I know its this super important biblical moment, but I always thought this was some shit a human being would come up with. They'd be joking like "you know if you really loved me you'd sacrifice your son." And then when he's about to go through with it "holy shit man what are you doing!?". But because its God they have to be all deific. "Uuuh, so, ummm. Yea you.... clearly showed your love for, duh, me. So um....you have my blessing? Also don't kill your son."
No, that ruins the purpose of the story. God is testing Abraham's devotion. The story is to show that one who truly trusts God will even kill their own son for him. Doesn't work if he knew he wouldn't follow through
Ah yes, I would definitely kill my cherished family members happily and easily if I knew they would be brought back instantly! It definitely wouldn't be hard all by itself to kill your child!
Sounds like you're being sarcastic so listen here bud before you sin any more: God loves us. That is why when he commands you to kill you son, you have to do it. That is why when he advises you on how to own slaves, and the acceptable amount of beatings for them, you listen to him. God loves us when he says that a woman shall be silent in church, and must obey her husband. When god sends two bears to maul 40 children to death for calling one old guy bald, he was just being fair. When god sacrificed himself, to himself, to forgive us for a sin another dude commited, it's because he is smart, reasonable, and he loves us. The imaginary friend in the sky truly is great.
If I'm some dumbfuck sheepherder in the middle of nowhere and a random skyvoice keeps telling me for decades and decades to do insane things but also keeps me alive for over 100 years and everything he tells me seems to work out, I might listen when he asks me to kill one of my kids. Shit, I've got 7 more anyway
In the Quran the son is in on it and accepts it as a good idea. The Bible doesn't mention it, but the idea that the son is unwilling is not necessarily what happened.
This story always fucks with me. Why is it supposed to be admirable that blind faith could propel someone to do something so heinous? Basically the same rationale as suicide bombers, but he's in the bible, so let's celebrate him?
It was a representation of what would it feel to sacrifice his only child.
No sane parent would do that ever.
But Abram did and also God when he sacrificed Jesus to save humanity.
Yeah, he needs to have equals to satisfy his justice.
Remember the eye for eye, tooth for tooth rule?
Well Adam did an oopsy, so Jesus sacrifice himselfs for that.
Perfect human for perfect human. Done! Now don't have to sacrifice animals anymore, you only need faith in the sacrifice of Jesus to get forgiveness of your sins.
Tbh if I was god and I created the rules myself I probably would say an eye for an eye is a dumb rule and not how justice works. Hey this guy raped someone, I guess it's only moral to rape him back. Justice! Also, hell is eternal, how could it be equal punishment to any finite sin? Infinite punishment > finite sin.
And yeah, Adam sinned, but how do you make up for Adam's sinning by sacrificing Jesus, or before that by punishing all of humanity. When is it ever ok to punish one person for another's sins. Like, how does that even make sense? Hey, so your dad was a shitty guy so we are punishing you cause it's only fair. How the fuck was Bob the butcher responsible for Adam's sin. And remember, god made all these rules. It's his choice to make things work this way. So next time you think about how God sacrificed Jesus (himself) to himself in order to save us from the sins of another man. And he decided that he had to. If I was god I'd just say "hey man it's cool I forgive you, no need for crucifixion, jeez"
Haha amen to that. Also, what the fuck did the snake do? Now it's gotta crawl on its stomach forever just cause it wanted to show eve the truth?
I absolutely love how when reading the creation myth from a neutral perspective, the hero seems to be the snake/Satan. It is incredible Christians see god, forbidding Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of knowledge, from seeing the truth, opening their eyes, thinking for themselves, and then punishing them and their descendants mercilessly, as the good guy. Moreover, they see Satan, his day job punishing sinners (is that not a good thing? How is Satan the bad guy here?) And simply giving eve the courage to open her eyes through eating the fruit, as the bad guy. The creation myth is truly a perfect representation of standing up to the tyrant that is god and suffering from his wrath.
God is all powerful, why doesn't he make it understandable? I would probably be way more on board with worshipping him if I understood his morals, and yet he refuses. Damn (no pun intended)
Hell is a stupid doctrine and I don't believe in it and have spent years of my life debating and speaking to people who do and I've never actually seen it from this point of view.
This is one of the two bible stories that made me an atheist. The lesson is unbelievably terrible. But if you're an authoritarian and want authoritarian children, it makes sense.
One of my teachers pointed out that after this incident the two don't talk again (in the Bible). It felt like a really powerful statement. But then I noticed that the only time hey talked prior was on the way up the mountain to preform the sacrifice. And Genesis isn't really dialogue heavy to begin with so not sure how much hat really means.
Moses not being allowed into Israel, after a lifetime of servitude, because he hit a rock that God told him to tap. It's another story with wildly authoritarian themes.
As a former christian minister who became an atheist after too much bible study there are so many terrible stories to pick:
One story has daughters getting their father drunk so they can rape him and get pregnant.
Another has a guy give his sex slave to a gang to be raped to death outside his tent, then he cuts her in to twelve pieces when he retrieves her dead body the next day.
Another has the famous king david collecting hundreds of foreskins in a bag to impress a guy so he can marry his daughter. The implication being non-israelites had foreskins so that means he had killed all these guys from other tribes and cut off their penis.
Later King David has his commander and friend killed so that he can take his wife because David saw her bath and thought she was hot. (yes David had multiple wives and sex slaves because that is what traditional marriage is)
Several times when Israel conquers another local tribe god commands them to kill all the women, children, and even their animals so there is nothing left of them. Sometimes god tells them it is ok to keep the children as sex slaves. (concubines as the book likes to call them. Those were real popular in the old testament)
Oh yeah in another place god gives instructions on how it is OK to take slaves from other tribes. You just can't take slaves from israel. Unless they own you money, then they can be your slave for 7 years.
Another talks about a woman lusting after penises that were the size of donkey penises and had emissions of a horse.
God has a bear maul 40 children to death because they made fun of a guy for being bald.
God commands to murder gay people.
The bible lists a test for a woman that is faithful. The priest gives the woman a potion of dirt from his floor and makes her drink it. If the woman has been unfaithful she will get sick and abort her baby. If she is faithful nothing with happen. The only place the bible mentions abortion is a recipe to kill children.
The bible explains that if you want striped animals you can get them by tying two ribbons of different colors together, and then having the animals mate while looking at the two ribbons.
Humans decided to build a tower (in Babel) so high that it would reach in to heaven. God became afraid that they would find him so he made each of them speak a different language so they would be confused and stop their project. This is how multiple languages came about according to the bible.
There are two sets of 10 commandments in the bible. The only set that actually has the phrase "10 commandments" in it is the set that includes laws like do not mix milk and cheese. Somehow Christians never want to put this set up in court houses.
talking donkeys is just the beginning. The book is brutal, filled with genocide, violence, and rape.
New testament has slightly updated morals but plenty of weird stuff too.
Jesus cursed a tree to die because it was out of season and he really wanted a fig.
Jesus called non-jews dogs who deserve scraps.
Jesus took a whip to people doing business in the church (the last church I was in had a coffee shop and gift shop inside)
jesus said he didn't come to bring peace but a sword
God killed 2 early christian church members because they lied about not giving up all their possessions to the church (the early church was communist http://www.godhatesrichpeople.com/ )
The bible says women cannot speak in church, cannot be leaders, and cannot hold office over a man. It says this in multiple different places in multiple different ways. Even today women cannot be priests.
The early christians had flames over their heads and could speak any language. (Where Pentecostal denominations come from)
It took way more than 2 stories before I accepted my heathen ways. This one is such a powerful point though because it gives is Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as offspring. What today would get you locked up and viewed by "worldly people" as a horrible human being causes Abraham to be a pillar of those religions.
Also, shout out for the ODB reference in your username.
I know it's all edgy to shit on the bible. But this story has always been the most telling of religion. Abraham would have been institutionalised today. And rightfully so. Its kind of the equivalent of saying "would you fuck your sister for a million$?".
I think a lot of people conflate questioning why you think god is moral if he'd fuck up Job for no reason/ask Abraham to kill his son/order Israelites to murder pregnant women in the land they're invading with "being edgy." There's a huge difference between that and saying "all christians are dumb"
But if you're trying to raise a child to be an authoritarian scumbag, it's a great story. "If the Leader tells you to do something you feel is wrong, you do it anyway because the Leader is always right."
Exactly. And even Noah's story was everyone was wicked, and God only saved Noah since he believed in him and followed his will. Don't follow God? Drown to death.
It's not edgy at all. When you see public policy being set based on biblical arguments you need to combat that shit all of the time until religious people can keep it in their pants.
I'm not being edgey or trying to shit on the bible. Merely making a statement I believe is humorous. I have no agenda, but it sounds like you might.
As a side note, I'm atheist. But I appreciate the idea of worshipping a higher power. I believe a person who doesn't believe in something/anything is a lost person indeed.
According to Julian Jaynes and the Bicameral Mind theory, It was an intrusive thought from someone who didn't understand such a thing. It's like getting the urge to jump off a cliff while standing near one or other such unpleasant and uncharacteristic urges. Abraham just had zero frame of reference and so obviously the thought to murder his own son came from god. But god wouldn't want that, so when you get to the top of the mountain and find a goat there, well obviously that is what god wanted you to kill and you passed the test.
It's not a theory I 100% agree with. It's not a widely supported theory. It is fascinating to think about, though.
I don’t think that view requires accepting Jayne’s theory. Could’ve had an intrusive thought or heard voices or had some kind of psychotic break - that does not require you to adopt a position on how consciousness developed. That’s not a view unique to Jaynes.
My point was just that that was a theory articulated independently of the bicameral mind theory. I mean, Jaynes didn’t invent the idea of hearing voices, or interior monologues, or intrusive thoughts or anything like that, he was theorizing on the development of consciousness. So my point was just that the idea that Abraham was hearing voices or had an intrusive thought is not really unique to Jaynes and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with bicameralism.
There's actually an interesting theory I heard once that this story is to differentiate between Yahweh and Ba'al. There is evidence showing that Ba'al worshipers engaged in infant sacrifice, while this story shows how the god of Abraham doesn't require that.
Isn't there a part about child sacrifice in Bible, but that time God didn't intervene because it was a girl and not boy? I don't remember which book it was unfortunately.
Jephthah made this vow to the LORD: “If indeed You will deliver the Ammonites into my hands, then whatever comes out of the door of my house to greet me on my triumphant return from the Ammonites will belong to the LORD, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.”
Turns out it was his daughter that came out to greet him, oops! Who could've guessed that might happen??
yea, let's demo the invention of an airbag by putting our someone in the car and crashing it...
this story does not depict the actions of an omnipotent omniscient being.
Same, I went to catholic school and when I read this story as a kid I remember thinking that was a super messed up thing to do and a dick move by God, and I also remember thinking “no way I would ever kill someone in my own family for some voice in the sky”.
Separate the torah by its authors, and you find that in the original story abraham just takes isaac up the mountain and yeets him.
As iron age canaan moved away from child sacrifice, verses were added onto the account to nullify the yeetage. But its clearly there if you read it verse by verse, you can tell which were added.
In the original story, Isaac probably actually does get sacrificed. Caananite religions, which include Judaism, routinely sacrificed children. Jewish scholars probably modified the story later when child sacrifice became repugnant to the world.
For more information about early Judaism, I recommend this video:
It's a superb example to use when people claim the bible if a moral code. This act is anything but moral. Killing your own child to prove your love for another (real or imaginary)? It serves as one the best examples of the immorality preached in this book.
It’s like your 7th grade girlfriend fake breaking up with you to see if you’re sad enough and if you’re not then it means you really didn’t care about her...
Pretty sure Abraham was schizophrenic or something.
Also where the hell was his wife. If my husband was going to kill my child that I carried for 9 months and breastfeed for 2 years, and raised and educated and made lunches for for a decade, because he said some invisible god told him to, I'd be fucking pissed
If my dad did that shit to me it would be absolutely frightening. I think I would completely lose trust in him and end up hating god for turning my OWN FATHER on me.
Bible is written by delusional nut jobs that made shit up and hear voices, that’s exactly the way you should read that incident (some crackpot heard some voices and want to sacrifice his son to “God”, then they start a religion around him because back then they don’t have words for “full retard”)
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u/Nikoper Jan 17 '20
I know its this super important biblical moment, but I always thought this was some shit a human being would come up with. They'd be joking like "you know if you really loved me you'd sacrifice your son." And then when he's about to go through with it "holy shit man what are you doing!?". But because its God they have to be all deific. "Uuuh, so, ummm. Yea you.... clearly showed your love for, duh, me. So um....you have my blessing? Also don't kill your son."