Open to all-would you sacrifice your child if god told you to?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

That's silly. The story in Genesis chapter 22 is that the crazy old coot lied to everyone to keep them calm while he was carrying out his murderous scheme. He had his greedy eyes on the things he would get for gutting and roasting Isaac. He tied up the kid, threw him on the wood, and was a second away from plunging a knife in his heart. Then he got the call to stop.

If he had thought that he wouldn't have to carry out his evil deed then he was just BS'ing in his preparations. That would make him a hypocrite and he should get his sorry ass tossed into the lake of fire. That guy had zero redeeming qualities.

The crazy coot here is you, you have no idea what the story of Abraham and Issac the promised son to carry on building the nation of Israel is about. Without the son no nation, are you starting to get the picture, the story is about faith and trust that's credited to righteousness. As for the preparation, without it no faith and as for your idea of who Abraham is God doesn't care about your opinion. You are hopelessly blind to what the scriptures teach, how sad.

GC

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You did not. You just claimed to know god would never ask you to sacrifice your child and Abraham didn't know that so I want to know how do you know god better than Abraham did?

I actually have the thing Abraham didn't hind sight, God said He would never require child sacrifice.

GC

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[Ben Davis]

I just think of the scene with Loki in Germany and how everybody kneels to Loki. One guy has the courage to stand up. In these threads, the atheists are all like, "Well, I'm that one guy." I'm sorry. I don't buy it. I've played enough poker to know the difference between the talk and the action. I just think a lot of the responses to these threads are all talk and no trouser.

You raise a good point here. It would depend on the consequences of saying 'No'. If there were no consequences, it might be easy to tell god where to go but that would change if faced with violent consequences. Most (all?) of us would like to think that we'd stand up for our beliefs when faced with that sort of ultimatum but statistics show that the urge for self-preservation would take over for a large proportion.

Having been faced with violent ultimatums many times in my life, I feel that I know what I'd do: I'd tell god to Jeff off. However in the moment, many things might fly through my mind (e.g. family, friends, love for life) that might cause me to capitulate.

[archangle]

lets see. i don't believe in him. But when I see the bible I see:

god of the bible stands for doing the best we can with what we have. Knowing full well we will screw up. To try and be nice and understand each other. To help others be the best people they can be. Liberty and justice for all people.

so Yes,

[Losty]

lets see. i don't believe in him. But when I see the bible I see:

god of the bible stands for doing the best we can with what we have. Knowing full well we will screw up. To try and be nice and understand each other. To help others be the best people they can be. Liberty and justice for all people.

so Yes,

What?

[Confused Ape]

what the Abraham story is about or what it actually says,

I decided to see what Judaism has to say about it. After looking at various commentaries I'm linking to this one from the Jewish Virtual Library because it's very short.

Isaac

At the last moment, G-d sent an angel to stop the sacrifice. It is interesting to note that child sacrifice was a common practice in the region at the time. Thus, to people of the time, the surprising thing about this story is not the fact that G-d asked Abraham to sacrifice his child, but that G-d stopped him!

Judaism uses this story as evidence that G-d abhors human sacrifice. In fact, I have seen some sources indicating that Abraham failed this test of faith because he did not refuse to sacrifice his son! Judaism has always strongly opposed the practice of human sacrifice, commonplace in many other cultures at that time and place.

It's interesting to see what Judaism makes of the story of Jephthah's daughter, too.

Firstly it is important to emphasize that Judaism has always viewed human sacrifices as a reprehensible abomination. Regarding the Canaanites, Moses says: “For every abomination to G‑d which He hates, they did to their gods; for also their sons and their daughters they would sacrifice in fire to their gods.”3

Based on this idea, many of the biblical commentators4 maintain that Jephthah did not offer his daughter as a sacrifice. In fact, his original vow, “whatever comes forth . . . shall be to G‑d, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering,” had a dual intention: if it will be a person, then it “shall be [consecrated] to G‑d”; and if it should be an animal, then “I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” (The Hebrew prefix ו which precedes the words “I will offer it” can be translated as “and” or “or.”)

According to this interpretation, Jephthah’s daughter was sent to the mountains to live in seclusion. She never married and dedicated her life to the service of G‑d.

Other biblical commentators5 disagree. Though Jephthah was one of the Israelite judges, he was chosen for the position because of his bravery and might, not because of his Torah scholarship—indeed, he was woefully ignorant.6 And though he was not bound whatsoever by the vow he made—as it clearly transgressed the rules of the Torah—he ignorantly went ahead and offered his daughter as a sacrifice.

Had he only consulted with Phinehas, the learned high priest of the time, he would have been informed of his error. But that didn’t happen. Jephthah was too arrogant to travel to Phinehas to receive guidance: “I am the general of the Israelite forces, and I should go to him?!” And Phinehas was too proud to unilaterally go to Jephthah to advise him: “He needs me; why should I make the trip?”

The hubris demonstrated by these two leaders cost an innocent girl her life. According to the Midrash7 both were punished. Phinehas lost the divine spirit that had hitherto rested upon him. Jephthah became ill, and he lost many of his limbs. Because his limbs were buried in many locations, the Bible says that Jephthah was “buried in the cities of Gilead.”8

[Chad32]

Sacrificing your children is horrible. But sacrificing other people and their children is fine. Yahweh liked that.

[Cyberman]

I wouldn't sacrifice my children under any circumstances. Certainly not if I thought a voice in my head, or esoteric signs, wanted me to. Nor if someone else told me to. And most definitely not because someone else told me a voice in their head wanted me to. But I'm funny like that.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

As I said before, people sacrifice their kids all the time. The Repubs want people to sacrifice their kids in the Middle East so that they can enrich their buddies and themselves. And people will gladly do it because they see fighting in war as patriotic. So they proudly send their sons and daughters off to be injured or killed and feel good about it.

It's still a human sacrifice even if it's not a specific religious one.

[Cyberman]

There is a difference though. These sons and daughters are of accountable age when they get sent out to warzones; they get the choice to decide for themselves. Child sacrifice in the sense we've been discussing involves no such choice.

[Chad32]

I don't really get the comparison between war and human sacrifice. Soldiers in the US are voluntary, and their job is not to run off and die in battle. Their job is to make the other soldiers die in battle.