[Editor’s note: Make sure to read Robert Spencer’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
If you read the Bible with any regularity, you’re no doubt familiar with the passage in which “a woman, whose heart was divided between spirit and body, came before” Jesus. “In quiet despair, she asked, ‘Lord, I come to you estranged, for my spirit and body are not one. How shall I hope to enter the kingdom of God?” If that passage is not familiar to you, you’re not alone: it isn’t really in the Bible at all, but is a fake Biblical passage that ChatGPT generated at the behest of an advocate of today’s gender madness. “I know it’s not real,” commented the fake evangelist, “but it gave me some comfort.” And that in itself is revealing.
Fox News reported Saturday that a “Reddit user under the name Psychological_Dog527 said he was ‘feeling sad’ when he asked ChatGPT to generate a ‘fake biblical passage’ about ‘Jesus accepting trans people,’ which he posted in the ‘r/trans’ channel.” This is intriguing on a number of levels. As a transgender advocate, “Psychological_Dog527” has likely long since left behind any connection to traditional Christianity, but nevertheless, he or she or xe is clearly still haunted by the figure of Christ to the extent that he (or whatever) has fashioned his own Christ, made in his own image, to assuage his conscience.
As the concocted Biblical passage continues, Psychological_Dog527’s ChatGPT Jesus “looked upon her with kindness, replying, ‘my child, blessed are those who strive for unity within themselves, for they shall know the deepest truths of my Father’s creation. Be not afraid, for in the kingdom of God, there is no man nor woman, as all are one in spirit. The gates of my Father’s kingdom will open for those who love and are loved, for God looks not upon the body, but the heart.”
That’s a deft Christian encapsulation of the transgender mindset, but it has nothing to do with Christianity. The real New Testament does say that “there is no male and female” (Galatians 3:28), but this is about the universality of salvation, not the erasure of physical realities or some justification for mutilation and pharmaceutical dependency in pursuit of a fantasy.
This ChatGPT Jesus, with his denial of the gender binary and of the importance of the body itself, offers a Gnostic vision, not a Christian one. Transgenderism is a revival of the ancient religious belief known as Gnosticism, which included the idea that the physical world was the source of evil: an evil god had trapped the souls of human beings inside material bodies and a material world, and that was the reason why evil and suffering existed there.
Different Gnostic sects had various ideas of how souls could be freed from this plight; the Christian version of Gnosticism depicted Jesus as a spiritual being who did not become man, as orthodox Christianity teaches, but who merely took on the appearance of being in a physical body, so as to save the souls that were trapped within those bodies. Thus in Gnostic Gospels, Jesus is a phantasm; one of the disciples at one point passes his hand through Jesus’ body, showing it to be merely an apparition.
This idea was based on the Gnostics’ negative view of the physical world. If matter was evil, the Savior would not have taken it on. The New Testament is aware of Christian Gnosticism and resolutely stands against this, emphasizing that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Risen from the dead, Christ tells his disciples to touch him, so that they can see he is no mere phantom: “Handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). The apostle John insists that when he is speaking about Jesus, he is speaking about “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1).
The idea that matter is not evil and can indeed be sanctified by the incarnation of the Son of God stands opposed to the trans notion that one can only find one’s true self by mutilating one’s physical nature. If God created our physical bodies and created them male and female (cf. Genesis 1:27), then the distinction between the body and the heart in the ChatGPT Jesus quote is a false one, and accepting one’s physical reality is an integral aspect of knowing and trusting in God.
Gnosticism is the order of the day, however, and so the pro-trans publication The Advocate was enthusiastic about the fake Biblical passage, calling it “an affirming example of tolerance” for those who “do not have a relationship with religion because of their history of exclusion among pious people.” The real Bible, by contrast, affirms love for all but no tolerance for sin at all; Jesus forgives a woman who is about to be stoned to death for adultery but tells her to “sin no more” (John 8:11).
That’s just the message that trans advocates don’t want to hear, so it is no surprise that they have fashioned a Jesus more to their own liking. In doing so, they have provided new evidence that transgenderism, and leftism in general, is a cult, a religion of its own. Traditional religion still provides the antidote.
PETA tried to claim Christ was Vegan but didn’t say anything about Leaves and Fishes or telling those fishermen to cast their nets off the Right-side(Starboard)side of their Boat
Or the eating of sheep, goats and cattle.
Traditional religion still provides the antidote for what?
The antidote for accepting the facts of reality and curing fantasy delusions? Really?
A Virgin Birth is reality? A Talking Snake In the Garden of Eden is reality? 72 Virgins In Paradise is reality? The Parting of the Red Sea is reality? Camel Urine Cures Cancer is reality?
The Bible and the Koran are both filled with plenty of fantasy-magical-thinking-denial of reality, no less magical-thinking, denial of reality, nonsense as transgenderism.
DERP! Try not to be an idiot.
So let me get this right, it’s perfectly acceptable to point out the absurd, supernatural claims of Islam or Hinduism, but not of Judaism or Christianity?
Somehow a Virgin Birth is real but 72 Virgins In Paradise is a fantasy?
Why do you care if people believe what, to you, seems absurd. Are they hurting you?
Has it occurred to you that rational selfishness is absurd and unexplainable? Your beliefs have turned into a miserable person.
Take Jeff’s advice. Try not to be an idiot everyday.
The Objectivist (ie. Randian) notion of “volitional consciousness” is a superstition and a very deceptive verbal construct. Indeed, much of Rand (THX) is absurd (as demonstrated by John W. Robbins withering critique of her philosophy) and masks polemical verbal firepower under the claim of being philosophy. Christopher Hitchens did the same thing, and the technique is not unusual. But, THX is certainly not alone in attributing absurdity to religious texts. His error would seem to be in thinking his position is in any way original or that his goddess Ayn Rand was original.
It is fine to point out absurd claims of any religion, including Objectivism. Interesting that you use “absurd” to modify “supernatural” when you make the absurd claim that “existence exists by the grace of existence.” Even a cursory examination of that statement reveals its supernatural and illogical tenets. Grace exists prior to existence, so existence could not exist before grace. Whose grace? What is grace? How does existence manifest the quality of grace? How does matter organize and become life? Talk about absurd and supernatural!
And “reason is man’s mind.” You who say objectivism is man’s mind judging all reality by itself, but who cannot see this is the very ESSENSE of subjectivism.
You were improving, but you have lapsed again into slavery. Resist, THX. You actually have some interesting comments when you depart from your slavery and use your own noggin.
Judaism Hinduism and Christianity aren’t inimical to humanity.. islam is.
Traditional religion still provides and will always provide an antidote to you. An antidote for accepting whose facts? Yours?
I see you provided your religious list of horribles.
What’s it like to wake up everyday knowing you have to go over the same ground everyday because no one buys into your nonsense. No wonder you are so angry and obsessed with thought control.
Isn’t it ironic? THX is obsessed with thought control and yet, no one is as enslaved by an absurd, supernatural, illogical and unscientific religion as he?
Well said. But to respond to one of your points….a couple of non-Objectivist posts does not mean he is improving. He will always be a slave to his religion. He cannot see beyond his own hatred of Christianity and his own self-obsessions.
He will make a couple of “sensible” posts in order to garner his few and far between upvotes. He seems to have a couple of supporters here and there.
Excellent article I learned a lot. The political and theological left aren’t the only ones rewriting the Bible, a retired Air force colonel (Simmons is his last name) has written the “Passion Translation.” Simmons claims God spoke directly to him and gave him knowledge of ancient Aramaic, that no modern human has ever possessed. Simmons would definitely be considered a Christian nationalists. My next example is not so strong. Some white man from South Africa, has written the “Mirror Bible.” I know nothing about the man’s politics, he’s probably just a scam artist.
Jesus of Nazareth is the last prophet. Just as there were no golden artifacts for Joseph Smith to view, there is no divine revelation about the Aramaic language to inform a Bible interpreter. Truly, God’s Holy Spirit dwells among us today, stirring our hearts to know and do God’s will; but those inspirations are not works of prophecy. Do not be deceived in these days by those who claim to hear directly from the Father, for Christ told us that the only way to the Father is through Him.
THX:
Since reason & logic dictate that something can never come from nothing, does not the fact that the universe exists prove to you that at least one miracle has been documented?
No historic figure is more fully and independently attested that Jesus of Nazareth. But this is of no importance to fabulists, for their weakness demands that God not exist, that his Son did not become incarnate to atone for human sin, and that there is only one eternal standard of behavior that is violated on pain of eternal death. The world could not exist without its Creator, and the laws of nature are His creation. To reject the world is to turn one’s back on God, and that is exactly what the Gnostics did.
“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plaques that are written in this book.” Revelation 22:18
This article does a good job of exploring the ancient question about God: Who created whom in who’s image? Did God create man or did man create God? I’m old and I still haven’t figured it out.
No wonder this planet suffers from lack of knowledge.
Proverbs 1:7. The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools dispise wisdom and instruction.
Galatiabs 6:7-8. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap Live everlasting.”