If God ordered you to kill your child, would you do it?

Interesting transition there, osso.

Yah, transitions 'r' us.






Though my transmissions often fail..

I'm not gonna argue this point with you. While it is good thread banter, it is useless to argue this point with someone who doesn't even believe in G_d.

Ah, we have another person here who mentions g-d. Perhaps you folks can talk.

I missed out on the reason for spelling it "G-d."

I heard the reason, but forget, it was something about respect for other people who do.

It is a jewish thing... you aren't supposed to say or type G_d's name unless it is used in a reverent situation like prayer. It is disrespectful.

Portal Star uses G_d. I'm partial to Yahweh, even though I'll never know the true prononciation. I know that Yah Wei Hong makes great Peking duck though.

hehe, nice. I prefer Hashem actually.

Nice bail out, or so i'm sure you think. But you're simply sidestepping the issue of making statements from authority about what god would or would not do. There is no reason for anyone here to assume that you speak to such a subject with any authority. In short, there is no reason for anyone here to take your word for it.

HELL NO!!!! I wouldn't kill my child for anyone. God doesn't speak to me anyway.

Certainly.

Any god who attempts to trap its followers in goddamn paradoxies is not worth believing in - so I would revert to the default position in sheer spite.

Next?

"If god ordered you to believe that he is a lier, would you believe him?"

If --- wore a tutu would you follow suit?

Like I said.

I don't claim to be an expert in ANY subject, all I post are simply my opinions. Don't take my word for anything, I'm not trying to push any kind of agenda.

It is just my opinion on what Hashem would do, you are correct. Just as it is that you have your opinion.

If you want to know, biblically, then ask. If you just want an opinion.. that is what you got.

Ah, i see Splitter, so then, we can consider you an expert on biblical texts and the meaning thereof?

A point about Isaac and Abraham. God had spoken to Abraham many times prior to telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham knew God, was familiar with Him, so he knew that it was God who told him to kill Isaac. It was a test of trust and obedience for Abraham. You may ask then, if God is omnipotent, wouldn't He already know the depth of Abraham's trust and obedience? Yes He would. But Abraham wouldn't. Abraham had failed before in his trust and faith in God. God had told him he'd give him a son which a nation would rise from. But God didn't act immediately or even soon. So Abraham took it upon himself to have a son by impregnating his wife's handmaiden. Ishmael was born. Abraham had failed to believe in God's promise. This was a shame he bore.

Back to the original question. God doesn't talk to me, I've never heard his voice as in a conversation. Should a voice claiming to be God start telling me to do things, I'd be seeking medication. However, if God established communication with me to the extent that I believed it to be God, I'd obey His voice. I guess the gyst of the answer for me would be; determining if the voice were God's.

The gist of the criticism of the concept is that were Abraham alive today, and took several of his employees into the hills, and his son, and the proceeded to prepare to slit his son's throat--the odds are very good that he'd be locked up for it. My point in harrying Splitter about statements from authority about what god would or wouldn't do are addressed to a similar point. Your statement, CerealKiller, about the Abraham/Isaac incident, is a statement from authority, and those who read this have no notion of your expertise which would qualify your statement from authority. There is no external corroboration for such biblical stories, and so, they remain nothing more than stories. Further, there is a patriarchal strain in the Old Testament, of which the Abraham/Isaac incident is but one glaring example, and it is an extreme and unsavory patriarchalism. When Lot was confronted by the crowd in Sodom for harboring a stranger (reputedly, an angel), which is quite justifiable questioning by the populace of a walled town in dangerous times, he tries to placate the crowd by shoving his daughter out the door, presumably for their entertainment, to distract them from the valid inquiry as to why he is harboring a stranger. After the destruction of Sodom (apparently, for not being sufficiently hospitable to the alleged angel--no other specific offenses are alleged against them), Lot goes to cave, and we are expected to believe that he had sexual relations with his daughters, but didn't know it, didn't even wake up. Oh, those vile, vile wimmins, traducing their daddy like that.

The Old Testament is full of such examples of scurrilous behavior, and the faithful seem willing to engage in any number of intellectual gymnastics to justify them. On the issue of Lot and his daughters, the Rabbi at AFUZZ asked me, apparently in all sincerity, if i would understand the need to assure that Lot's male line would not fail. Even he didn't have the chutzpah to claim that Lot got screwed by his daughters and slept through the whole affair. This is a collection of folk tales, it is malevolently partriarchal, misogynistic, racist and religiously elitist. The book of Genesis even inferentially acknowledges the existence of other gods. There is little to admire in the characters who inhabit those pages, and nothing worthy of emulation. It is pathetic to see how the faithful attempt to defend the text; and would be humorous, were it not for all the blood spilled in the name of religion, and the ever-present, very real threat of our polity being manipulated by those sufficiently credulous to take such nonsense at face value. Why should society tolerate your contention, or anyone else's, that god had instructed you to behave in a way which society justifiably condemns, simply on the strength of your conviction, and absent all other evidence?

I prefer the use of Adonai.