of she exists) made mistakes when they found dinosaur bones. Why would god make something to them let it die out.

MolkosTeenageAngst · 26/08/2022 17:02

DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 16:18

If it's relevant, I have ADHD and have never considered this in any way a mistake on God's behalf. I've never really considered it in as negative in any way, although it can be a struggle, but rather more an essential part of my being that makes up who I am and what God intended to be 'me'. But I suppose the difference is that most people with ADHD (that I know of) don't feel that there is a mistake with them, or anything 'wrong' with them, rather it's just a slight difference. Whereas there's the issue with transgender people feeling that they're born in the 'wrong' body and that's what I'm wondering about specifically. 'Wrong' implies a mistake, whereas 'slightly different' doesn't.

But just because the person feels they are in the ‘wrong’ body doesn’t mean that God feels it is wrong for that person? A transgender person saying they are in the wrong body is a human way to explain something but that doesn’t mean that god purposefully put them in the wrong body regardless of whether the person themselves feels like that.

I am currently awaiting an adhd assessment and might sometimes feel it’s unfair that I find things harder than other people. Sometimes it really does feel wrong.

I am also asexual and often feel so, so sad about the fact that I am not straight/ gay as I feel either would be easier/ more fulfilling but that doesn’t mean being asexual is inherently wrong. It feels wrong to me because I want to be able to have a relationship and to enjoy sex and experience an orgasm etc like the majority of the population but I don’t enjoy those things even though I want to, sometimes I think I am broken and wish I could experience things like other people, I feel like there is something missing within me but I also know lots of asexual people who are very proud of identifying in that way and who would be aghast at the idea that I think there is something wrong with myself. I would describe it as a deficiency and like I am lacking something that is intrinsic to being human (sexual attraction/ intimacy etc) and I feel like something is broken within me, I feel like I’ve been put into a broken body so I could argue god must have made a mistake with me but then there are other asexual people who would find that offensive and would definitely feel like it’s not a bad thing.

Just because a human feels that they have been put in the wrong body or created with something missing or ‘wrong’ with them or given an unfair burden to carry doesn’t mean that’s how it was intended to be perceived by god? God has not told anybody they are in the wrong body, that is simply how some transgender people choose to perceive, interpret and explain their feelings. Just because they choose to explain it that way doesn’t mean god made a mistake, just as the fact he made me asexual doesn’t necessarily mean he made a mistake with me even if I am struggling to accept it or want to try and find a route to change it.

Justleaveitblankthen · 26/08/2022 17:17

Believing in a God and being a Christian, ie: Believing that Jesus is the Son of God, are not mutually exclusive?

I don't believe for a minute that Jesus was anything other than a compassionate Prophet (of which there has been many over the millenia).
It took a more than a couple of hundred centuries before anyone even spoke about him..

Vincitveritas · 26/08/2022 17:18

@Justleaveitblankthen Nobody said they were. A Christian posed the question asking for predominantly Christian replies. I don't see how this is relevant to the thread.

Vincitveritas · 26/08/2022 17:20

@rose69 I assume you're aiming that one at the Creationists.

picklemewalnuts · 26/08/2022 17:40

@MolkosTeenageAngst do you find the term asexual helpful? We did without it for generations, which may or may not have been a good thing.

I prefer to see myself as evolving rather than arrived, so if I were not very sexually driven as a teen I'd consider it something that could change if I were in the right situation or with the right person.
In the first stages of a relationship I might be very sexually driven, or very romantic. That changes over the course of time.

The various terms are interesting, but perhaps restrictive.

Perhaps it's age that gives me that perspective, as I'd have identified as different things at different times in my life. As a teenager today I'd definitely consider myself asexual. As a teen I thought sex was pretty disgusting! It wasn't until I met someone that floated my boat, that changed!

picklemewalnuts · 26/08/2022 17:44

There's a specific concept in theology that considers whether the soul is separate from the body- for example a fallen body trapping a spiritual soul, a soul at odds with its body. In that case, I suppose a soul could end up in the wrong body.
Another school would say that they are integral to each other, that the body and the spirit are together the person- no tension, just completion.

I apologise for having forgotten all the proper terms. I studied this once upon a time, but these days my brain is a bit like a Swiss cheese!

RamblingEclectic · 26/08/2022 17:49

The Bible can be read that God makes mistakes just as it can be read that people can change God's mind as happens repeatedly in the texts, but what some read that way, others read as all part of God's plan all along. People have wrestled with this for centuries. The Bible isn't univocal on pretty much anything like that and how culture views our relationship to the divine has altered so much it's hard to apply current ideas to it.

I'm sure we all agree that being transgender isn't a disease or a disaster? So I am wondering how it can be explained from a religious perspective.

Depends on how we define transgender.

Gender dysphoria, the distress at one's natural sex characteristics and being seen as that sex - some to the point of wanting to change their body (the vast majority do not), can feel like a disaster. That is a condition and some call that an essential part of being transgender.

People wanting to take on the roles of the other sex, that shows up in a lot of cultures, many without the body distress elements. Some also call that transgender, though there has been push back against that being applied to many groups - role-based is very different to identity/individualistic-based, which is why 'transgender and other gender diverse groups' is popping up in discussions on it. Role-based is not a condition, but personality within a culture that has strict defined roles, which often leads to more roles including cross-sex ones - societies like roles but people are complicated.

There are Judaic texts that have cross-sex role discussion, but they were not popular the variants that developed into Christianity and the Reformation pretty much moved religion from role-based to identity-based - that it's a natural internal drive to God that matters most. A lot of identity-based stuff in Western culture can be traced back to that major shift in how people framed their relationship and duties to the divine and others, and ultimately themselves.

That also means the texts were developed under role-based understanding, but identity-based is the basis for most doctrine and discussions on the Bible today. That clash is always going to be part of things like this. It's part of why the Calvinist and similar pre-determination doctrines gained ground, they blend both using texts like Romans 9 and those objects of wrath made for destruction to show God's glory to those he chooses to have mercy on (of course, to bring in Romans, we have to view Paul as an apostle rather than a false prophet Jesus warned about which is still an argument in some circles). It's not benevolent, not how most mean it today as it is a very selective kindness, but it blends the roles and identity-based concepts together in a way that's still in many doctrines.

I've at times viewed myself as an object of wrath and I've known others who've taken this route to this sort of question, but really, I just hold anything identity based very loosely with a text that wasn't written with that understanding to try to represent roles that have always been adapting - including the role of the Divine that's any text (let alone one translated from copies, some we can see were altered to try to create more consensus that still doesn't exist) can only be an incomplete representation of an attempt of trying to define and understand.

I don't see chronic illness and disability as the same as neurodiversity.

Depends on how we define neurodiversity. Some only use it to mean autism (as it's origin with an autistic sociologist) and ADHD, but it's widely used to include other ways the brain works differently from 'standard' such as Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dyspraxia, Tourettes and Tic disorders, FASD (considered the most common preventable intellectual disability), and acquired neurodiversities like traumatic brain injuries, post-stroke, and similar.

There have been arguments within each of these, like all groups, but all of them have discussed the need for disability-related accomodations and FASD in particularly have been very vocal about being equally a disability and neurodivergent and that taking the disability out is harmful and while benefits to using the social model, it would still be disabling. Few things are universally agreed to be strengths, and there are risks to using them to outweigh everything else.

DaisyJoy1 · 26/08/2022 17:49

Justleaveitblankthen · 26/08/2022 17:17

Believing in a God and being a Christian, ie: Believing that Jesus is the Son of God, are not mutually exclusive?

I don't believe for a minute that Jesus was anything other than a compassionate Prophet (of which there has been many over the millenia).
It took a more than a couple of hundred centuries before anyone even spoke about him..

I'm asking about opinions from Christians about the Christian perspective of God. I'm not sure what's the confusion?

It's also not true that nobody spoke about Jesus for more than a couple of centuries. What an odd comment.

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