Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Theism and Atheism => Topic started by: floo on July 19, 2017, 04:13:49 PM
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I have asked this question last year, but will ask it again. I would be fascinated to see what AB has to say about it, especially as he seems to think god always knows best.
If you genuinely believed god was calling you to sacrifice your child, as apparently Abraham did, how would you react? Would you tell god to stick it where the sun don't shine, as any reasonable person would, or go along with it?
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I have asked this question last year, but will ask it again. I would be fascinated to see what AB has to say about it, especially as he seems to think god always knows best.
If you genuinely believed god was calling you to sacrifice your child, as apparently Abraham did, how would you react? Would you tell god to stick it where the sun don't shine, as any reasonable person would, or go along with it?
I'm getting Deja Vu.
I think the argument went something along the lines of 'Not in new testament' case specific to Abraham, shouldn't they be asking jewish posters oh there aren't any, Jesus has made any sacrifice necessary and no they wouldn't sacrifice their children. On the other side I think the assembled concluded that Christians were a thoroughly bad lot anyway and swapped Haribos.
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I'm getting Deja Vu.
I think the argument went something along the lines of 'Not in new testament' case specific to Abraham, shouldn't they be asking jewish posters oh there aren't any, Jesus has made any sacrifice necessary and no they wouldn't sacrifice their children. On the other side I think the assembled concluded that Christians were a thoroughly bad lot anyway and swapped Haribos.
That sounds like the cop out position to me!
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That sounds like the cop out position to me!
What? Swapping Haribos?
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I'm getting Deja Vu.
I think the argument went something along the lines of 'Not in new testament' case specific to Abraham, shouldn't they be asking jewish posters oh there aren't any, Jesus has made any sacrifice necessary and no they wouldn't sacrifice their children. On the other side I think the assembled concluded that Christians were a thoroughly bad lot anyway and swapped Haribos.
I would imagine People such as yourself Vlad, must be wondering how come most religious belief in this country is loosing any credibility it ever had at such a rate of knots.
ippy
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I would imagine People such as yourself Vlad, must be wondering how come most religious belief in this country is loosing any credibility it ever had at such a rate of knots.
ippy
Not really, Brexit says it all.
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Not really, Brexit says it all.
Oh! not the price of fish?
ippy
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I have asked this question last year, but will ask it again. I would be fascinated to see what AB has to say about it, especially as he seems to think god always knows best.
If you genuinely believed god was calling you to sacrifice your child, as apparently Abraham did, how would you react? Would you tell god to stick it where the sun don't shine, as any reasonable person would, or go along with it?
You're trying to apply a 20th century liberal morality to the consciousness of middle-eastern nomad from three thousand or so years back. To us it seems monstrous, but most if not all the tribes of the middle east believed in child sacrifice as a way of pleasing the gods and achieving good fortune in life. The Aztecs and Incas of the Americas, from much later on, still believed it was necessary for the prospering of their societies.
Did he hear a voice in his head telling him to do it? Perhaps - but then we are told that later on he had some sort of vision telling him not to do it - so that was certainly a step in the right direction. With the exception of the story of Jephthah and his daughter, it seems that the Hebrews - unlike their neighbours - did not continue practising child sacrifice. Though, if the old stories are true, it seems that their god wasn't averse to slaughtering children.
There is another version of the story of the Binding of Isaac in the Talmud which has Isaac leaping with joy to be sacrificed at God's supposed command - so the idea of pleasing the gods in this way was probably well-ingrained into such societies.
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If I were Abraham I would've know it either WASN'T God or it was & He wanted me to deny this kind of behaviour !!!
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If I were Abraham I would've know it either WASN'T God or it was & He wanted me to deny this kind of behaviour !!!
SteveH will be pleased not just 'he' but 'He'
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Of course God is neither male or female but a little modicum of respect with the BIG H, eh !?!? ;)
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If I were Abraham I would've know it either WASN'T God or it was & He wanted me to deny this kind of behaviour !!!
I don't see how you can possibly be certain of that - we have no way of bridging the gap from our modern consciousness to the kind of consciousness that Abraham may have had*. Given the differences in outlook and belief of those who profess to "know God" or believe he communicates with them nowadays, your suggestion is even more unlikely.
However, all this ultimately hangs on a very old story, written by a number of ancient scribes. Maybe there was a real Abraham, and maybe he had such an experience - maybe not. Maybe the scribes were simply attempting to establish some sort of origins for monotheistic belief for the ancient Hebrews, and centred them on certain key figures like Abraham. Many religious interpreters down the ages have suggested that God was testing the extent of Abraham's faith and obedience, and this was a way of demonstrating it (with the implication that this kind of ordeal was morally legitimate). We have no way of knowing what the intentions of the original scribes were - but if this is what they intended to demonstrate, then I can't help thinking that they might have found a better way of going about it. But that's just my modern liberal consciousness again.
Here's a wanky intellectual title for you:
"The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes. Debatable theories, but an interesting take on the right brain - left brain phenomenon.
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I see what you mean & I agree.
From what we 'know' of Abraham it seems he was as shit-scared of his god as most seem to have been then.
What an awful creature to put its slaves under these sort of antics, eh ?!!?!? ;) :o ::)
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Of course God is neither male or female but a little modicum of respect with the BIG H, eh !?!? ;)
I haven't any respect for god, if it exists, and is as unpleasant as it is portrayed in the Bible.
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Totally agree.
How anyone can have any respect for the horrendous creature in The Bible & the Quran is beyond me.
It's far worse than any demon conjured up in human nature & nightmare !!!! :o >:(
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It is worrying that some people blindly follow what they think is god's will, without questioning if it right and good.So much evil has been committed in the name of god over the centuries.
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I have asked this question last year, but will ask it again.
Are you related to Brock Lesnar by any chance?
Eat
Sleep
Ask a question about being asked to sacrifice your child / burning in hell
Repeat
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Are you related to Brock Lesnar by any chance?
Eat
Sleep
Ask a question about being asked to sacrifice your child / burning in hell
Repeat
Perhaps one of your lot should answer it?
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Perhaps one of your lot should answer it?
Are you guys really saying that you wouldn't want to be a Christian because you think God might ask you to do an "Abraham"?
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This guy isn't.
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This guy isn't.
Have you really thought about that?You did answer it very quickly.
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Have you really thought about that?You did answer it very quickly.
The question was: "Are you guys really saying that you wouldn't want to be a Christian because you think God might ask you to do an "Abraham"?"
which to me at least doesn't require a great deal of head-room.
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Are you guys really saying that you wouldn't want to be a Christian because you think God might ask you to do an "Abraham"?
Of course not. I ditched the faith for other reasons.
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SteveH will be pleased not just 'he' but 'He'
:D
The point of the story is that the God of the Hebrews was forbidding human sacrifice from then on.
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:D
The point of the story is that the God of the Hebrews was forbidding human sacrifice from then on.
This is the rosy spin that has been put on it, but one wonders why the original command from God (ostensibly) was for Abraham to go ahead and sacrifice Isaac. To our modern consciousness, this certainly seems a strange way of instilling the idea of not sacrificing children.
As I said before, the outcome does seem an advance on the practices of the surrounding tribes, and others throughout the world for centuries to come. However, human sacrifice appears not to have died out completely among the Hebrews, as is shown by the story of Jephthah in the Book of Judges (some very complicated exegetics have been spun to make that particularly text palatable).
And of course, we then come to the re-instatement of human sacrifice in the developing theology foisted on the person of Jesus. As I also said before.
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:D
The point of the story is that the God of the Hebrews was forbidding human sacrifice from then on.
Yes he was & it was the first time that God had truly revealed himself to the Israelites.
Before I went to bed last night I came across the following and thought of this thread:-
http://www.staffordshirenewsletter.co.uk/profile-8203-dr-kenneth-watwood-retired-doctor/story-28933112-detail/story.html
especially the bit subtitled TELL US ABOUT YOUR CHRISTIAN FAITH AND WHAT INSPIRED.....
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:D
The point of the story is that the God of the Hebrews was forbidding human sacrifice from then on.
Except for Jesus.
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Yes he was & it was the first time that God had truly revealed himself to the Israelites. Before I went to bed last night I came across the following and thought of this thread:- http://www.staffordshirenewsletter.co.uk/profile-8203-dr-kenneth-watwood-retired-doctor/story-28933112-detail/story.html especially the bit subtitled TELL US ABOUT YOUR CHRISTIAN FAITH AND WHAT INSPIRED.....
Glad someone put this on Youtube - Helen Shapiro (Messianic Jew) singing Michael Card's classic "God wil provide a lamb" Better than spouting theology..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r47dvtFI4I
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Except for Jesus.
And Jephtha's daughter.
It is an important point, I think (and I made it earlier). Many of the OT prophets were at odds with the conception of sacrifice of actual entities, human or animal. But the Pauline and Johannine aspects of Christianity have simply reinstated the early idea of human sacrifice in the person of Jesus, promoting the idea that believing in Christ's supposed act cancels out sin and makes us 'right with God'. The huge array of interpretations about how this is supposed to work are indeed mystifying, and truly nonsensical in the light of Trinitarian doctrine (which is incomprehensible in itself).