Hold on a minute!!!.............................Over to Dally, I think his stooges may have found it???

Abraham didn't sacrifice his son though. The point of that story was that Yahweh wanted to know that Abraham trusted him and would be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary. Men and women have been or felt called upon to make such sacrifices throughout history, for causes of all kinds under various banners (religious or otherwise).

As for Jesus, who was an adult at the time of his death, the whole point of his existence was to (ultimately) be sacrificed for the greater good. A soldier going to war does so knowing that his or her sole purpose is to (potentially) be sacrificed for the greater good.

Dally? Any news?

So your kind and loving 'God' thought the best way to find out would be to inflict untold cruelty on a child? How benevolent of him. For clarity, the child is forced to walk for three days, carrying the wood upon which he will be sacrificed. He then arrives, with his father, at a mountain and Abraham takes the child to the top of it and ties him up. He raises his knife to kill him and then, at the last minute, 'God' steps in and stops the madness.

Can you even begin to imagine the mental anguish a child in such a situation would suffer? And all because your 'God' wanted to test someone's trust. This is not the act of a loving being.

Of course, all of the above is utterly irrelevant anyway - aren't we expected to believe that 'God' is omniscient? If 'God' knows everything there is to know about us, our innermost thoughts and feelings, why would he need to inflict suffering on a child in order to test someone's faith? There are only two conclusions that may be reached: 'God' is not omniscient as claimed, or he's an evil bastard who would cause unnecessary suffering when he already knows the outcome of his little 'test'.

I am well aware of this.

However, this means that the god in the story believed (presumably) that it was entirely acceptable to mentally and emotionally torture both a parent and a child.

And if you cannot see the difference between choosing to sacrifice oneself and sacrificing another without their consent, on the basis of one's religious beliefs, then it's not a very long way to the likes of the fundamentalist who blows up a plan or Tube train out of conviction.

Indeed, this an interesting point in the wider discussion.

If it is not acceptable to kill someone as a result of one's religious beliefs, no matter how sincerely held, why is acceptable to seek to interfere with someone else's life as a result of one's religious beliefs, no matter how sincerely held, and where is the tipping point in this question?



I am well aware of this.

However, the god of the Bible created everything and knows everything that has happened and everything will happen. Thus that god decided that he would create sin – and then (having already had one temper tantrum about his own creation, where he wiped out most of the world) decided that he would sacrifice his son/himself in order to give people a get-out clause for what he himself had created.



One could also cite the story of Job, who is apparently a good man who pleases God. So Satan (who was created by God) decides he'll try to tempt Job. But the only way to see if that'll really work is for God to remove his protection of Job, which he does. Satan wrecks havoc on Job himself, and on his family and servants.

In effect, God lets people be tortured and killed for the sake of a bet.

Of course, that's not how the story is spun these days. It's a test of faith etc. But the point remains – as it does with all these stories – that the heart of them is brutal and uncivilised and murderous and cruel. And thus we have a perfect example of how morality and ethics have changed down the centuries, and thank goodness.

But how does one solve the problem of a supposedly omniscient 'God' who needs to test a person's faith?

Well, there's that too – indeed theology is just one question after another.

The answer to that, in effect, is that the Abrahamic god is a rather jealous one – the Bible states it with exactly that word.

I was going to suggest that, here again, morality has shifted. But as Deuteronomy 6:15 makes clear, "the Lord thy God is a jealous God". Yet it's a very long time since we considered jealousy to be a positive attribute. So it's an example of how morality has not just shifted in the last 50 or so years.

But it also raises a different point: if we see jealousy as negative, and God is a jealous God, why do people choose to worship a god who behaves in a way that they would probably not consider acceptable in one of the fellow human beings?

Because God is jealous in terms of adoration? In other words, humanity need to put God first in order to fulfilled?

I could almost understand him being jealous if he had read Abraham's mind and found that he was coveting another God's ass, or if Abraham had said 'screw you, you evil sh*t' when God had asked him to butcher his son.

What can't logically be explained is why, if 'God' is capable of knowing what everyone on the planet is thinking/feeling at any given moment (and what they will think/feel in the future), he would need to test a person's faith at all.

Which would leave us with God deciding that – but then creating humanity to be otherwise.