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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?
I don't think that any Atheists are going to hear the word of god in their head telling them to sacrifice any children in his/her name. I think if an Atheist heard such a thing, they would probably first question the validity of the voice of that deity.... and then dismiss it. Now as for Buddhists sacrificing their children, you'll have to ask a Buddhist about that, I will say I have never heard of it but I'm not saying it's not impossible.
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?
Of course I do. The story of Abraham and Isaac did actually happen. It was a literal event. God told Abraham to do that. It was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice that God the Father would make by giving the Son as a sacrifice.
Under the new Covenant of Christianity we are called to follow Christ. Not sacrifice our kids. There is no teaching in Christianity that can be used to justify this man's actions. He is insane.
It would be news to me that Buddhism has ever practiced infant sacrifices, however, certainly other religions have done so, and more explicitly than Christianity, which doesn't hold it as an actual doctrine, but rather just has the seed of potential for justifying various sorts of cruelties such as, say, the Inquisition.
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Originally Posted by LuminousTruth
This father who attempted to "sacrifice" his son doesn't understand 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.
Reading between the lines, the news story in the OP sounds more like an interrupted murder/suicide than an infant sacrifice. Sometimes you do everything you're "supposed to" do as a believer, and god still does not answer your prayers. The less mentally stable can then become convinced that this is all some epic test of their faith, that they have to do something completely off the rails to "prove" their "faith" to "god". It is an unfortunate knock-on effect of promising people love, support, and caring coming from a non-existent source, if only you believe hard enough or wait long enough. If I had the opportunity to interview the guy I'm willing to bet that he was pressed to the wall, that he was losing something that he was out of waiting time on and therefore the problem had to be with him and he had to prove something to god and/or himself. Combine that with a deranged mind and things become very dangerous.
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?
I don't like that you keep picking on Vizio. ...and callin him "preacher" all the time is dehumanizing.
You should be aware that the numerous Christians, in their views, have a habit of excusing their believes in uncountable ways... For example, the New Testament throws the old testament away (BUT LEAVES IT IN THE BIBLE AS CONTEXT?) Jesus says which commands are important... about 4+.
The commands in the New Testament are subsections (over more like "oversections") of "the good ones" in the Old Testament...
Love God, Love Neighbors as Self, etc, mean... perhaps... follow the covenant's 613 laws, or at least the 10 commandments without worrying about the other 603... depending on which "Holy Spirit" you use to read meaning into the ink and wood. Although more meaning can be read and inscribed in less dictational graven images
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 03-21-2013 at 11:38 AM..
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".
That is EXACTLY what I was getting at. It's literal when God parted the Red sea. When god rained manna down from heaven, that was literal. When God had a donkey speak to Baalam, that was literal. When God rained down fire on Sodom, that was literal. When god ordered Moses (so we are told) to go murdering Midianites, that was, well, a spiritual message to "kill" your spiritual enemies. When God had Joshua massacring his way through Canaan, that was a spiritual message to kill off those spiritual things that are in your way to claiming god's blessing. And when god told Abraham to kill his son, he was just kidding and just wanted to show us what REAL faith is. Then you have those who claim these were ALL literal events which raises a million other questions.
1. Death does not really matter, if you know that you are not, actually, dying after death. Abraham was not really killing his son, and his son wouldn't have really been dead.
2. Same God sent angel to prevent this, right? Wasn't it a test, considering how important was Abraham's role in the human history?
3. Last time I checked, if you are disobeying direct order, in most world militaris, you are considered a traitor and may be shot to death without any hearing. And it happened many times, that soldiers were ordered to kill their close. I do not recall anyone calling them "demon possessed" or else, when they actually obeyed the order.
Two things are blind in humans - Faith and Love. True faith has no reasons to question or doubt.
1. I don't think there is a way to reason that Abraham believed in an afterlife, he might have been a Sadducee or something else in his beliefs, which is why sacrifice would matter at all. If Abraham believed in a resurrection, as many in the Middle East did, then it sort of would have been a sacrifice, maybe... depending.
2. Yes, a Messenger of God decided to stop the act (whether on orders or not) once it was evident that it would have been executed fully. Why the person that stopped it is considered a messenger is unknown to me. It was a test of Abraham's faith, a test of how far he would go for the voices in his head. However Abraham has as great a role in human history as Ghengas Khan, or Ahkenaten, or Siddhartha Gautama. More import roles are held by Albert Einstein, Hooke, Thomas Jefferson... etc, since they figured out powerful patterns in the Universe, the existence of a class of invisible beings, and moved to support vaccination programs.
3. Disobeying direct orders is considered punishable by death perhaps in less civilized third world Nations, but that is only because they are too weak to allow room for dissenters. Is God too weak? The idea of demonic possession is to pretend that a human would be in-cable in their own to do such things.
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.
There are many teachings in christianity that justify wretched, abominable behaviour. Especially the editions published before God had a PR team. Does that not sit well with you?
And there are many biblical anecdotes that involve committing infanticide on the basis of god's recommendation. Not metaphorical infanticide... but literally killing your own kids.
Stop apologizing for someone else's book. You'll never have the ability to explain it as well as the authors themselves.
There are many teachings in christianity that justify wretched, abominable behaviour. Especially the editions published before God had a PR team. Does that not sit well with you?
And there are many biblical anecdotes that involve committing infanticide on the basis of god's recommendation. Not metaphorical infanticide... but literally killing your own kids.
Stop apologizing for someone else's book. You'll never have the ability to explain it as well as the authors themselves.
Independent Fundamental Churches of America, now IFCA International (ifca.org). Most of them go by the name "XX Bible Church". Think of them as non-Southern Baptists without nearly so much emphasis on baptism. Their main institutions of choice are Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and Dallas Theological Seminary (and Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music, now defunct except for the remnants of its missionary aviation training program). I think they used to endorse Wheaton Bible College too but that has probably fallen a bit out of favor these days. They are more a loose association of conservative evangelical churches with a common doctrinal statement and total local governing autonomy than a true denomination. Essentially, a clearing-house for what defines (to them anyway) fundamentalist orthodoxy. They are anti-charismatic and the teaching of "dispensationalism" is a big deal to them. People here talk about the old and new testaments, but they divide history into no less than seven compartments, in an effort to make god's constantly changing nature as presented in scripture seem more explicable when your'e trying to teach that he's immutable.
Garsh, I haven't thought about this stuff in twenty years ...
Of course I do. The story of Abraham and Isaac did actually happen. It was a literal event. God told Abraham to do that. It was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice that God the Father would make by giving the Son as a sacrifice.
Under the new Covenant of Christianity we are called to follow Christ. Not sacrifice our kids. There is no teaching in Christianity that can be used to justify this man's actions. He is insane.
Well preacher as a Christian you're teaching Christianity and if you teach Christianity using the old testament of your sacred book as an example then your also teaching that Christianity teaches the killing of children. Perfect example is just what you are talking about above. The only way that you're not going to teach that Christianity tells a parent to take the life of its child is to not teach anything in the old testament.
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