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

[Chad32]

I don't think Yahweh said do this, or else. He just said do it, and Abraham unquestioningly obeyed.

[The Valkyrie]

I have posted this poll as open to all, but I am expecting that only religious members will answer in the affirmative. If you received a message in your head that you were sure was god , telling you to kill your child , would you do it? We are told that Abraham was the sort of believer that God wanted. Do you come up to scratch?

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Fortunately the voices in my head don't tell me to harm family, just everyone else.

My shrink in Oz told me not to handle anything sharper than a sponge.

[zebo-the-fat]

I don't think Yahweh said do this, or else. He just said do it, and Abraham unquestioningly obeyed.

No, I don't think he said it either!

[Brian37]

I presumed this was open to all gods, not just Yahweh.

I assume all good atheists if presented with a god of unimaginable power and were asked to do something horrific, they would all refuse.

Or, at least, that's the story....

Well the only out if one were to do that would be under duress. In civil society with most crimes, if someone has a gun literally to your head and says "Harm this other person or you die yourself", there is more sympathy in that context.

What god belief does and what religion does is distorts natural reality which is not a neat utopia in terms of either/or blanket solutions. The truth of reality is that it is messy and never simple like religion wants to make it.

There was a real case of a bank robbery where the the robbers did a home invasion on a bank manager, held his family hostage, and forced the manager to rob the bank himself. Not that famous pizza guy one who blew himself up, but another one. Quite a few years before the pizza guy.

God, in the context of this story is far worse, because he has absolute power and from the entire book teaches you to obey. So if the story had God not backing off Abraham would have killed his kid, just like the bank manager had no choice but to rob the bank.

The entire book teaches you to obey and God is the final authority. There is no morality in a concept that teaches you to ignore a power when you know something is wrong. It is one thing to recognize something is wrong but be powerless to do anything, like living under a dictator. So if the believer claims they are not helpless then the conflict comes in to the point where they have to justify the horrible acts of this God, or admit that the concept is broken.

[Ryantology]

Your comments make a lot of sense coming from your worldview which sees our life in the world as the entirety of your existence. But from the christian perspective, this life is but a tiny part of our existence. We aim to do what God wills for us here and then move on to eternity. So we look at things from the perspective of eternity, rather than the short time that we spend here in this world.

And that is how 2000 years of murder and destruction are justified in a paragraph.

[Ravenshire]

Where's the "Oh, fucking-a, hell no! Are you shitting me?!?" button?

Any worthy god, wouldn't ask. Any god that asks, isn't worthy.

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This has been asked before, but I believe I should sacrifice my child if God is truly asking me to. It would be better for the child, but being human and imperfect, I'm not sure whether or not I would pass the test as Abraham did.

You're either lying through your teeth or you're a sick fuck. If the latter, maybe you should go make of yourself burnt offerings unto the lord. That burning smell would please him and your absence would please us.

[The Valkyrie]

Do we have the option of sacrificing someone else?

[Ravenshire]

I presumed this was open to all gods, not just Yahweh.

I assume all good atheists if presented with a god of unimaginable power and were asked to do something horrific, they would all refuse.

Or, at least, that's the story....

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.

Maybe you could pick one scenario and stick with it. The two above are not the same.

Told to kneel and the alternative is death. Maybe I would.

Told to commit atrocities and the alternative is death. I couldn't live with myself afterwards anyway, so why would I comply?

Seriously, don't presume to speak for me.

[Brian37]

Your comments make a lot of sense coming from your worldview which sees our life in the world as the entirety of your existence. But from the christian perspective, this life is but a tiny part of our existence. We aim to do what God wills for us here and then move on to eternity. So we look at things from the perspective of eternity, rather than the short time that we spend here in this world.

And that is how 2000 years of murder and destruction are justified in a paragraph.

Sad part is he thinks his religion invented the afterlife and no other religion believes in an afterlife and can't understand why humans beat the shit out of each other over which afterlife is the true afterlife.

The Jew says "You got it wrong", the Muslim says "You got it wrong" the Christian says "You got it wrong", I say you are all right at the same time. And all of this violent competition started in the same area of the globe.

[Mr Greene]

How is that equivocating?

I assume you mean that if it was clear it was a message from my god.

He's changing the request from a clear message from a god to a simple request from a mortal with special powers. Moreover, he's specifying a different level of duress than one likely to be present in the face of a god. I suppose it depends on the specifics, the assumptions of which, he was playing fast and loose with. It's not clear Loki is anything more than a wizard, either.

I don't think Yahweh said do this, or else. He just said do it, and Abraham unquestioningly obeyed.

This is one part where the Abrahamic story is really creepy. In the Bhagavid Gita Arjuna goes through every emotion and question when he gets his orders. By contrast Abraham has absofuckinglutely nothing going on upstairs, no questions, no emotions, zip. He's a freaking automaton in a bad B movie:- Must Kill Kid, Get wood for pyre...