The Control of Language

Do words matter? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was looking at a group I’m in on Facebook Wednesday night and saw someone share a before and after picture of Ellen Page, who is now calling herself Elliot Page such that if you do a web search for her name, the first thing you can get is Elliot Page. Already, if some are reading this, they would accuse me of misgendering and insist that I say “He” about her.

One comment left on the picture was about how sad she looked after X number of years living as a man.

I jumped in and said she has lived zero years as a man. She has lived instead as a mutilated woman.

This kind of thing might seem minor to some people, but it is huge. “Why do you say ‘he’? Why not just say ‘she’? What’s the big deal. It’s just a pronoun.”

Pronouns are gateway drugs.

What it is really saying is “I have the power to define myself in contradiction to reality and not only do I want to contradict reality, I want you to join me in contradicting it.” I can freely say that Ellen believes herself to be a male. I can freely say she has mutilated her body to look like a male. I can freely say that she identifies as a he now. However, I can say those things because they are either what she believes about herself, the first and the last option, or something objectively true, the second one. I cannot affirm that her beliefs reflect reality and thus, I cannot affirm them.

It is the same thing I see when I hear someone talk about someone who is a biological male. There is only a male. As soon as we say biological male, we are saying on some level that we think women who mutilate their bodies become men. Male needs no explanation. You either are or you aren’t.

I also do not speak of a same-sex marriage. If marriage is a union of a man and a woman, and it is, there can be no such thing as a same-sex marriage. You might as well talk about a square circle. If you say the term, you have already given up half the game. How can you say that it’s not really a marriage when by your words you have already said it is.

What do I say instead? Redefining marriage. The impetus is on the other side to show why the classical definition of marriage is wrong and why it should be changed. They must also show why it is changed to what they want and not what they don’t want. Marriage has to mean something. If it can mean anything, then it is nothing so there’s no big deal in having it.

Some of you might have noticed I don’t even use the term homosexual. I use the term same-sex attracted. Is it clunkier? Absolutely, but I fear part of the danger is we make who someone sleeps with part of their identity and if that is your identity, how can you expect to deny it? I prefer a term that describes the attraction without saying the person has to have this in their identity.

Every step of language is one we must defend. One might think that this is so small, but what started just a few decades ago as “Just let us live in peace and don’t bother us” has now become Pride parades going on with sexual acts being done where children can see them. We have children taking puberty blockers and mutilating their bodies. We have books in public school rooms graphically displaying sexual acts that are often dangerous and also exploitive and abusive.

We were taught tolerance for so long that most people didn’t see that it was a sham (Though some of us did) and as soon as the reins of power switched, tolerance went out the window.

Also, some might think this is unloving. I disagree. What is unloving is to affirm someone in a deadly delusion that can destroy them. Loving someone does not mean denying reality.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/12/2019: George Brahm

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the rules of debate often is that whoever controls the meaning of the words has an advantage in the debate. It’s why in a number of debates I’m involved in, I try to be very careful with my words. I will say “redefining marriage” instead of “same-sex marriage” for instance to not even begin to concede an inch of what I think is inaccurate.

So it is in abortion debates. To be fair, both sides tend to do this as I think it’s really human nature. Yet we do need to be aware of what our opponents are doing. Are any word games being played that we should know about that can harm our endeavors to save the lives of the unborn?

We also need to learn metaphysics for this, which is another area of word games. Too often, our opponents define metaphysics as simply being nonsense. What is metaphysics really? Does everyone have a metaphysical viewpoint or is it just Christians? Is a lot of this stuff a bunch of nonsense that ancient philosophers might have believed, but it is no longer sustainable in a modern scientific worldview?

To discuss these matters, I have brought on someone new. I decided to bring someone who is climbing up the apologetics ladder and I want to give some more exposure to like others have been doing and are doing for me on my climb. I have seen some of his writings on the topic and they are quite good. Not only that, he also affirms the virgin birth, which I do affirm. His name is George Brahm.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

George Brahm is an undergraduate student of philosophy based in Canada. He focuses on metaphysics and the philosophy of language, with additional interests in bioethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. His current research focuses on the relationship between time and personal identity. (And he affirms the virgin birth.) (Which I also affirm)

So we’ll be talking about the concept of abortion and how it relates to the debates above. What evidence do we really have that the unborn is a human person and should be allowed to live? How can we best phrase the issues to be most persuasive in the public square? When our intellectual opponents are speaking, what do we need to be on the watch for? Hopefully, we will all learn from this the behaviors we should be using in order to make a better case for the pro-life position in the marketplace of ideas.

I know that it’s being slow to get new episodes up, but that is being worked on. I hope you will be patient as there is a lot going on here at the time. Please do be watching for it as I am doing what I can to make sure they come up. Also, please go on iTunes and leave a positive review for the Deeper Waters Podcast since I really love to see them all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters