While I was working on a fairly extensive post about scientific study results that showed the so-called gay gene to be absent, which you can read more about here, I came across an interesting headline called, Gay Scientists Isolate Gay Gene.
After doing some research, it became quickly obvious that the headline was clearly satirical and that a gene predisposing people to Christianity had not been really been found, but one thing it did reveal to me is that while everyone recognized the headline as satirical fake news, an inconsistency in thought was revealed in that while virtually everyone thought the existence of a "Christian gene" to be preposterous, the public at large has taken seriously the claims of a so-called "gay gene" even though there have been no discoveries made that reveal a definitive biological cause for such and past claimed discoveries of a definitive biological cause have been soundly debunked. It is also a proven fact that that sexual orientation can be subject to change and that not everyone who has an LGBT predisposition chooses to act accordingly. [1, 2]
But anything that soundly refutes the LGBT narratives has been largely suppressed rendering most people unaware of the numerous cases of those who once identified as an LGBT but are now no longer; some of whom go on to live satisfying heterosexual lifestyles and are happily married and while others, though still contending with and LGBT disposition, refuse to act thereon out of personal conviction.
Among the voices that find themselves the most suppressed, it is the ex-gays and the children who have been raised in same-sex households whose voices who are the most suppressed and which need to be heard which would otherwise shed a much needed light upon the entire LGBT debate. More about that here.
But what if there really was a "Christian Gene"? What would that mean? And would everyone have such a gene or only certain people?
What it would mean would is that if there is a gene that predisposes us to one thing, then there are also genes that can just as easily predispose us to another. While covering the ridiculous and satirical news piece, a news site called Mind Hacks did, however discuss a book written by geneticist Dean Hamer called the God Gene in which he discussed that a gene known as the VMAT 2 might be responsible for tendencies towards religion and spirituality but which another psychological scientist claimed accounted for less than one percent of genetic variance. [3] That is what the results of a recent GWAS study had also said about a series of genes suspected of influencing same-sex behavior. [4]
But another intriguing scientific survey that was carried out revealed that any genetic influence behind political and religious beliefs tended to be higher than that which has been said to influence sexual orientation. [5, 6]
But if the choices that we make are genetically determined, then the concepts of "choice" and "free will" are rendered meaningless and nothing that we say or do holds any meaning, plus no one could really be held responsible for what they say and do because their DNA programs them to say and do whatever it is that they say and do and if that is the case, then the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, justice, and injustice also lose their meaning because there wouldn't be any such thing.
That being said, what use would there be for any kind of law and order? What purpose would governing authorities serve? Every man should simply be left to his own devices and left alone to be a law unto himself which would end in perpetual chaos and disorder. Even the best of us would find ourselves worse in nature than any beast and rulership would be based every bit as much on strength and ruthlessness as influence and would only last as long as influence and strength is retained until a violent exchange of hands takes place and another power stronger and more influential than the previous takes over and so there would be an unending cycle of killing and being killed; a dog eat dog.
Were it not for the restraints of civil authority and the inward restraints of the conscience, there would not be a single one of us innocent of stealing, murder, adultery, corruption, or any acts deemed depraved because in each and everyone of us there is the predisposition towards entertaining unwholesome thoughts, harboring murderous hatred others for even things not worthy of death, diverse lusts, covetousness, jealousy, greed, lying, betrayal, and selfishness and that which predispositions us towards such things is what the Bible calls sin.
Sin is not just the outward manifestations of bad and destructive behavior, but it is also that inherent corrupted nature that resides within us that predispositions us to do those things that are evil and deemed reprehensible. No one really has to be taught how to hate, lie, steal, covet, kill, lust, be lazy, selfish, cruel, malicious, destructive, be prideful, self-righteous, conceited, foolish, and depraved because those things are in our nature, but what has to be taught is to do the things that are good and right, to love and be kind and courteous towards others around us, to be law-abiding productive citizens in our respective communities, to respect and honor those in authority over us, to be self-sacrificing, and to live lives filled with meaning and purpose.
And just as there is in each and every one of us the capacity to be evil, there also resides in us the capacity to do good and yet even when we try to do good, evil is present in us and we succumb to an act of sin be it in word, deed, or a dark, depraved, and unwholesome thought. Even our good actions and the kind words we speak can be corrupted by wicked, prideful, and self-serving motives and if we are honest with ourselves, we have all succumbed to sinful unholy behavior in more ways than one because our default setting from day one is towards sin, but also present within us is a spiritual element that enables us to respond to the things unseen; the things of the spirit when the spiritual realm interacts with us and it interacts with us more often than we think but we have been made, especially in secularized or secular-leaning society, blind to the things of the spirit because we have our sites set upon the things of the material which we engage with our physical senses and it is to these thing to which sinful nature appeals and so pervasive is sin that we become blind to the spiritual interaction and influences that take place and it is only when we receive a divine visitation or reach a critical conjuncture in our lives do we even begin to at least consider a world beyond this present one and what ramifications that holds for us.
We begin to ask and ponder that most fundamental question that has been asked more than any other because it is the one that has the greatest ramification for the course of our lives: Is there a God who created us to whom we must give an account someday or are we just a product of unthinking random processes? If there is a God, how actively is He involved in the affairs of man and His creation? Is He personally involved to the point of interjecting Himself at times when necessary to set history on a desired course or to accomplish a purpose in our lives or is He distant from His creation, leaving everything else to chance?
There is a reason why we are confronted with such a fundamental question and a reason why we do not all come to the same conclusions which comes down to this. There is a reason why some of do come to the conclusion that there must be a God who created us and a higher power to whom we must give an account someday and why there are those of us who insist that there is no God to whom we must given an account and that this present life is all that there is, but what makes the concept of a divine or spiritual presence and involvement unless there is spiritual intervention? And if there is spiritual intervention, then it is the realm of the spirit that leads us to seek out and call upon that higher authority to whom we owe our existence and before whom we must stand one day.
It is only by the intervention of the spirit that the Creator's handiwork is revealed to us (Rom. 1:20) and it is only divine revelation that we learn what kind of God it is who created us. It is only a divine hand that instills the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, law and lawlessness, order and chaos, justice and injustice, and a purpose-filled life. They cannot be revealed or defined by means apart from the spirit for in order for such concepts to exist in the material realm, they had to have existed in the spiritual realm first who then imparted them to the inhabitants of the natural world.
And with imparting these concepts, it is the realm of the spirit by which the things that are good and evil, right and wrong are defined through moral laws and precepts that could otherwise not be known. And once given to us, if we find ourselves falling short of the moral standard set forth, what means of redemption can be provided for the atonement of sin without which we are subject to a fearful divine justice, even a terrifying and everlasting punishment?
If indeed there is a genetic disposition toward the non-spiritual and also towards the spiritual, it would serve as a testimony and evidence that we have been given the capacity for both, but to be genetically determined to be spiritual or non-spiritual or even if there be some made spiritual by genetic determination and as for those made spiritual by genetic determination, what does that say about the God who made us and the powers and principalities of the spiritual realm if the religion and beliefs we adopt are genetically determined?
It would say that either there is a division in the spiritual realm or the God who made us is the author of confusion and takes pleasure in causing chaos and division amongst men and in creating this chaos, He predestines some to one thing and others to another and this also has ramifications for the afterlife as well; some being predestined to heavenly bliss and others predestined to eternal torment and misery.
Such a God would be called evil and malicious who inflicts pain and suffering for His pleasure, and incites division, disorder, and chaos for His amusement but then with whom did good and evil originate in the first place? Who is responsible for brining order to the world, in whatever way that may be defined?
Such concepts would have to originate in the spiritual realm before we could ever know of them and if there be forces of good and evil present in our world and if such concepts hold meaning, it is because they were present in the spiritual world before they became present in our world. That there is a lack of unity in our world testifies to the fact that there is a lack of unity in the spiritual world and because there are spirits at odds with one another, that also means that there is a battle for souls and because there is a battle for souls, there are voices from both sides of the age long war; voices that speak truth to us and voices that cleverly speak lies and the question we wrestle with is how do we know what the truth is?
But if men are predestined for evil or good like fictitious characters in a novel, comic book, video game, or movie script, then such would lose their meaning and what gives them meaning is when men have the ability to choose between good and evil, yet if men cannot freely choose between evil and good, then that which is good is only an illusion and evil becomes the ultimate reality because a God who does not enable men to be capable of independent thought becomes the ultimate perpetuator of evil and there can really be no such thing as good.
Good can only be the ultimate reality if men are given the ability to choose between good and evil, and by giving man the choice to choose either good or evil, God can in no way be called a perpetrator of evil.
Upon observing the world around us, we can know and understand that there is an order to things which if disrupted, would spell the end of all life and just as there are natural laws that govern nature which are necessary for the sustaining of the universe and the survival of living things including us, so there is a need for order within the world of men in order for our society to properly function. If there is no sense of order to a society, that society will collapse into chaos.
This is why we have laws to maintain the necessary order and peace needed for a properly functioning and productive society. Therefore, if there is a God who has put in place laws to govern nature in order to hold the universe together and to sustain life, then it is only from that same God that we receive moral laws by which our lives are governed and when a people violate these laws, they do so to their own destruction.
Anything that violates or runs contrary to the perfect design of our Creator is counted as sin and evil in His sight, but that only holds meaning if no one is predestined in any way, shape, or form, regardless of any genetic predisposition, to goodness or evil, salvation or damnation.
Now if religious or non-religious belief are genetically influenced to any degree and if the religion of our choosing is also genetically influenced, we are faced with two possibilities:
1. Everything we say and do is not an act of the will but genetically predetermined and we are but nothing more than biological machines subject to random chemical reactions and this renders concepts such as choice, morality, right, and wrong, good and evil, purpose, futility, love, hate, order, chaos, justice and injustice, law, lawlessness, purity, corruption, sacred and profane, and truth and falsehood meaningless and illusory. We could never be sure of anything nor could we be confident that we were thinking the right thoughts, asking the right questions, receiving the right answers or if anything at all is as it seems. That is what atheistic naturalism believes.
2. We possess a genetic disposition towards any religion and belief there could possibly be and any range of behaviors (good and evil) imaginable and while some predispositions may be stronger than others and differ from person to person, they are not so strong so as to override our ability to make choices and to choose the course and direction of our lives and that the power of choice is independent of genetics and that the principles, religions, doctrines, philosophies, laws, precepts, traditions, and customs by which are lives are governed come from a source that is not of this material world. That is what those who believe in a God believe.
Either way, the propensity to do that which is good or evil is present within us; we can either build each other up or tear each other down, yet if we are genetically predestined to one thing or another, how is it then that an atheist chooses to become a Christian or a professing Christian falls away from his faith? What would lead a Hindu or Muslim to switch places with one another or with people of any other faith or belief system? Is this genetically predetermined as well? If that were the case then such genetic predetermination would be an unstable one and in such a case, self-contradictory. That people can gravitate from one belief system to another or from one alignment to another can only go to show that we are not genetically predetermined towards anything but that the choices we make are independent of our DNA and goes to show that the God who created us does not want us to enslaved to one thing or another, but made us to be independent thinkers for enabling us to be independent thinkers, irrespective of any genetic influences, He is able to have a meaningful relationship with His creation because we have the ability to choose fellowship with God or enmity with Him. And there are people on both sides of that aisle.
Therefore if there were a so-called "Christian gene" discovered, it would have no more power to compel the ones with that gene to be Christian any more than a so-called gay gene could compel someone to pursue a homosexual relationship. There are those found with suspected "gay genes" who do not live their lives accordingly. Therefore, hypothetically, anyone found with such a so-called Christian gene may not necessarily become a Christian because genetic predispositions do not override the will which is independent of genes.
On the other hand, if there are those who do not appear to possess the hypothetical Christian gene but who become Christians any way, then there are those who may not necessarily possess so-called gay genes but who become LGBT any way and why would that be? because we have the power to choose. We can either obey our genetic predispositions or defy them.
This is what makes any notion of a Christian gene laughable and should also make any notion of a gay gene just as laughable.
And if there is a God who created us before whom we will one day stand and who has made us capable of independent thought and choice in order to have a meaningful relationship with us, then we should not be fooled by any nonsense of any sort of behavior being genetically fixed, no matter how convincing such claims may appear to be, because such an excuse will not buy us acquittal on the day of judgment for a time is coming when all people will be judged for all that they have done in this life and there will be some who will enter into everlasting glory and honor before their Maker and there will be those who will be sent away into everlasting torment and shame because of their unrepentant wickedness and defiance of their Creator.
And even if there is in us the genetic propensity to do either evil or good in the sight of God, that does not necessarily mean that both propensities were meant to be in us when the world was first created, for if God is a good God, far be it from him that He should create man with passions instilled in him that would lead him into sin, for to do so would already set man up for failure from the start and thus bring wickedness into a world that was created to be good and if man was not created.
Therefore, if God had nothing to do with the introduction of sin and evil into this world then that means it was introduced by a power at enmity with God. I mentioned earlier in this post how the concepts of good and evil originated in the spirit realm before they were introduced in the material realm.
It was therefore an act by a malevolent being from the spirit realm that lead man into sin. When God created man, he set before him in the form of two trees: The tree of life which would have brought everlasting life to man or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which brought death. In placing these two trees before man, God put to the test the heart of man. Would man choose life or death?
Ultimately, at the behest of that wicked spirit whom we now know as the Devil or Satan, who is the epitome of all evil and who took the form of a serpent to lead man into choosing death instead of life (Gen 3) sin entered into the world by first entering into man.
After man, beginning with Adam, had sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from which he was told not to eat, something in him also changed the caused his sin to be inherited by all mankind which and therefore all sin and that is why all die because as a sentence, man was sentenced to death (Rom. 6:23) and also because of sin, the creation itself, by a curse, was also subject to the present sufferings, pain, struggles, decay that we witness today. (Rom. 8:19-22)
Because sin taints everything that it touches, nothing sinful can dwell in the Kingdom of God which is why by sin we are condemned to everlasting separation from our God which results in unimaginable eternal torment and because sin causes us to fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) which is perfection, we cannot by any efforts of our own attain to the Kingdom of God, but because God is good, He is also a loving God and it is because of His love for us that He sent Christ Jesus, who was without sin, into this world to pay on our behalf the penalty required which demanded both His physical death and separation from the Father and it is by His blood shed and His resurrection from the dead that redemption on our behalf has been made possible. Mercy and forgiveness have been offered by Christ to us if we will repent of our sins and place our trust in Him for our salvation.
By Him are our souls cleansed and do we receive reconciliation with our Maker and because He has shown His power over death by rising from the grave, we also can be confident that even though we die, we ourselves will be raised again as well in new incorruptible bodies (1 Cor. 15:22) untainted by sin and a world free from the curse and darkness of this present world where sin is no longer present, where death holds no power, and where the adversary of our souls has no dominion because this sin-cursed dying world will be replaced by a new world (2 Pet. 3:13, Rev. 21-22) where there is no curse because sin will be no more, death will be cast away, and Satan who brought his wickedness into the world and assumed dominion over it, will face his final defeat when he and they who have sided with him will be sentenced to everlasting torment. (Rev. 21-22) In that day, all they who have loved their sin more than righteousness and who attempted to attain by their own devices that which we have already attained in Christ will from their place of punishment look from that place of outer darkness upon that which we have attained in Christ that they themselves had sought but failed to attain apart from Christ. (Lk. 13:28-29)
Those who do not receive Christ now while they yet live have nothing more to which to look forward except a dreadful everlasting judgment. No excuse they make will earn them an acquittal. No list of good deeds they claim will buy their way into the Kingdom. They will fail to measure up. Comparing their righteousness with the person next to them will not make them appear any better in the sight of the God who will be handing them their sentence. Nor will they be able to plead ignorance. All who die in unbelief and hardened against their Maker will all face the same tragic fate. That is why it is written that today is the day of salvation. (2 Cor. 6:2)
It does not take a change in genetic predisposed feelings to come to Christ and away from sin. It takes an act of faith and a heartfelt decision to do so in spite of the call and pull of our corrupted and carnal nature.
There is a battle for the souls of men with both the forces of light and darkness pulling at us. Readers, which will you ultimately choose? There lies in us the capacity for sinfulness, but it does not override our ability to choose what is right in the sight of God.
We can choose to resist the enticement of our sin and embrace salvation through Christ or we can choose to harden our hearts against the call of Christ. If we embrace Christ and turn away from our sins and strive, out of gratitude and gratefulness for the salvation given to us, to honor and please our Lord in all things that we do, the call of our sin-tainted flesh will weaken and be less frequent and when these mortal coils of our are changed into the incorruptible, we will no longer feel the pull of sin because it will not exist in us.
But if we persistently resist the call of the Holy Spirit to repentance, eventually the heart becomes too hardened and a convicting call is no longer felt and their doom is sealed. Better to become dead to the enticement and call of inward sinful tendencies that lead the soul into damnation than to become dead to the call of the Spirit which leads to everlasting salvation.
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In The Gay Marriage Controversy
End Notes:
1. Yasmin Tayag, "Despite what you may have read, there's no 'gay gene,'" Genetics Literacy Project, October 12, 2015
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/10/12/despite-what-you-may-have-read-theres-no-gay-gene/
2. Alex Kasprak, "Large-Scale Study Bolsters Notion That Genetics Contribute to Sexual Orientation,"
Snopes, August 30, 2019
https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/30/genes-sexual-orientation-study/
3. Vaughan Bell, "Christian gene isolated," Mind Hacks, April 2, 2008
https://mindhacks.com/2008/04/02/christian-gene-isolated/
4. Jonathan Lambert, "No 'gay gen': Massive study homes in on genetic basics for human sexuality," Nature, August 29, 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02585-6
5. Peter Sprigg, "Landmark Study Determines There Is No 'Gay Gene,'"
Family Research Council (FRC), August 30, 2019
https://frcblog.com/2019/08/landmark-study-determines-there-no-gay-gene/
6. Thomas J. Brouchard Jr., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, “Genetic Influence on Human Psychological Traits A Survey,”
Current Directions In Psychological Science
http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Teaching/PhysiologicalPsychology/zCurrDir4200/CurrDirGeneticsTraits.pdf
Scripture references:
1. Romans 1:20
2. Genesis chapter 3
3. Romans 6:23
4. Romans 8:19-22
5. Romans 6:23
6. 1 Corinthians 15:22
7. 2 Peter 3:13
8. Revelation chapters 21-22
9. Luke 13:28-29
10. 2 Corinthians 6:2
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