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Fundies have forgotten when Abraham was tested! They would have failed

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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:22 PM
Original message
Fundies have forgotten when Abraham was tested! They would have failed


Genesis 22:1-19

Abraham Tested
1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"

"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.

"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"

8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.

9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."



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cynatnite Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:23 PM
Response to Original message
1. I always hated this bible story when I was a kid
It did scare me.
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globalvillage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:23 PM
Response to Original message
2. That story always scared me
when I was a kid.
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globalvillage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:28 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. Sounds like it would win a poll
for most messed up bible story. If the nuns didn't already scare the hell out of you, they always had stories like this to fall back on.
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cynatnite Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:32 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. I was raised on fire and brimstone preaching
Take a preacher yelling and thumping on a bible and it will scare the hell out of most kids. It works especially great if the family he/she's in are just as ferverent.

It was so extreme in the house I grew up in that my mother told me on more than one occasion that if a gun was put to my head and she was told to renounce god or I would die, she would refuse.

:eyes: Yeah, that really inspires a kid, don't it?

It's a good chunk of the reason I don't call myself a christian anymore.
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globalvillage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:44 PM
Response to Reply #9
16. Holy Moses!!!
No disrespect to your mother, but religion is no excuse for that sort of abuse. She really took Genesis literally.
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cynatnite Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:47 PM
Response to Reply #16
20. She's lightened up to a degree now
I've never brought it up to her and I never will.

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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 11:20 PM
Response to Reply #6
22. I don't know. Who was it, Ezra?, sending a bear to tear 42 kids
to shreds becaused they teased him for being bald, now, that's right up there.
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Catch22Dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:23 PM
Response to Original message
3. I always thought that was SUCH a fucked up story
All-knowing god has to have someone prove himself? My ass!
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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-26-05 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #3
30. The story is a mythological explanation for why
the Jews didn't practice human sacrifice, unlike most of their neighbors.
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Az Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:26 PM
Response to Original message
4. This little story does a lot of work for us skeptics
Don't even need to comment on it. It does all the work.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:32 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. Oh, I appreciate your comments. I am not an old testament
Edited on Thu Mar-24-05 10:35 PM by merh
christian. For one, Christianity is about Christ's life and he said "I come not to change the law, but to fulfill it." He basically came to show us how to live - to simplify the complicated and to let us know that love is the answer. Live in love, live to love, live with love and all other things come easy. You cannot violate the 10 commandments if you live a loving, giving life.

This story always scared the hell out of me. But the fundies relish the "messages" of the old testament. Every time they want to condemn someone they pull out the old testament and quote it. The point of this thread is to point out that the fundies would have failed the test. They have no faith and they pick and choose what portions of the old testament they want to abide by or even remember.

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FreedomAngel82 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:35 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. Yep
You're right. And with Christians most of us see the old testament as a history book leading up to Christ and the new testament and everything with that. My preacher very very very very rarely uses the Old Testament. If he does it's to refrence back to something. That's why I don't get the whole Ten Commandments thing either and I'm Christian. The Ten Commandments was Jewish law and not Christian. Christ did reference back to them some but he wasn't big on it. :shrug: I also think that with Abraham's story the story is trying to show that faith should over come death and know that God will always help you work out stuff. God is greator then death. With God and faith you can over come anything earthly. The story does sound scary though.
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Az Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:40 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. The reason
for the importance of the 10 commandments surviving in NT is because Jesus claimed the important things to do were to hold to the 10 commandments and keep the golden rule.

The real problem the NT faces is its entire justification for claiming Jesus was the Christ comes from the OT. Both his reason for being needed and the means to recognise him are set down in the OT. Without it there is no reason for him. Thus the OT is forever tied to the NT. Complete with all the ugly blemishes and horrors that exist within it.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:40 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. I always thought the story was about faith!
If your faith is strong enough, you are willing to make whatever sacrifice is necessary to live in that faith, to give evidence that you have enough faith to trust God. The story has a happy ending and all are blessed because Abraham had enough faith.

The fundies have forgotten this story.

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Az Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:36 PM
Response to Reply #8
13. I understand
There are many examples where the religious right regularly fails to hold to their proclaims beliefs. My actual favorite to demostrate their hypocricy comes from the NT. Luke 6:30. Its amazing how quickly they turn their back on Jesus when confronted with this verse.
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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:27 PM
Response to Original message
5. I remember this story confusing me. It never scared me though.
I always knew my dad would defy god himself in such circumstance, and I couldn't believe that any father wouldn't. I never believed in god half so much as I believed in Dad.
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madeline_con Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:31 PM
Response to Original message
7. One major problem...
Far be it from me to second-guess the almighty, but he might have smacked Abraham upside the head, and said, "Wrong kid, you moron!"

If you get out your good book and read, you'll see Ishmael was Abe's firstborn, not Isaac. Just one of many arguments between Christians and Muslims, and among Christians, too.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. Doesn't change the meaning of the passage, you have to be
willing to sacrifice based on faith alone, if you believe in God you have to trust him to know what is best. The fundies have no faith.

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ayeshahaqqiqa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-26-05 10:06 AM
Response to Reply #7
28. In the Islamic tradition
it is Ishmael who goes with his father, not Isaac. And Ishmael was willing to be sacrificed, if that be the will of God. So the story takes on a new dimension, in that both father and son are willing to follow the will of God, with no one being unaware of what is being asked.
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ktowntennesseedem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:34 PM
Response to Original message
11. Didn't scare me, but it bothered me, even more as I got older.
And now especially, I have a really hard time with a story that is basically God saying:

"Go kill your firstborn in my name.... just kidding!!!"

My only explanation for the story is that Abraham THOUGHT he heard Yahweh tell him to sacrifice Isaac, and God finally stepping in saying, "what the hell do you thing you're doing?"
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roguevalley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:47 PM
Response to Reply #11
18. God in the old testament was so hard and demanding. I think some
ways that Jesus came along because the real God was too scary and he was the gentle face of the eternal. I am also sure that this is a Hebraic version of some older story, added to teach a point. Most of the old testament is.
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ktowntennesseedem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 11:32 PM
Response to Reply #18
23. The Old Testament is the story of the ancient Hebrews,
the story of their encounter with Yahweh as seen through their eyes, stories shaped by the limited understanding of their culture. Heck, we still don't understand God (just don't try convincing a Christian fundy of that, however!), so subtract several thousand years of history and knowledge and discover and imagine how well they understood this God back then.

And the stories do try to each a point; I think the point of this one is not that God was testing Abraham, but that God is saying, "I don't need your sacrifices to buy my favor, I just want you to love me and follow my teachings by loving each other."
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globalvillage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:47 PM
Response to Reply #11
19. I like your interpretation.
It's not as bad when you think about God smacking Abraham upside the head.
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ktowntennesseedem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 11:34 PM
Response to Reply #19
24. Thanks, and welcome to DU, globalvillage!
If I've learned anything in my 40+ years, it's that God most definitely has a sense of humor.
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Toby109 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:52 PM
Response to Reply #11
21. You should listen to some of Bill Hicks
His premise was, what kind of god would fuck with your head?

Not the kind of god I'd want to follow.
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montieg Donating Member (454 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 10:46 PM
Response to Original message
17. Bob D.: "God said to Abraham,
kill me a son."
Abe said,"Man, you must be puttin me on."
God said, "No."
Abe said, "What?"
God said, "You can do what you want, but the next time you see me comin, you better run."
Abe said, "Where you want this killin done?"
God said, "Down on highway 61."
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-24-05 11:38 PM
Response to Original message
25. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
Tux Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-25-05 12:19 AM
Response to Original message
26. Mmmmm
12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

Seems familiar. Maybe the idea of god sacrificing his son came from this.

Why does each Bible paragraph have a number? Why sacrifice anything?
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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-25-05 02:07 AM
Response to Reply #26
27. Why would I want to fear god? Why would god want me to fear
him?

Fear is part and parcel with loathing and hatred. Are you supposed to fear your parents? Are you supposed to fear you spouse? Your brothers and sisters?

What do you fear? Spiders. Snakes. Slashing claws and snapping teeth. Things that attack out of the dark.

Now, why is it that we are supposed to fear god?
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ayeshahaqqiqa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-26-05 10:08 AM
Response to Reply #27
29. I don't know
but I'm wondering if, once again, this is a misinterpretation of the original Hebrew word.
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