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To take a story and just make a judgment without having the story set up to it's intent, is to give it a disservice.
God in due time begun to intervene in the life of humanity by selecting an individual named Abram. Abram was a decedent of Shem, who was the son of Noah.
From this linage, God decided to introduce His plan via the story of Abram (later Abraham) for the salvation of all mankind.
It begins with faith and a promise.
Abrams faith leads him to the promise. Here is the promise: Gen 17:5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
There is a picture in this story that is the picture of God delivering humanity from the penalty of eternal death.
Abraham is God in the picture. Issac who was going to be sacrificed is humanity in the picture.
What it means is that God's creation (Humanity) has as a resultant a death penalty, which is the picture of all humanity being sacrificed (Issac) or God Himself sparing all humanity and offering a sacrificial substitute instead.
In this case, Jesus in the picture is the ram in the thicket. Gen 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
If, salvation is of God, then this story depicts it.
It must be looked at not as a human understanding point of view, but a spiritual understanding point of view.
To take a story and just make a judgment without having the story set up to it's intent, is to give it a disservice.
God in due time begun to intervene in the life of humanity by selecting an individual named Abram. Abram was a decedent of Shem, who was the son of Noah.
From this linage, God decided to introduce His plan via the story of Abram (later Abraham) for the salvation of all mankind.
It begins with faith and a promise.
Abrams faith leads him to the promise. Here is the promise: Gen 17:5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.
There is a picture in this story that is the picture of God delivering humanity from the penalty of eternal death.
Abraham is God in the picture. Issac who was going to be sacrificed is humanity in the picture.
What it means is that God's creation (Humanity) has as a resultant a death penalty, which is the picture of all humanity being sacrificed (Issac) or God Himself sparing all humanity and offering a sacrificial substitute instead.
In this case, Jesus in the picture is the ram in the thicket. Gen 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
If, salvation is of God, then this story depicts it.
It must be looked at not as a human understanding point of view, but a spiritual understanding point of view.
Otherwise, who would believe such a thing?
Blessings, AJ
I understand the "physical"/"spiritual" thing, but here's a question that could be gathered from this story (which it HAS been asked):
Like Abraham, if God asked you to kill your child, would you do so?
1. To say "yes" would indicate one believes the biblical god talks to them
2. To say "yes" is an admission that the biblical god engages in suggesting murder
3. To say "no" could mean one realizes this never really happened and was just a made up story to teach a spiritual message.
4. To say "no" because of #3 implies that other biblical stories might be just made up stories to teach a spiritual messages and you can't get to pick and choose which ones are literal and which ones aren't.
That man is nuts and needs mental help. That is not Christianity. There is no teaching in Christianity that would result in such a thing.
It is always interesting to me that when people go "nuts" it is often around religious ideations. He was "going to Jesus". One wonders what drove him "nuts" if he chose to fixate on that particular symbolism. Well ... I don't suppose it could possibly be that his life was not following the promised script given him by his religious beliefs and he was frantically trying to force-fit the trajectory of his life back into the script.
His actions were irrational. But irrational compared to what? Not compared to what we laud Abram for doing to his son. By that standard, this guy who nearly murdered his own child is a great man of faith.
You will no doubt object that Abram had a direct order from god. But what outside observer at that time would have any evidence of that? How can you say this joker did or didn't have a direct order from god?
Of course I'm being silly here; even in my theist days I saw the story of Abram / Abraham and Isaac as allegorical and not literal, though that was at odds with my own denomination's literalist stance. But even an allegory like that seems dangerous because its point, however wrapped in theoretical distance it may be, is that someone of true faith would go even that far if "god told them to" rather than hold god to his own standards and rules (or question whether they were hearing from god at all).
4. To say "no" because of #3 implies that other biblical stories might be just made up stories to teach a spiritual messages and you can't get to pick and choose which ones are literal and which ones aren't.
You actually do get to pick, but then you run into the problem that the criteria you use to judge the degree of literalism or symbolism to apply to a particular context, is open for debate. However, even the camp of theism I came from, the IFCA, while holding to the verbal and plenary inspiration of scripture, saw the importance of determining the "literal intent" of a particular passage and would say things like, "obviously this was intended allegorically, not literally". But those things were said when the literal interpretation was inconvenient. I don't remember specific examples, only that taking a passage literally and following that to its logical conclusion would run counter to our doctrine and practice.
OR, I recall flowery passages in the Revelation of John about plagues of locusts with long beards which we took to be a first century description of fighter jets with their contrails, thus "reinforcing" the idea that the Bible was supernaturally foretelling modern warfare. How convenient. Someone else who just wanted to paint a horrific picture would simply take that literally as some kind of mutant hell-locust. Which is another way of saying you can "wrest the scriptures to your own destruction" any old way you want, all the while accusing people of differing opinions of "wresting the scriptures to their own destruction".
No. Christianity does not teach murder. Insanity does...but not Christianity.
Christianity (or your version at least) does teach that the only moral imperative is the one God gives, so if God says to do something, the only morally right thing to do is to obey, no matter how seemingly awful it is.
You have stated this to be the foundation of your morality on many occasions.
It is not hard, then, to imagine how someone, believing in your version of Christianity where the only moral imperative is to obey, could become sufficiently confused/ill to actually believe that the deep, innermost representations of one's illness is God simply doing what God does - commanding. After all, when morality is entirely and completely wrapped up with doing what God says, and one thinks one is talking to God, well, bad things can happen.
When have I ever suggested I didn't? Of course I do. But there is nothing in Christianity that would tell a man to kill his child.
I wonder preacher, do you teach the old testament to your congregation? Seems to me that there is a lot of innocent lives being taken by the command of your god. I wonder if you thoroughly read the old testament?
Don't people sacrifice babies to the Buddha??? religion has nothing to do with this.... unless there are studies that support the idea of a disproportion in baby sacrifice between Buddhists and Christians. Which, considering how poor and stupid some Buddhists might be, wouldn't surprise me if they sacrificed their babies to their gods of Compassion, Wisdom, Death, and other venerable subjects.
Any Buddhists, Jains, or Atheists hearing voices in their heads to kill their children in order to prove how Buddhist, Jain, or Atheist they are... that go throw with it instead of talking to a Psychiatrist?
..................
Besides, People of the net, we are talking not about "murder" here, but "killing"
If a God(s) does or commands it, it is only "killing" since those -pigs to us rats- are the higher authors of morality.
This father who attempted to "sacrifice" his son doesn't understand the Christian idea that the "perfect" human and blood sacrifice already happened. Since God so loved the world that he set up the assisted suicide of his most beloved first born, i.e. himself.
...............
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 03-21-2013 at 11:06 AM..
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