Abraham was insane

[Blastcat]

After he started hearing voices, he mutilated his genitals and almost murdered his son.. but at the very last minute, the voices said NO.

Question for debate:

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How is that not insane?

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[Avoice]

I am reading some unfavorable comment here on God, Abraham and the Bible.

Were these comments made by Christians? If made by those who believe in only themselves then it's water off my back.



You want to know what is really evil and hateful?

Well, first let's look at Abraham. He loved Isaac and he must have been crushed at such a request. But he chose to obey God even if it meant killing the son he adored. His heart must have ached terribly. But imagine the joy he felt when God stayed his hand!!

Now let's see how much Christians love God. They werent callee Christians yet vutvIm using the term as it conveys the message. And that is that Christians had the power to stay the hand of God and prevent God from killing his son Jesus. Had they loved God more than themselves and was obedient to His Torah then Jesus could have been spared.

Imagine how God must feel knowing they would rather let him kill his son (kill himself) than walk a straight path. Bacon that good I guess.

If I were Christian I'd be ashamed of myself. Wearing a cross it crucifix doesn't show how much you love God. It shows how much you hate him. You get him kill himself and be spit on. Or so you believe anyway. And that's all God needs to know. That you'd be okay with that happening. God didn't kill himself. But he knows that in your heart you believe it is true. . Your religion isn't about loving God.. It's about saving yourself and killing God is how far you'll go to save it.

Abraham put God first
Christians put themself first

You can't kill God and possibly think you will continue living do you?. He has to die for you to live forever? Really? Just how does that work? Is it better for you if God lives? Or better for you if God dies? Only one is the right answer. Everything else is fantasy

[Willum]

[Replying to post 11 by Avoice]

You rather missed the point of the post. We have had thousands of people like Abraham.
People who have heard the voice of God, who commanded them to do harm to their children are common in history. Most people don’t make them the heroes of their entire culture.
The Greeks, for example, iconofied them as monsters, and usually sent men like Theseus to kill them.
What you are missing is that even today these madmen and women do not often succeed in murdering their children, when they do it is tragedy and they are usually treated with medication. Not made into heros.

[JJ50]

The idiots who prefer praying to god to heal their children's ailments, instead of getting them the medical help they require, have mental health issues, imo.

[Avoice]

The poll about Abraham is what is crazy. A poll should offer YES, NO, MAYBE or QUESTION CAN NOT BE ANSWERED. TOO VAGUE

What is crazy is calling this a poll. This can not produce the opinions of all those who take it. First of all the question if the poll is not in the form of a question. It is a statement - ABRAHAM WAS INSANE

Then you offer three choices

Without a doubt -. Which means YES
I'm not a shrink - meaning I don't know. But using the word shrink when your question is about a person's sanity puts that person in close proximity to the field of psychiatry which implies he needed psychiatric treatment.
The last choice is about thinking he is a slave to Christ - meaning he was a Christian

These choices are rediculous. A slave to Christ? He never even heard of Jesus.
Why do you omit giving people the option to disagree with you? Like "NO"

Next time you go to the polls to vote and you can't vote No will you think the person who drew up the poll wanted the opinion of the voter? That they were interested in a truthful poll result? Or was the poll used to promote one person's agenda?

[Danmark]

We have, on this forum, explored this topic before. The typical Christian response focuses on Abraham's faith and makes an argument about how everything turned out for the best and we should trust god and that's the point of the story.

My take is that the 'god' who would ask a man to murder his own son is a monster. Anyone who would put a man in the painful moral dilemma of choosing between his god and his son is a monster. Torturing a man with this ultimate mental anguish is cruelty beyond reasonable imagination.

Of course, none of this ever happened. It's just a story designed to teach absolute obeisance to God, absolute denial of personal morality and all sense of self and respect, to bow down to the singular authority of this 'god.'

The despicable morality that contravenes the Ten Commandments and all moral sense is pushed to one side to try to buttress the dubious idea that man is nothing and must totally surrender to this 'God' shows the moral bankruptcy that is the foundation of Christian 'morality.'

[Mithrae]

Of course, none of this ever happened. It's just a story designed to teach absolute obeisance to God, absolute denial of personal morality and all sense of self and respect, to bow down to the singular authority of this 'god.'

Which verse did you read that in, again? In story after story of Genesis, Abraham is arguably portrayed as a weak man; most notably in fearfully passing his wife off as nothing more than his sister, risking her honour, and in submitting to Sarah's demand and forcing his young son and concubine off into the desert with nothing more than a loaf of bread and skin of water, but also in allowing his nephew Lot to choose the best land for himself, and in handing over to Melchizedek a portion of the spoils simply for showing up and blessing him.

In another story of the Tanakh, God tells Ezekiel to cook some food with a fire of human dung (oh, the horror!) and Ezekiel refuses to make himself 'unclean' in such a manner; so God relents, and lets him use animal dung instead. Even in one of the Abraham stories, when God tells Abraham that he's going to destroy the whole city of Sodom Abraham argues, what if there are just a handful of good people there? I don't see any message of unquestioning obeisance in those stories. Nor do I see any moral praise for Abraham's lies about Sarah being only his sister, any suggestion that everything Abraham did was necessarily good, even though he profited mightily from that deception.

The obvious primary message of the story about Isaac and the goat, to its primitive bronze age hearers, is that we shouldn't sacrifice our children anymore; that trying to show devotion to the gods by sacrificing what you most 'love' is misguided thinking. (The story of Jephthah's daughter is another interesting one in that vein, and perhaps even more ambiguous.) Later in the Tanakh, even animal sacrifices are called into question as a pointless ritual if one's heart and motives aren't in the right place.

The possible secondary message you've so calmly and objectively described - which modern folk who don't live in a sacrificial culture often mistake for the main purpose of the story - is really far from clear. Why did Abraham not even begin to question God in this story, as he did in defense of Sodom, as Ezekiel did in the interests of his ritual purity, and as many other characters throughout the Tanakh did (eg. Jacob, Moses, Gideon, Job, David, Jeremiah to name a few off the top of my head)? The very name 'Israel' according to Genesis means 'wrestles with God,' which its Israelite authors presumably perceived at least partly in its more positive connotation of being a questioning, challenging people rather than blindly submissive. If submission to God's commands was a theme of this story of Isaac, as in a number of those other cases, it would be expected (not to mention more realistic) that Abraham's obvious concerns would at least be voiced and acknowledged. Instead the author/s of the passage seem to have either not really even considered that angle of interpretation, or intentionally left it ambiguous as to whether Abraham's blind obedience was morally praiseworthy... or just another example of Abraham's weak character.

[Avoice]

[Replying to post 13 by JJ50]

I agree. Parents who turn their nose up at modern medicine Kay do so for themself. But for their children? I think kids should. But we can't dictate stuff like this to other people. Ugh...what's the solution? Thanks have none

[Tcg]

Instead the author/s of the passage seem to have either not really even considered that angle of interpretation, or intentionally left it ambiguous as to whether Abraham's blind obedience was morally praiseworthy... or just another example of Abraham's weak character.

Ambiguity? In this passage?

• Genesis 22:15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.â€�
  
  <bolding mine>

It couldn't possibly be stated more clearly.


Tcg

[Danmark]

Of course, none of this ever happened. It's just a story designed to teach absolute obeisance to God, absolute denial of personal morality and all sense of self and respect, to bow down to the singular authority of this 'god.'

Which verse did you read that in, again?

Read WHAT in?
I've read numerous Jewish explanations of this story. Essentially they conclude they don't have any idea what this stupid story means or where it came from. My impression is that Jewish authorities are ashamed of this story about a man agreeing to kill his son because 'god' tells him to.
So, I repeat, what do you mean specifically when you ask "Which verse did you read that in?" I'm not going to guess at what you are referring to.

[Danmark]

The obvious primary message of the story about Isaac and the goat, to its primitive bronze age hearers, is that we shouldn't sacrifice our children anymore; that trying to show devotion to the gods by sacrificing what you most 'love' is misguided thinking.

I agree that that is one of the several explanations Jewish commentators offer to explain this horrific story. It may be correct, but there is nothing 'obvious' about it. That is NOT what Christian commentators say. Christians say it is all about 'faith,' that the story means we should trust God and do whatever wackadoodle thing he tells us to do, 'trust and obey.'

I agree with you that the Jewish idea that some suggest, that the story NEVER actually happened, but is meant to tell us 'not to sacrifice our children any more' makes sense and may actually be what was intended. But to believe that you must accept this is an illustrative story and NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I agree. But this is the direct opposite of what most Christians claim. It's just another example of why Christians should not talk about what they call the "Old Testament." The rank and file are not competent to interpret it.