I was just watching on the tv the other day about how Abraham had to take his 1st son (and only son?) down to some alter type place then cut his head off.
Apparently God did this because he wanted to see if Abraham would follow his word. (For what ever reasons, I can’t remember why. To be a profit maybe?)
To me this seems kind of cruel to take the man all the way down there then at the last minute basically tell him “Sike!” “I’M JUST KIDDING ABRAHAM, YOU DON’T HAVE TO KILL YOUR SON…”
I mean if God is so powerfull why didn’t he just look into the mans soul and see for himself if the guy had what it takes? And thus save the dude the trauma.
My debate here is how can such an enlightened spirit behave in such a way.
First up, it’s worth noting that this was as much a test for Isaac as it was for Abraham - he was probably a young adult at the time (probably between 15 and 37 years old according to one source I’ve read), and easily strong enough to resist the ancient man that Abraham was at the time.
Secondly - it is also worth considering this event in light of the future sacrifice of Jesus. There are some interesting parallels…
Actions speak louder than words/beliefs/convictions - I hold some pretty strong beliefs, but when it is my daughter that is pregnant at 13, or my father in a coma, my views on abortion or euthanasia may well change. We do have free will, and although God knows us (usually better than we know ourselves), I believe that we still have the ability to surprise (and disappoint) him.
Nit: it’s proPHEt. And it wasn’t it. Ostensibly, the test-of-faith was as to whether Abe would keep his end of a bargain in which in exchange for Total Obedience, God would give him and his descendants their own blessed land and nation; even if it meant destroying that which would seem the logical foundation of such a nation.
HOWEVER… That is only ONE subplot in the story fo the life of Abraham, you cannot divorce it from the rest. The point of the story is NOT only about Abraham getting punk’d by YHWH. This story, together with most of the rest of the stories of the Genesis Patriarchs is recorded so that the believers reading the books of the Torah/Pentateuch, centuries after the alleged facts, will get into their minds that God.Knows.Best. That obeying God always ends up being the right choice (after all, in the end, Abe’s descendants DO get their own lands and nations!), AND that the commandments and precepts the Priesthood/Rabbinate/Church impose on them are nothing compared with what the Founding Fathers had to go thru. As in, “don’t complain about offering a 10% tithe or a first fruits sacrifice or cutting off a piece of your dick or no fish on Friday, look at what Abraham and Moses were willing to go through!”
And for the umpteenth time, if the multiply-omni-everything JudeoChristian God exists, HE would NOT be subject to human moral judgement.
Why ? Because he was a wise-ass in his younger days. Remember, this is the same guy who made a bar bet with Satan that he couldn’t turn Job away from Him. He’s more respectable nowadays, being a parent and all, but He was a wild one back in the day. And He’ll still give in to temptation and mess with your head, especially if you are high. He just can’t resist it.
Abraham had two sons, Ishmael by Hagar who was a slave. and Isaac by his wife Sarah. Sarah was barren and let Abraham have Hagar as a concubine, then some time after Ishmael was born Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Later Sarah (probably due to jealousy and insecurity) convinced Abraham to take Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert and abandon them. (This is why muslims run between two hills seven times and drink water from the zamzam well during their hajj.) Christians believe it was Isaac, the legitimate son, who was the one taken to be sacrificed. Muslims believe it was Ishmael, the first born and favorite.
If Abraham were alive today, he would have been arrested and people would be debating whether or not he is insane. Isaac would have been taken away by Child Protective Services. Sarah may or may not have been charged as an accomplice. Hagar would be just another struggling single mom, abandoned by an irresponsible jerk.
If Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney were alive back then we’d be reading about them in the Bible as examples of piety and obedience.
I know many will find what I posted offensive, but it’s not meant to be. As somebody on the outside looking in, this is how I see it.
Because there’s a difference in the quality of reward between that which was earned and that which was not earned. G-d could have looked in Abraham’s heart, decided he was a good person, and given him reward for free…or he could have put him to the test, made Abraham earn it, and as a result, make it much sweeter for Abraham.
IMO, No one who is willing to kill his own child to placate the voices in his head is deserving of a “reward.”
The story makes no sense. For one thing, an omniscient god would have no need to “test” anything, he would aready know what Abe was going to do before he did it. For anothet thing, it’s an immoral, evil thing for God to demand. I have no idea what JRDelirious means when he says that God is not subject to human moral judgement. Of course he is. Just because he can kill people or torture them doesn’t mean he’s right or that our judgement is invalid.
If our moral judgement is not adequate to judge the goodness of God, then how can the worship of God be justified? How do we know we shouldn’t be worshipping Satan? Because God says so? But if we can’t say God is wrong, then we can’t say he’s right either. Moral vision goes both ways. In the end, all we have is our own personal consciences. Even a decision to follow the alleged word of a God is still a personal, intuitive decision.
Diogenes, I know you’re very capable of debating religious topics without resorting to “annoying atheist” rhetoric. So please do. For example:
Obviously, in the context of the Biblical story, Abraham was not merely hearing “voices in his head.” He was hearing the voice of G-d, creator and master of the universe. It’s safe to say within the context of the story that he knew, without a doubt, that it was G-d that he was hearing, and he was in fact right about that. Can we please not equate it with someone who, in modern times, delusionally claims to hear G-d? Even if you don’t believe the story in the Bible is true, it at least has to be taken in that context.
Well, that gets down to the whole issue of omniscience vs. free will, doesn’t it? It’s not an argument that specifically relates to Abraham.
It certainly is, and it’s something that Abraham very much could have been horrified about and thought up a zillion rationalizations to not do. But that would not have shown the level of devotion that G-d wished of someone who would beget his holy nation.
The reason I ask is because I’m thinking of a not-so-hypothetical example where, let’s say, a guy whose initials are ObL tells you he has the inside track to God, and that God wants you to knock off some infidels. Would you come up with some “rationalizations” as to why you shouldn’t do it, or would you go ahead because it’s the will of God?
I conceive of God as something like a mischievous 12-year-old who has an ant farm and a magnifying glass and a sunbeam shining in through the window.
YAHWEH: Hey, Odin! Come see what I got for my birthday!
ODIN: What is it?
YAHWEH: A universe-building kit! You can do anything with it. Look at this planet here . . . these people . . . heh-heh . . . I made them so they have to piss and fuck with the same organ! And they have to live with that!
And I made some of them gay! You won’t believe what they do!
Very well, I will leave aside what is probably an unresolveable epistemological question about the ability to “know” that a voice is truly from God and just stick with the moral conundrum.
No it isn’t, but saying it’s a broader question doesn’t really answer it and I think in this case it should be specifically addressed. If the argument is proffered that God wanted to see what Abraham would do, then that argument is clearly illogical. A test of Abraham’s faith could not have been the motive, nor could any other motive which presumes a question or a lack of knowledge on the part of God.
And there’s the rub.
I have a wife and small child of my own. My obligation, my duty, my devotion to my family far exceeds any devotion I would feel to God (let’s just say hypothetically that I do believe in god). I can’t hurt God, after all. I can’t cause God to suffer. Therefore, if pushed, I will take the path that causes the least suffering every time. Even if God told me to kill my child, and I knew it was God, I would still refuse. God could do to me whatever he wanted. I would rather go to hell than hurt my daughter.
In fact, I don’t believe there is any instance at all in which a moral obligagtion to other people would not supercede an obligation to God.
Because prophecy is not merely a voice in one’s head. It’s an experience of the soul being in contact with a divine spirit on high. It’s something that a person can only experience once he (or she) has achieved a great degree of spiritual refinement, and it’s a more intense version of certain lower-level spiritual experiences that that person will have already felt.
I suppose it’s not easily explained to someone of today, myself included, who have never experienced spiritual contact on that level. I too can probably best imagine the experience as “hearing a voice.” But to the prophet, it’s not that. Everyone has a soul, which is a piece of the divine, and contact from G-d is a sense of affinity that the soul cannot mistake.
Or so Jewish tradition has it.
blowero:
No. But if the person whose bidding you’re doing is the source of ultimate goodness, it is a virtue to trust that he will not bid you to do something that is not ultimately good. And in fact Abraham’s trust was justified - G-d told him that he was not being asked to kill Isaac after all.
There is also the question whether the act of ol’ Abe was an act of devotion in reality. Looking at it from another angle, I see Abe as trading the life of his son in return for land for himself and his progeny. Had it been an offer by Abe only to please God, with no expected returns, although stupid, perhaps it could have termed as a sacrifice in the true sense because of the absence of personal gains. But here we have a situation where God asks Abraham to kill his son and promises him material wealth. If under these circumstances, a person is willing to comply, then he could be one of three personalities -
a. a murderer who can kill his son.
b. a person with a highly shrewd sense of business, one who forsees far into the future and is willing to do anything to ensure his really really long term interests.
c. a complete raving idiot.
Take your pick, but I don’t accept his acceptance to God’s demand as a will to only obey God’s command.
And this shows why I’m such a lousy religious person. I am incapable (at this point in my spiritual development) to make that conceptual leap. “Man, you must be puttin’ me on,” so to speak.
Why do you do God’s bidding? Because He is the source of ultimate goodness.
How do you know God is the source of ultimate goodness? Because everything he commands is good.
How do you know everything God commands is good? Because He is the source of ultimate goodness.
But only retroactively. He didn’t know that would happen beforehand. Or if he did know it, then he wasn’t risking anything. The suicide bombers who think they are trusting Allah are taking the same risk, and have no more ability to see the future than Abraham did. Why is one a virtue and not the other? Is it not ALWAYS wrong to “trust God” when your own sense of morality tells you’re doing something bad?
