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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I know people who genuinely and sincerely claim to have heard God talking to them - not in a delusional "God spoke words to me and told me I was the Chosen One" kind of way, but in a "I absolutely know for a fact that God is real because I have Experienced Him" kind of way. And people who've had like religious and/or allegedly supernatural experiences which I consider as delusional or non-real as any trans identification.

I don't think they're crazy or trolling, and while I won't pretend I believe that their experiences are real, nor will I start a fight with them. I don't feel obligated to sneer and say "You're just experiencing things you've convinced yourself are real."

But this isn't anything like a trans person. If a person sincerely (or trollishly) says they've experienced god, nothing changes for you. You need not call him "Holy One". This god experiencer doesn't then start undergoing sterilizing medical procedures. There is nothing to start a fight over.

But this isn't anything like a trans person.

Sure it is. In both cases, someone is making a claim based on what they experience inside their head, and you can choose to believe them, disbelieve them quietly and be polite, or disbelieve them aggressively.

If a person sincerely (or trollishly) says they've experienced god, nothing changes for you. You need not call him "Holy One". This god experiencer doesn't then start undergoing sterilizing medical procedures. There is nothing to start a fight over.

If someone says they're a woman, nothing changes for me either.

You're just arguing that accepting someone's gender identification has real world political (and physical) implications, which is true, but so do religious beliefs. I have certainly seen more conflict over the latter than the former.