This weeks Quantum looks at the bad news – and the antidote to it – including Helen Reddy, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson; Madeline Albright; Huner Biden; Ukraine; the coming food crisis; Boris’s blunder?; Covid; Californian Dystopia; Cherry West; the South Australian Election; Ash Barty; Brian Houston.
Catch up on Quantum here – Quantum 190 – Give Peace a Chance!
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is the “We do not know” of Matthew 21:23-27; no regard to the truth, instead only the zeitgest.
Thanks once more, David, for a quick dose of world and eternal reality. My question is this:
If we continue to play the songs of the Hillsong movement, against the backdrop of its ‘fallen’ leader, should we not continue to be able to access the work of Ravi Zacharias despite his similarly ‘fallen’ state? His preaching was incredibly powerful and compelling but it seems to have been wiped off the face of the digital earth. I’m not trying to make a point against Hillsong songs but rather lamenting the loss of Zacharias’s work.
I would suggest there is a difference between something that is congregational worship and something that is a spoken word which becomes a lie. Personally I have no problem in reading Zacharias’s books….
David, on the bit about Ketanji Brown Jackson and her not wanting to ‘define’ a woman I think you have ignored the context of what she was saying and where she was saying it.
Jackson: Mm. Not in this context. I’m not a biologist. (Denny Burk’s transcript)
So she was being asked about a particular context. Leaving out or downplaying the hint she provides before ‘I’m not a biologist’ can lead to a really inaccurate reading of what she said (as ignoring context probably always does).
No. I knew the context – and so did she. She refused to answer – either because of ignorance (she genuinely does not know what a woman is) or cowardice (she doesn’t want to upset trans activists). Either way she is not fit to be a Supreme Court judge – but she will be once one – because of her skin colour and her gender (even though she cannot define that!).
David, you ARE ignoring the context. She wasn’t asked about identifying a ‘woman’ but about ‘defining’ a ‘woman’ She gave the only answer a Supreme Court justice suitable for the job could — ‘No’.
I have not missed the context at all. If a Supreme Court judge cannot tell us what a woman is – that is what defining means – then she cannot interpret laws which are based on what the definition of a woman is. The fact that you think the only answer a Supreme Court judge could give when asked to define what a woman is – is ‘no’ – indicates either that your politics and personal prejudices are clouding your judgements or that you too have swallowed the kool -aid, and now find yourself in the insane position of not being able to tell what a woman (or a man) is!
David, it is quite straightforward in semantics that defining a word does not equate to saying what the word means. Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked to ‘define “woman”‘ — a silly and unhelpful question — like asking someone to define ‘fruit’ and then wondering why they don’t put tomatoes in fruit salads.
I accept that you an expert in semantics! However semantically speaking Jackson was not asked to define a word. She was asked to define what a woman is (unless of course you are prepared to further demean women by saying they are just words). She responded by saying she was not a biologist and so couldn’t. It now appears that no words can be defined unless you have a PhD in the subject to which they belong – such has been the destruction of meaningful language. Its also not difficult to define what fruit is. Don’t you know? Jackson was not asked to list every type of woman – she was asked to give the basic definition. Something she could not do. And yet she will have to rule on women’s rights! I’m curious are you able to tell us what a woman is? Or have you gone down the same rabbit hole of meaninglessness?!
David, you say: ‘However semantically speaking Jackson was not asked to define a word.’ But according to Denny Burk’s transcript, that is exactly what she was asked:
‘Blackburn: Okay. Can you provide a definition for the word woman?
Jackson: Can I provide a definition? No.
Blackburn: Yeah.
Jackson: I can’t.
Blackburn: You can’t?
Jackson: Mm. Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.’
(https://www.dennyburk.com/do-you-know-what-a-woman-is-ketanji-brown-jackson-doesnt/)
So, all I am saying is that defining a word, such as ‘woman’ (say, “human, adult, female”) does NOT ‘give us the meaning’ (whatever that means!) in any particular context. It is not a matter of ‘destruction of meaningful language’, simply of thinking about how words work in actual communication.
If a judge is not able to say what words mean – especially important words like ‘woman’ – she is not fit to be a judge. If she is able to define what a woman is – then she lied in order to avoid the abuse that comes from the Trans fascists – and she is not fit to be a judge. Her response was a disgrace. Bear in mind she will be ruling on women’s rights but she can’t tell us what a woman is. Because she is not a biologist! Lets see if you can do any better. Can you define what a woman is (the word woman is of course just the same thing)….let us know. Or are you unable to, because like the judge, you are not a biologist?
OK David. Let’s define ‘woman’. If you had read my last reply you would have seen (as you, yourself have said) ‘human, adult, female’. My point is that this definition does not help us in utterances like:
‘Faith, I thought this Justice was an Old Woman.’ C.Bullock 1717
‘But surely the worst of your old-women are the male ones.’ E.Pound 1918
So DEFINITION is NOT the same as MEANING.
Furthermore, DEFINING ‘woman’ or ‘man’ is not so helpful in instances of hermaphroditism, Klinefelter Syndrome, Turner Syndrome and other instances of intersex. It is fairly easy to infer that something like this is what Ketanji Brown Jackson was talking about. As easy as inferring that her questioner was wanting simply to trap her.
So if she were deciding a case involving intersex then she gave the only appropriate answer for a justice of the Supreme Court.
She was not defining intersex. She was asked if she could define what a woman is. She refused. The use of woman as a derogatory term is not the issue here. If words don’t have meaning then we cannot have law. If we have a judge saying that she could not define the meaning of woman because she is not a biologist – then we will not have just law. We will only have political prejudices. Which given that she is appointed based on her skin colour and the fact that she is a woman (even though she doesn’t know what a woman is), is somewhat ironic…
Thanks as always David for your weekly observations. I completely get the comment that in the Psalms we recite and sing the words brought to us through a murderer and adulterer, but let’s not forget who were inspired these words first of all.
The problem with much of Hillsong’s contemporary spiritual worship is that it seeks to pander to the emotions before instructing the mind and heart. Much of it seems to be deliberately ambiguous to leave the worshipper to read their own meaning into the lyrics. This is dangerous territory.
The Creed you played at the end is perhaps one of their better songs but it’s still a worthwhile exercise to place the words of the Hillsong Creed alongside the actual Apostles Creed for comparison. Then it’s quite easy to see exactly what the songwriters chose to add and to take away (—bearing in mind that neither are scripture and therefore to be left unaltered).
My own preference would be to read and learn the original Apostles Creed.
Would we be too simplistic if we defined a woman as a ‘man with a womb’ – womb-man? Or maybe it should be womb-person? But how, when and where did the word ‘woman’ originate in the first place? It seems to have come from ‘wife-man’, so where does that leave us in the grand scheme of things? ‘Man’ covers all of humanity, as is exemplified in every Bible prior to the 21st century translations.
A woman is an adult human female. It does not come from ‘wife man’. It comes from the fact that God created humanity, male and female.
The English word ‘woman’ originates from ‘wiff-man’ (but if you know otherwise please tell me where to look).
The OED defines ‘female’ thus (and it appears to take us in circles):
“Middle English: from Old French femelle, from Latin femella, diminutive of femina ‘a woman’. The change in the ending was due to association with male, but the words male and female are not linked etymologically.”
And a little research into the meanings of the words used in the original Hebrew also throw light on ‘Ish’ and ‘Ishaha’ as used in Genesis.
I am not just talking about English. Woman was used for an adult female. It still is. The Bible is clear. English was clear. It’s the Father of lies who seeks to confuse with making words mean whatever you want them to mean!
I’m interested to know how YOU would define a woman, David. For myself I would say a woman is a person with breasts, reproductive organs and a skeleton and physique shaped for the production of one or more babies. But it gets a lot more complicated when we start to think about mental and emotional attributes. To say a woman is a human female doesn’t really seem to work as it’s circular.
A woman is an adult human female. It’s really not that difficult. Saying it’s circular is like saying that the earth is a sphere is circular!