Precisely. If you can’t ever know the motives of an ineffable being, how can you ever really be sure what it’s up to when it does ANYTHING? If it’s testing you, then how can you EVER know what it really wants. At any time in the future, maybe even after it’s at first told you that you did great, chose right, etc., it could spin around and say that it was all part of an even bigger test that you just failed and hadn’t comprehended until it revealed it to you just now.
Where would he want this killing done?
I know exactly what to do in case you’re faced with an angry, murderous God. You stand your ground, look him straight in his omnipotent eye, and say:
“What does God need with a starship?”
There is no such commandment, so that wouldn’t get you far. The commandment is “Thou shalt not murder”, which was mistranslated in some early European Bibles. It couldn’t very well be “Thou shalt not kill” when in the next chapter it lists dozens of crimes for which the punishment is execution.
As an aid to answering, consider that there is one account in the Bible of God accepting a human sacrifice of someone’s child.
How could you tell it’s YHWH that told you to kill your child? Since you can’t - you don’t have a reference - how can you be sure?
Okay, I have to know - who would be put as the author? Would it be ‘God’? I mean, consider the situation.
I don’t have kids, so first God would have to produce one. If God (or someone passing itself off as Him) were to ask me to sacrifice any person to him, my response would be this: “God, you know I’m a Christian. As such, I believe Christ’s death on the cross was sufficient and complete atonement for the sins of the world. Therfore, God, I refuse to do so and you, whatever you are, can go and lick Diogenes’s balls!”
I do believe I should be obedient to God; I also believe that, having been given the gift of free will, I should use that gift and others which have been given me, and not use “I was just obeying orders” as an excuse to do what I know is wrong.
CJ
Well I wouldn’t kill my son… but my mother in law yes ! Would that make me a bad christian ? 
Or a “weak opportunistic” one ?
(I am not a christian… but fine… )
If God said to me, “Kill me a son”
I’d say, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
If God say, “No.” I say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want boy, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well I’ll say, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God say, “Out on Highway 61.”
I would not kill my daughter if God commanded it. God is capable of killing her himself, if he wants her dead, he can kill her. What is more, according to the religion I grew up with, I believed in him and his son and asked once for his forgiveness and that results in a pardon good for all time. I was taught John 3:16 is a nice little contract.
A more interesting question to me is this: If God commanded someone to kill his or her child, that someone did, should society send them to jail or death as if for any other crime?
If that person can get God to take the stand in their defence then no. If not then they are just another killer. Probably crazy so they don’t deserve death, but they should certainly be locke dup for the good of society.
If God wants someone dead, let him do it himself. If He kills, or has someone kill, my child, then I will spend the rest of eternity waiting for that moment when He lets His guard down for a moment, and then I will pay Him back in kind.
NO.FUCKING.WAY.
Touche.
Out on Highway 61, of course. 
Absolutely they should go to prison. The law makes no exception for divine commandments, even if they can somehow be proven authentic. God would have to be charged as well. God is not above the law.
My heavenward gaze would turn to a :dubious: and I’d wait for the punch line.
“Nah, I’m just shitting you, 'luc! Not my style. By the way, that getting lucky at the Xmas party? That was a fluke. You can stop thanking Me.”
OK, here’s an answer for you.
The answer is no, but not for the reasons that you are all thinking.
Firstly, there is the point that MaceMan brought up that my God would not ask such a thing of me. He might ask it of Abraham, since he was a much greater individual than I, and knew that there was a possibility that he could pass such a test (and let’s not forget that, in the end, it was only a test). I, OTOH, could not pass such a test, and He knows that.
Secondly, in Jewish tradition, prophecy does not exist anymore and will not again until the messianic age. So, I know that if I hear God talking to me; I should probably start looking in the Yellow pages under “psychiatrists.”
Thirdly, even if I did receive such instructions, and even if I didn’t believe I were crazy, I would still seek rabbinic guideance [if for no other reason that I don’t know how to slaughter anything properly]. As such, any rabbinic leader whom I went to would discourage me from following through with this deed. (Indeed, Jepthah is roundly criticized in Rabbinic literature because he could have had his vow annulled and didn’t. And even if he didn’t he still wouldn’t have had to sacrifice his daughter.)
Fourthly, and most importantly, I am the father of three (IMHO) wonderful children. I could not (echoing back to my first point) harm them for anything in the world. God may as well ask me to walk to the moon. It’s simply a test I cannot pass. Not because I don’t want to obey God’s command, but simply because I could not harm my own children.
Zev Steinhardt
Doesn’t God command the Levites, in exodus, to kill their families because of the golden calf incident?
My memory is really fuzzy here, so I can’t be certain this is accurate-but I could swear it is.
This wasn’t a test to see if they would do it either, because (again, IIRC) they went out and did it.
Again keep in mind that this is an imprecise recollection, it would seem to me that this sort of behavior was expected from God, during ancient times.
So putting myself in an ancient’s shoes (without knowledge of schitzophrenia and the like), I probably would kill my first born if I heard voices that I thought were from God.
Now-a-days I know better, so I’d just check myself into a mental institution.
How did Abraham know?
So you’re saying God’s getting less right-wing as he gets older?
So how do you explain those condoms Mrs God found when she took his robes to be dry-cleaned