# Is it murder if your God tells you to kill? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636 "2009-04-10T13:32:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636/41 "2009-04-11T18:27:03Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > **FinnAgain** , if a deity you personally believed in told you to kill someone you previously had no reason to kill, would _you_ personally > > 1. consider it to be murder and > 2. would you do it. [Deja vu all over again.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11024519&postcount=600) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636/42 "2009-04-11T18:43:34Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > [Deja vu all over again.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11024519&postcount=600) By the way, in the very first sentence of the OP I conceded that it is a general consensus that the commandment should read “Thou shalt not murder”. I followed that by an example of God telling his followers to kill. I then asked the _personal opinions_ of others as to whether they felt this was killing or murder, and whether they would be willing to kill if whatever deity they believed in told them to do so. Lessons in proper Hebraic translation were neither necessary or called for, and distract from the actual topic of the OP. Just my personal opinion of course-all I did was _write_ the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636/43 "2009-04-11T18:55:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I always figured God was testing Abraham but the point of the story was that Abraham failed the test. The correct answer that God wanted to hear was for Abraham to say that killing was wrong for any reason, even if God Himself told you to do it. God knew that He wouldn’t always be there to guide people on a day-to-day basis but that there would always be people claiming to be his representative. So God issued some laws to tell people what His will was even when He wasn’t around. > > But the people who wrote the Bible missed the point. First, Abraham was their hero and they didn’t consider the possibility that he screwed up. Second, these guys were the kind of people that God had worried about - the ones that claimed that God left them in charge. It obviously wouldn’t have done to spread the message that God had done no such thing. So they rewrote the moral of the story and said that the message was that Abraham was being tested for his obedience to authority and he was rewarded when he blindly followed orders - a much more palatable message for authority figures to relay. In this interpretation’s favor is the fact that Abraham’s earlier haggling with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (“Would you spare them if there were 50 righteous people living there? Okay, how about 40? 30?”) was portrayed as a good and reasonable thing for him to have done. Why didn’t he similarly try to argue with God in the Isaac-sacrifice incident? Against this reading, though, is that I don’t think it really fits the whole Genesis account of Abraham, who certainly did “screw up,” or at least behave less than heroically, on earlier occasions. As I read it (possibly under the influence of what I’ve been taught), the character and storyline of Abraham is about him having faith and trusting God to fulfill his promises, as opposed to second-guessing God and trying to do it himself (as when he told the Pharoah that Sarah was his sister rather than his wife, or when he fathered a child with Hagar). The point of the Isaac-sacrifice story, it seems to me, is that Abraham did then trust that God would do what he had promised, even to the point of being willing to give up his son, whom he both loved as a son and saw as the way God would fulfill his promise (of giving him numerous descendants and making of them a great nation). What makes the story problematic is that Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac _by killing him_, as opposed to by letting him move to Australia or be adopted into another family or something. That, and the lame-ish deus ex machina ending. I do see two possibly competing ideas running through the Bible. On the one hand, there are plenty of examples of people who trustingly (blindly?) obeyed God and were rewarded, or who disobeyed God and were punished. On the other hand, there are a not-insignificant number of examples of people who argued with God, or wrestled with or haggled with or debated with God, and whose doing so God apparently approved of. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636/44 "2009-04-11T23:44:30Z")
> [@](#): > > I do see two possibly competing ideas running through the Bible. On the one hand, there are plenty of examples of people who trustingly (blindly?) obeyed God and were rewarded, or who disobeyed God and were punished. On the other hand, there are a not-insignificant number of examples of people who argued with God, or wrestled with or haggled with or debated with God, and whose doing so God apparently approved of. My intepretation is that God gave people brains for a reason - He wants us to use them. If God tells you to do the right thing, He wants you to do it. But if you’re told to do the wrong thing, He wants you to refuse an unlawful order. And he wants you to know the difference. The problem here on Earth is that there are a lot of people who claim to be doing God’s will and what they want in followers is blind obedience not thoughtful reflection about right and wrong. So they downplay the idea of listening to God’s laws directly and push the idea of submitting to the authorities who understand God’s will - namely themselves. Remember, in those cases where God really wants somebody dead, then they die. God didn’t ask for anyone’s help when He sent the flood or the plague or destroyed Sodom and Gomorah. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636/45 "2009-04-12T07:42:47Z")
If by “prophets of Baal” you mean Baal’s clones, Jaffa army, and other forces, and by “God” you mean Stargate Command then yes it’s both moral and a damn good show. Otherwise no it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636/46 "2009-04-12T07:45:03Z")
Yes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2009, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636/47 "2009-04-12T08:00:23Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > If by “prophets of Baal” you mean Baal’s clones, Jaffa army, and other forces, and by “God” you mean Stargate Command then yes it’s both moral and a damn good show. > > Otherwise no it isn’t. er no it isn’t moral I meant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-murder-if-your-god-tells-you-to-kill/492636.md?page=2)