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.

[Tcg]

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

Institutions that don't commit child abuse. Are you apposed to that?

What lengths are you willing to go to stop evil?

Shutting down institutions that commit child abuse would be a great start. Do you support evil and institutions that practice it?

[marco]

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

We have murderers among us, but thankfully few. We have people who make wrong decisions, but generally people are good, not bad. It is very wrong to paint humanity as wicked, requiring redemption. We do our best to punish the wicked. Our rules, at least in the civilised part of our world, attempt to do the best for people, though sometimes we don't manage, which shows we are humans not gods.

It would be better to proclaim the goodness of man rather than suggest he is forever trying to eat the forbidden fruit.

[Wootah]

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

Institutions that don't commit child abuse. Are you apposed to that?

What lengths are you willing to go to stop evil?

Shutting down institutions that commit child abuse would be a great start. Do you support evil and institutions that practice it?

Do you support closing public schools?

[imhereforyou]

[Replying to post 40 by Jagella]

can you tell the difference between having supernatural experiences and being "mentally damaged"? I've been wondering lately if they are one and the same.

No not really.

What if you thought the thing was God? Would you obey it?

It depends on the belief of that God. Meaning, if I believed God would ask such a thing, why would I worship it to begin with? If I believed God wouldn't ask such a thing, then no.

No sacrifices is the best option. We should value and respect human life.

Agreed, but if a sacrifice was needed, I'd rather give myself than my child.

Richard Dawkins describes him this way

Now now....don't go and be sayin' bad stuff about this God - people here don't like that
lol

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 51 by OnceConvinced]

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.

You're not answering the question. The question isn't: "Would you believe it was God asking you to murder your son?" My question assumes that it was God asking you to kill your son.

In any case, why would you refuse to kill your son? Is there a moral law that even God cannot violate? It appears that that is what some Christians believe. Otherwise, they'd have no problem with God ordering the killing of a child. He's God--he can do what he wants--or can he?

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 45 by rikuoamero]

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.

I was abused by my fanatically Christian mother both as a boy and even as an adult. She would most often cite her Christian beliefs while abusing me. I've seen similar behavior in my Christian sister.

[Mithrae]

In any case, why would you refuse to kill your son? Is there a moral law that even God cannot violate? It appears that that is what some Christians believe. Otherwise, they'd have no problem with God ordering the killing of a child. He's God--he can do what he wants--or can he?

'God' regularly causes the deaths of children, hundreds every day,* so it would seem to be more a case of moral laws that humans must not violate (and therefore God would not tell them to).


* Some 5 to 10 thousand children die each day around the world - 3 million each year, give or take - though in most cases those deaths would be avoided if humans got our act together. To greater or lesser extents, most of us are likely to be complicit in or at least tacit endorsers of many of those deaths, for example through support for systems which produce economic disparities, through accumulating rather than sharing the wealth which accrues to us personally because of those systems, or through overconsumption which even further exacerbates our impacts. All without even being commanded by God. (In fact a central point of Jesus' message was a radical rejection of such materialism.)

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 32 by Overcomer]

But God had no intention of having him sacrifice Isaac.

That appears to be the case, but it is Abraham's intention we are focusing on here. Abraham intended to kill his son in cold blood in obedience to Yahweh. The lesson is that God comes first, and people come second. So belief in the Bible god can and often does lead to harming people.

He provided a ram to be sacrificed in the young man's place. This pre-figured the crucifixion of Jesus Christ who was sacrificed in OUR place.

It's possible that one of the early Christians based the story of Jesus on this story of Abraham. I think my interpretation is more logical than yours.

What God was saying is this: You don't have to sacrifice your children for me. I will sacrifice my only-begotten son for you.

When did he say that?

That's what makes Christianity different from every other religion out there.

All religions are different in some ways from other religions.

It's all about God providing salvation for us through Jesus, offering it to us as a gift given to those who receive it in faith.

And what do we need to be saved from? The Bible god's lust for blood.

With other religions, it's all about trying to appease some far-off god with rites and rituals and deeds and following a bunch of man-made rules.

I think you just described the Old Testament! Now what rules therein do you have a problem with? The Ten Commandments?

Re: God not changing. That means that his character does not change. It does not mean that he doesn't change the way he does things or how he interacts with people. He has the freedom to do that.

That's your own interpretation. When I read that God doesn't change, I think it means he doesn't change. What exactly Malachi 3:6 meant we really don't know. We are not told. So I go with the most straight-forward interpretation and keep assumptions to a minimum. What I see you doing is reading into the text what isn't there.

[marco]

[Replying to post 45 by rikuoamero]

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.

I was abused by my fanatically Christian mother both as a boy and even as an adult. She would most often cite her Christian beliefs while abusing me. I've seen similar behavior in my Christian sister.

That is very sad Jagella. I was beaten when I was 5 by a teacher for using "which" and not "who" in the Lord's Prayer. My fingers bled as she screamed "who" incomprehensibly in my ear. But she was wrong and the beliefs she held may have been right despite her application of them. I don't believe they are, but it would be wrong to deduce a religion is bad because of some nasty practitioner. Islam may be a good religion despite the suicide bombers.

But bad fruit do cause us to question the tree.

[Elijah John]

But perhaps there is a deeper lesson in the passage, that God was teaching Abraham that human sacrifice is wrong.

Commanding him to kill his son as a human sacrifice is a rather odd way to teach that human sacrifice is wrong. You'd think a god could come up with a better method. I'm just some dude and I could do a better job.

The deeper lesson was not in the reported initial command, but rather in God sending the angel to stay Abraham's hand.

My point is that YHVH did not command the sacrifice, because human sacrifice is sin, and God does not tempt anyone to sin.

So it must have been Abraham's idea (if the event actually happened). Or the author of Genesis, in a clumsy attempt to glorify Abraham for his "great faith".

The story, if taken at face value does no service to either God or to Abraham. It casts both of them in an atrocious light.