The key thought here is “…through no fault of his own…”
You know the gospel, and you’re well-aware of his church – but you don’t accept it as true. Why? Have you honestly reached that conclusion, with your best, most sincere effort to arrive at the truth?
Yes? Then it’s not your fault that you don’t see it as truth. How can it be? For there to be fault, you must have done something wrong. What have you done wrong?
This is one of the funniest things I have read all week 
What can one do wrong in not accepting the gospel?
That is to say, I imagine everyone’s beliefs, on every matter, are ones they’ve come to through some sort of sincere process on their own part; flawed reasoning, perhaps, but the best reasoning they were able to pull off so far. I’m not even sure what it would mean for things to be otherwise.
But kvetches out loud if isn’t fabulous.
I agree. This is really interesting and is something that I have wondered about for years. I always took that part to mean, say, people who lived their lives in such a remote area of the world that they were never visited by missionaries and never had a fair chance to accept or reject the word. Maybe it would even apply to someone of very limited intelligence who doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand the choice that they were given.
I don’t see how it would apply to someone like Qadgop or me who, presumably, are smart enough to understand the message and who consciously reject it even though we lead good lives.
Put another way, it seems to me that getting into Heaven would have to be based on something like belief. Those who believe get it and those who don’t, don’t get in. If it’s based on how much of a “good person” you are, then there is an issue that troubles me. The difference between the guy who just barely gets in and the guy who barely missed the cut would be so small as to be indistinguishable. Am I making sense here?
ETA: It took me a while to compose this because I was interrupted so I didn’t see Briker’s last post.
The only thing I thought when I read this is “keep her in line with what? A chair and a whip?”
I don’t agree. There are those that are, for lack of a better phrase, mad at God. They believe in Him, they know He exists, but they reject Him. They know in their hearts they are wrong, but through pride or pique they don’t do as he wishes.
Just speaking for myself here, Bricker, but if God had commanded me to stretch my son out on a rock and slice him open, I would have told Him to go fuck Himself. Verily.
Sorry, I still don’t grok it. I can’t reconcile the catechism with your interpretation of it.
But thanks for making the effort.
OneCentStamp’s explanation of the insult, and snake oil’s confirmation of same, make no sense to me whatsoever. I just don’t get how it’s even possible to coax “and you’re ugly” out of snake oil’s first post, nevermind how it got in there in the first place and how nearly everyone in the world except for me heard it immediately. I feel like I’m trying to order a sandwich in Cockney.
She had a big nose, dontcha know. (Don’t hurt me! I’m Jewish too!)
I hear the pastrami at Neighborhood Eli’s is to die for.
The exception probably consists of people who truly, honestly believe that Jesus is the One and all that good stuff, but turn to Satanism out of sheer blackness of heart and hatred for all that is good and holy.
As far as I can tell, this group of people exists only in the collective Christian imagination.
No, a dragon penis.
So say you now.
But if you were utterly and sincerely convinced it was REALLY GOD, the Master of the Universe, the Alpha and the Omega… really?
Why?
Why? Because he asked me to kill an innocent boy. I don’t imagine I’d be too keen on telling somebody I believed to be the master of the universe to fuck off, but I’d rather do that than kill my son. As soon as he told me that he wanted me to kill Isaac, any misapprehensions I might have had about his love or benevolence would be out the window.
Would you really be willing to kill your children, Bricker?
Because I can spot a sucker play like that from a mile off.
If I found myself in that situation, there’s one of two things that God is testing me for: blind devotion, or a clear personal sense of right and wrong. If I believe that God is good and wants us to do good, then which test is he most likely to give me? If God wanted automatons who would just do what they were told, why did he give us free will? If God gave us freewill, isn’t it precisely so that we can understand good and evil, and choose good, no matter the consequence to ourselves? And is it not the act of a good man to spare his own child, even if it means ruin for himself?
I’ve always felt that the traditional interpretation of the story of Isaac and Abraham got the ending all wrong. Abraham didn’t pass God’s test. He failed it.
Badly.
Which is why Abraham is not the true founder of the Jewish race, but rather his grandson Jacob - AKA Israel - who wrestled with angels.
Of course, maybe God wasn’t just testing Abraham. Maybe Abraham was also testing God, in which case, by stopping the sacrifice, God blinked first.
Because we are not God. We are humans who therefore relate to and understand humans better than any other entity. If I was God and another God told me to sacrifice a human, then perhaps it’d go down easier.
The concept of a God instructing me to take a human life requires more than a leap of faith.
It requires an abandonment of my humanity. And… NO God can make me do that.
Kill the kids? Only if they don’t pass the Bar.
Cartooniverse
The AKEDAH as a game of chicken… I like it.
But seriously, this passage is one of the ones I have struggled with the most. It doesn’t seem to me to be the same Abraham who argued with God over the deaths of the innocent people in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Eh… no.
But the break point for me, as I picture the event, is a little different. The request to kill my child would destroy any belief I had that I was hearing God.
In order to seek something, you need to know what it is you’re seeking. In this case, it’s ok (I would guess) if you’re just seeking out the possibility of God. But I would argue that following the will of God in particular requires knowledge of Jesus, since he’s so intricately tied into the belief system.
Look at it this way; imagine you removed all reference to Jesus from your belief system. As you go about your life now, are you following the will of God? Can you, without having knowledge of Jesus?
But then who made the request to Abraham?
My interpretation is different.
I know Ianzin is a proffesional magician. If we’re at a Dopefest and he pulls out a lighter and asks me for a twenty dollar bill, I will rush to provide him one. This is not because I want to lose twenty dollars, but because I am confident I will see a really cool trick. What if Abraham was thinking the same thing? ‘The Amazing Yaweh shall perform a really cool miracle and my son shall be spared!’? Then he rushes to act, showing his faith that Isaac shall live. The sooner he can get that knife plunging toward his only son, the sooner the miracle can occur. ETA
Note that Abraham doe NOT argue with G-d over this. He does argue with G-d over the people of Sodom and Gammorah. This suggests to me that this time, Abraham knew G-d would not let Isaac die. Later, when he knows G-d is serious he does bargain and argue for lives to be spared.
Re The Perfected Jew
That would be me. The circumcision job that Rabbi Klears did is absolutely perfect.