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Obedience to God

You won't find me apologizing, reinterpreting or skirting around the terror of God's wrath.
 
No. You won't.
...find me apologizing, reinterpreting or skirting around the terror of God's wrath.

Is there an echo in here?
 
The people that comply with the voice in their head telling them to murder their kids for their god aren't around in great numbers. Pretty simple to understand really.

If there was ever a religion where followers all obediently murdered their offspring it wouldn't last very long. :D
 
Well, it's the tension between God killing lots of kids personally and this crazy notion that the same God will judge us for legal abortion that's richly comic. You only have to go 7 chapters in the Good Book to find God drowning all the kids, babies, fetuses on earth. Other examples of mass infanticide abound. But, as most any American pastor will tell you, nothing can separate us from the Love o' God.
 
As to the comment about Abraham knowing in advance that he'd have lots of descendants, which he couldn't have if he killed Isaac...have you forgotten Ishmael?
 
Forgotten Ishmael? No.
Have you read Genesis 21:12?

God told Abraham that it would be through Isaac that his offspring will be reckoned.
That's why Abraham trusted God and obeyed. And it's why he confidently told Isaac that God would provide the actual sacrifice.
 
Once more for effect.

Lion IRC said:
Sheesh!
It's like you people have never been on one of those corporate team-building events.

"A trust fall is a purported trust-building game often conducted as a group exercise in which a person deliberately allows themselves to fall, relying on the other members of the group (spotters) to catch the person."
Click to expand...
 
Lion IRC said:
Forgotten Ishmael? No.
Have you read Genesis 21:12?

God told Abraham that it would be through Isaac that his offspring will be reckoned.
That's why Abraham trusted God and obeyed. And it's why he confidently told Isaac that God would provide the actual sacrifice.
Click to expand...

Soooooo, Abraham knew it was all a drill, not actual. Which means God knew Abraham knew. Poor Isaac, of course, didn't know and was terrorized by his own father pretending to cut his throat and burn him alive for no reason, but let's set that aside. What does Isaac matter, after all?

So what was the point of the charade between Abraham and Yahweh? If, as you claim, Abraham knew God wouldn't allow him to kill his own son, then what is it exactly that Abraham "obeyed"?

What you are describing is two con men who are in on the con role playing. But two con men in on the con role playing are doing so to snag a mark; i.e., a third person who isn't in on the con and doesn't know they are role playing. So was that Isaac? Was the whole point of the charade made up by God and Abraham to terrorize Isaac for some reason? And what could that possibly have been? Live in mortal fear of your own father, because he might one day slit your throat and burn you alive because a voice inside his head tells him to (but not really, the voice was actually in on the prank)?
 
Back in the 70s, SNL did the Abraham and Isaac story. I believe Belushi played Abraham, with Bill Murray as Isaac. He knifes Isaac in the gut, at which point Don Pardo as God frantically hollers, "Wait, I didn't mean it!" which leads to the comic payoff of Belushi's disgruntled facial reaction.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Lion IRC said:
"Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering?"

It's as if Abraham knows that Isaac is destined to go on and have an innumerable number of grand kids
Click to expand...

Well … what's the point of the story then?

I always read it as being that obedience to God's commands is the number one thing. Even if he asks you to do something that your own judgement would consider to be wrong, like killing your child, you should obey the commands of God because he knows better than you.

If that is not the case and Abraham knew that God would stop him before he killed Isaac (and God, I assume, knew that Abraham was aware of this), then what was going on here? There wouldn't appear to be any moral lesson or any real point at all.
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That fits better with the bible as a whole too. There is no more common theme in there than obedience to authority (God). Not love, not charity, not anything noble. Obedience.

1. The first of the 10 commandments is Thou Shalt Have No God Before Me

2. Adman and Eve eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. They can't have known it was wrong to do before eating of that fruit and gaining that knowledge. This is pure obedience based.

3. God plays with Job's obedience to show off to Satan how obedient Job is.

4. Abe & Isaac; Jeptha and his daughter (there he does go through with murdering her)

5. The concept of faith over works. Belief and obedience over being a good person. This is why Santa is better than God. He only cares that your'e good.

That's just off the top of my head. And on and on and on it goes.
 
Koyaanisqatsi said:
Lion IRC said:
Forgotten Ishmael? No.
Have you read Genesis 21:12?

God told Abraham that it would be through Isaac that his offspring will be reckoned.
That's why Abraham trusted God and obeyed. And it's why he confidently told Isaac that God would provide the actual sacrifice.
Click to expand...

Soooooo, Abraham knew it was all a drill, not actual. Which means God knew Abraham knew. Poor Isaac, of course, didn't know and was terrorized by his own father pretending to cut his throat and burn him alive for no reason, but let's set that aside. What does Isaac matter, after all?

So what was the point of the charade between Abraham and Yahweh? If, as you claim, Abraham knew God wouldn't allow him to kill his own son, then what is it exactly that Abraham "obeyed"?

What you are describing is two con men who are in on the con role playing. But two con men in on the con role playing are doing so to snag a mark; i.e., a third person who isn't in on the con and doesn't know they are role playing. So was that Isaac? Was the whole point of the charade made up by God and Abraham to terrorize Isaac for some reason? And what could that possibly have been? Live in mortal fear of your own father, because he might one day slit your throat and burn you alive because a voice inside his head tells him to (but not really, the voice was actually in on the prank)?
Click to expand...

Isaac asked Abraham where is the sacrifice and was reassured not to worry because God would provide the sacrifice - and God did. Just as promised. And yes, I think you can argue that God trusted Abraham.
Can't you see what the take-home message of the story is?
 
Lion IRC said:
Koyaanisqatsi said:
Lion IRC said:
Forgotten Ishmael? No.
Have you read Genesis 21:12?

God told Abraham that it would be through Isaac that his offspring will be reckoned.
That's why Abraham trusted God and obeyed. And it's why he confidently told Isaac that God would provide the actual sacrifice.
Click to expand...

Soooooo, Abraham knew it was all a drill, not actual. Which means God knew Abraham knew. Poor Isaac, of course, didn't know and was terrorized by his own father pretending to cut his throat and burn him alive for no reason, but let's set that aside. What does Isaac matter, after all?

So what was the point of the charade between Abraham and Yahweh? If, as you claim, Abraham knew God wouldn't allow him to kill his own son, then what is it exactly that Abraham "obeyed"?

What you are describing is two con men who are in on the con role playing. But two con men in on the con role playing are doing so to snag a mark; i.e., a third person who isn't in on the con and doesn't know they are role playing. So was that Isaac? Was the whole point of the charade made up by God and Abraham to terrorize Isaac for some reason? And what could that possibly have been? Live in mortal fear of your own father, because he might one day slit your throat and burn you alive because a voice inside his head tells him to (but not really, the voice was actually in on the prank)?
Click to expand...

Isaac asked Abraham where is the sacrifice and was reassured not to worry because God would provide the sacrifice - and God did. Just as promised. And yes, I think you can argue that God trusted Abraham.
Can't you see what the take-home message of the story is?
Click to expand...
”You must always do whatever those voices in your head tells you”?
 
Learner said:
I think Jesus would mean to be otherwise, when HE said : be "wise as serpents ".
Click to expand...
Yeah... throw a totally unrelated citation, from the new testament without any context, at us..

Its from matthew:
”I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

It should be obvious to anyone that this is not about their relation with god..
 
Chill out pal.
He was making a remark about your comment - not the moral of the Abraham story.
 
I've always interpreted "obedience to God" as a "get out of jail free card". It allows the religious person to avoid having to take responsibility for their own actions. They can outsource the guilt.
 
Lion IRC said:
Isaac asked Abraham where is the sacrifice and was reassured not to worry because God would provide the sacrifice - and God did. Just as promised.
Click to expand...

So your modern day apologetic is to assert that God rendered physical sacrifice unnecessary hundreds (if not thousands) of years BC. Congratulations, you’ve just rendered Jesus’ death unnecessary.

And yes, I think you can argue that God trusted Abraham.
Click to expand...

Trusted Abraham to do what? Keep their mutually agreed upon secret to pretend to murder and burn alive Abraham’s son?

Can't you see what the take-home message of the story is?
Click to expand...

Obey your father or he’ll pretend to slit your throat and burn you alive because the voice in his head wanted to play a terrifying and unnecessary prank on you?

So let’s recap your apologetics and what they necessarily entail. When God tells Abraham to murder his son as a physical sacrifice to God (because such a being requires its creations to brutally murder each other as a sacrifice to it for no possible legitimate reason, just ineffable whim), Abraham knew God was lying to him and instead what God wanted was not to test Abraham, but to pull a prank on Isaac.

So Abraham—knowing that God wanted to pull this terrifying, cruel prank on Isaac—decided to go along with God’s lie by pretending that he was going to slit his son’s throat and burn him alive, but at some point in the charade, Abraham must have forgotten that his was what God was going to do, because God has to intervene and stop Abraham from actually murdering his own child.

So now it’s a story about a prankster God and a loving father who knows God doesn’t actually want him to kill his own son, but to make it authentic and REALLY scare the absolute shit out of his own son for no discernible reason other than terror for terror’s sake, Abraham suddenly behaves as if God has not lied to him, he doesn’t know that God is pulling a prank and proceeds to actually slit his son’s throat, only to be stopped at the last minute by God.

I mean, it’s a hilarious practical joke, no doubt, but if literal, it means Abraham is a psychopath and Isaac’s life is psychologically destroyed and if parable, it means that God rendered human sacrifice completely unnecessary centuries before Jesus, so bang goes sacrificial atonement “for our sins”—which means there can be no life after death—and Jesus must therefore have been a false prophet and all that fun stuff.

I get why you’d spin the nonsense about Abraham knowing it’s all a prank and yet God unnecessarily having to stop Abraham (if it’s a prank, Abraham was never going to actually kill his son, so there would have been no reason to stop him) and all, but no. The lesson to be learned (if there can be any kind of lesson learned aside from do what your told by the cult leaders) is that God knows true faith (aka, obedience)—that God knows what’s in your heart and what’s in your head.

Which means that Abraham had to firmly believe that God wanted him to kill his son and was going to kill his son precisely because God wanted him to and only at the last minute did God stop him because he could see that Abraham’s obedience to God was absolute. The asshole was going to murder his own son for God, but God didn’t actually need a human sacrifice to act. He mislead Abraham into thinking that was the case in order to test Abraham’s faith, but stopped the sacrifice of a father’s innocent son as being unnecessary.

Bang goes the NT.
 
Koyaanisqatsi said:
So your modern day apologetic is to assert that God rendered physical sacrifice unnecessary hundreds (if not thousands) of years BC. Congratulations, you’ve just rendered Jesus’ death unnecessary.
Click to expand...

Here's some things you've overlooked.
- Jesus (like Abraham) willingly trusted God. There are parallels.
- God raised Jesus and God spared Isaac. Both events end well.
- There actually WAS a physical sacrifice on Mt Moriah. Read the text - then bring your A game.
 
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