A Letter

"As I study molecular biology, I marvel at the chemical code that drives the mechanics of every living cell. I watch in amazement as a four letter alphabet of ATCGs instructs cells to produce the tens of thousands of unique proteins that make us alive. I read about the recent discoveries of sulfur-based life in the thermal vents on the ocean floor that revolutionize our very definition of life. The practical inevitability of soon finding water and microbial life on one of Jupiter's moons, and fossils on at least one of the dried ocean beds of Mars: these are the tangible facts that excite my curiosity and vitalize me in indescribable ways. I consider that it has been in the relative blink of an eye that humanity has gone from just a tiny nomadic group venturing out of the African plains to populate this tiny planet in an unfathomably vast universe. I read journals about the analysis of mitochondrial DNA that carry in its sequence the maternal lineage of humanity itself in its brief existence here. It might as well haev been just last week that we worshipped the sun, that wondrous, inexplicable life-force in the sky on which we were dependant for survival and went to great lengths to placate. That distant ball of explosive gas was our God, and Earth was the center of all of creation.

"I cannot articulate the wonder and amazement I feel when I contemplate all the complexity and beauty and brilliance I see as I study creation both on the atomic level as well as in the scope of light years' distance. Everything I was raised to believe begins to disintegrate, until only one precept remains. There is a Cause; something brilliant and worthy of worship behind all that I see. I feel ecstatically close to It when I watch through a microscope as enzymes flawlessly replicate a sequence of millions of genetic letters to allow one tiny cell, human or bacteria alike, to grow and persist in its struggle for order in a universe characterized by increasing entropy. A thrill of wonder and adoration of this Cause races through me the first time I understand that time really is relative, and my previous understanding of the sensible world must be completely upheaved and reorganized to satisfy the implications of that truth, just as with discovery that the earth is not the center of all, and that the sun is not God. The conclusion i reach is this: I am not willing to subscribe to a religion, Catholic or otherwise, that professes with such ludicrous certainty, to have the Cause figured out to the degree that they do. My world view has been completely reordered as I have to incorporate the amazing facts I have encountered through observation and study, and my already precarious Faith did not survive the reordering.

"As one example: I remember learning about "substance" versus "accident" in terms of some theologian's (Aquinas?) explanation of Transubstantiation. The substance of the host was the essence of Divinity, the accidents were the physical appearance and sensible characteristics of bread and water. These concepts of substance and ccidents are also applied to our definitions of ourselves. Our gender is part of our substance, not an accidental quality like hair color. This concept of gender as substantial rather than accidental is inherent to the infallible doctrine of prohibiting women from the priesthood. But on a genetic level, I have learned that gender is absolutely as accidental as hair color, only a bit more chemically complex in its determination. Gender is nothing more than an expression of a combination of genes. The first cause the exact same developing sex organs to either remain in the bocy and act as ovaries, or to descend outward to be named testes. Then hundreds of other genes that code for hundreds of unique proteins must be individually turned on and off in perfect concert to induce specific chemical signals that cause all the secondary sex characteristics to phenotypically express themselves. Individuals can and do end up landing anywhere on a chemical spectrum that determines whether they are more male or female, depending entirely on variables like which protein hormones get made, at what concentration, and at what stage of development. Granted, the vast majority of us develop in such a way as to end up safely ans unmistakably at one extreme of that spectrum, but what about the rest?

"And so, the reality is revealed: God did not simply make us male or female. It only appeared that way to our best sensibilities until recently. Now we can see that the truth is much more beautiful and complex than that. There are humans all over the spectrum, including some right in the middle who are anatomically both male and female. Are we too embarrassed by this and show Christian sympathy for those individuals, while trusting that the Almighy had a reason for making this "mistake"; this failure to create within the parameters that we have drfined as normal and right? I am taught to recognize such "deformity" as a cosmic consequence of original sin, as is all suffering and deformity."

More of this letter later. I'll also explain why I'm posting it.