Would you sacrifice your own son like Abraham was ready to

[Jagella]

I was studying Hebrews 11 today which praises people of faith. Verses 17-19 of that chapter lauds Abraham's obedience to God as Abraham was ready to murder his own son Isaac. (The original grotesque tale appears in Genesis 22.)

Would you murder your own son if God asked you to?

Yes--Well, this answer speaks for itself.

No--Then you admit that your religion is immoral.

I think I have faith of my own that none of the Christians here will give a straight, honest answer to this question. You will stonewall and do everything you can to divert attention away from this issue. You know that your religion is immoral but will never admit it.

[OnceConvinced]

I was studying Hebrews 11 today which praises people of faith. Verses 17-19 of that chapter lauds Abraham's obedience to God as Abraham was ready to murder his own son Isaac. (The original grotesque tale appears in Genesis 22.)

Would you murder your own son if God asked you to?

Even as a Christian I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have believed that God would ever ask me to do that and would have put it down to Satan trying to deceive me. Even as a Christian it bothered me that Abraham would go along with it, even if it was a charade like many Christians seem to claim. I wouldn't even go along with the charade.

Now I see it as Abraham living in a time where people believed God required human sacrifices from his followers so when God expected that of him, it wasn't all that surprising to him and he went along with it. I don't believe he thought he was going along with a charade. The events of the story and the way they played out don't seem to me to be a story about a guy just playing along. They seem to be to me a story about a guy going through with it, but lulling his son into a false sense of security about it (ie by telling him a lamb would be provided).

Abraham wouldn't have been considered the benchmark for faith if he was just going along with a charade.

[ttruscott]

Thanks for the answer. So for you faith is to go so far as to kill your own son believing in the god that the Watch Tower has taught you.

You are not alone in your beliefs. In fact, other Jehovah's Witnesses have gone so far as to cover up child abuse in the organization. Here's what a BBC report has to say:

...and you call following the command of GOD to be the same belief as acting sinfully...riiiiiight. <headshake>

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 48 by Tcg]

You'd think a god could come up with a better method. I'm just some dude and I could do a better job.

I, for one, am all ears and would love to hear how you would accomplice such a feat!

Strangely enough I never needed to (almost) sacrifice someone in a religious ritual to learn that doing so is a bad idea.
Did you?

[William]

[Replying to post 49 by ttruscott]

We contend that people jump in the mud themselves and while some take the helping hand out, others do not.

You are missing the point of the contention. We are presented with a GOD idea which is difficult to understand and thus accept due to the conflation of good and evil actions which - if committed by the Christian idea of the Devil would be condemned but when committed by the Christian idea of GOD, are welcomed with open arms and adored.

Certainly your own theology in its attempt to explain the conflation, misses the mark.

So we end up with something akin to 'holy' mud and 'unholy' mud - the only difference being who is doing the slinging.

That is in no way 'a helping hand' as you contend, no matter how you spin it.

The more logical way in which to address the conflation is to understand that the bible isn't an infallible word of GOD as is claimed, and many stories therein are made up from a purely ignorant human perspective and then given the assumed authority of some inadequate idea of GOD and called 'The Truth'.

[ttruscott]

But perhaps there is a deeper lesson in the passage, that God was teaching Abraham that human sacrifice is wrong. That human sacrifice is not, (nor was it ever), the proper way to worship YHVH El Elyon.

Without any revelation to base this upon, I find this most agreeable as do most of the commentaries. And, as HE taught Abraham, HE was also teaching all HIS people.

[William]

[Replying to post 53 by rikuoamero]

Strangely enough I never needed to (almost) sacrifice someone in a religious ritual to learn that doing so is a bad idea.
Did you?

Nope - but I would have thought that this would be obvious due to the content of my posts here on this forum, even specific to this particular story of Abe.

Should this in itself mean that I cannot be interested in anyone's claim they can do a better job of educating human beings in the idea that GODs do not require any sacrifice - human or other - ?

For example. As the story goes, one time an adulterous woman was going to be stoned as per religious ritual - a different type of human sacrifice, but human sacrifice none the less.

One person suggested the stoners think about their actions - specifically to do with the idea that they consider weather they themselves were faultless, and after they did this honest introspection, if they found no fault in themselves, they should get along with the business of throwing stones.

The stoners immediately went berserk and grabbed the one giving the advise and whipped his back open calling him a blasphemer for presuming to know better than their GOD and made a crown of thorns to mock him then crucified him for his troubles.

After that they went looking for more adulterers to stone.

So you can see by that example that it is no easy task to convince humans that GODs require no human sacrifices.



So yes - I am interested in anyone's ideas as to how they would do a better job as GOD.

[OnceConvinced]

[Replying to post 11 by liamconnor]


Did Abraham intend to kill Isaac, while believing that God could and would raise him (he said to the slave "we will return".

Yes, Abraham intended to murder Isaac believing God would raise Isaac from the dead. Hebrews 11:17-19:

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told, “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.� He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

This scripture alone should be evidence enough that Abraham didn't think he was just going along with some charade and that he really did have intentions to murder Isaac.

Abraham would definitely not be considered the paragon of faith in the New Testament, if he believed he was just going along with some charade. It doesn't take much faith just to go along with a charade when you know what the outcome is going to be.

It makes more sense to me (from a Christian perspective who does not want to believe God to be so malevolent) to believe that Abraham was being misled by Satan and that God intervened at the last moment to stop him from making a huge mistake.

[JehovahsWitness]

For what it's worth, I disagree with jagella, at least if he means there is a 1:1 causal relationship between being a Christian and committing child abuse. However JW...how many self styled Christians, including yourself I might add, on this thread expressed admiration for Abraham or even worse expressed a desire to emulate him?

Firstly to qualify something as, {to quote you} "even worse" means that both elements are bad and that is based entirely on your own subjective value system. Unless you are going so far as to impose your worldview on others I'm sure you will at least intellectually grasp the possibility that someone may not share your view. The most you can reasonably say is "I BELIEVE what I read was bad" , to which I would reply "Thank you for sharing" , I may even add "Have a nice day".

I happen to believe that Abraham did nothing wrong and that emulating him (as in sharing his worldview and values) is a GOOD thing. Jesus evidently felt as I do since, if the bible is to be believed he (Jesus) expressed his admiration for Abraham and desire that his followers be true children or that one.

Even if you disagree with my interpretation of the events recorded ... so?! ...so what, unless you are a member of the Thought Police I don't see how what people's attitude towards Abraham effects you. Unless like jagella you are suggesting some causal link between an admiration for Abraham and some kind of antisocial or illegal behaviour.

If not, what's it to you?

[Wootah]

I started this thread not so much to argue theology or morality but to warn people that if we put people second, then people get hurt. Christianity leads to child abuse, and it's time we put a stop to it.

If we shut down institutions because of child abuse what would be left?

What lengths are you willing to go to stop evil?

[Wootah]

Is Jagella pro or anti abortion? I didn't see a straight forward reply.