Abrahamic Tests.... Nonsense!

[_A Light in the Darkness]

I'm getting the sense that you are a big believer in blind obedience.

You'd be wrong.

Can you think of any instances, aside from scripture, in the past 300 years, say, where unquestioning obedience to God's orders to kill turned out well?

I don't think God has ordered anyone to kill in the last 300 years or so.

[_truth dancer]

Hi LitD,

Are you a mother truthdancer?

Yes.

Have you ever expected your children to trust your judgment without understanding how you came to that judgment?

No. I have done my best to always explain my reasoning for expected behavior. I have never asked a child to engage in behavior that went against their sense of right/wrong. In fact I have done my very best to help my children follow what they believe is good and holy. I have encouraged them to listen to their conscience over any other authority figure.

I have also never asked my children to be cruel to another human being. I have never asked my children to hurt or kill another human being or animal. I have never asked them to trust me while telling them to do something horrible or something they feel is wrong.

I HAVE heard of fathers who have asked their daughters to trust them as they are being raped. I have heard of men and women demandin their children to do horrific things. Whether we are discussing Abraham or the guy in prison for abusing his child... doesn't much matter.

~dancer~

[_barrelomonkeys]

http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/ceduc/parentingstyles.html

I try to be authoritative as a parent and view this style as superior to all others. I am uncomfortable when there are correlations between parenting and God. God is clearly authoritarian and this is not the preferred way to raise children.

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

I'm getting the sense that you are a big believer in blind obedience.

You'd be wrong.

Should I just take that on faith, or what?

Can you think of any instances, aside from scripture, in the past 300 years, say, where unquestioning obedience to God's orders to kill turned out well?

I don't think God has ordered anyone to kill in the last 300 years or so.

I wonder why God would just stop doing that when it worked out so well for him in the case of Abraham (and Nephi and ...)? Or maybe he just never ordered killing in the first place?

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

Hi LitD,

Are you a mother truthdancer?

Yes.

Have you ever expected your children to trust your judgment without understanding how you came to that judgment?

No. I have done my best to always explain my reasoning for expected behavior. I have never asked a child to engage in behavior that went against their sense of right/wrong. In fact I have done my very best to help my children follow what they believe is good and holy. I have encouraged them to listen to their conscience over any other authority figure.

I have also never asked my children to be cruel to another human being. I have never asked my children to hurt or kill another human being or animal. I have never asked them to trust me while telling them to do something horrible or something they feel is wrong.

I HAVE heard of fathers who have asked their daughters to trust them as they are being raped. I have heard of men and women demandin their children to do horrific things. Whether we are discussing Abraham or the guy in prison for abusing his child... doesn't much matter.

~dancer~

Hi, TD -- do you have any ideas what the Abraham story meant in mythological terms? I don't believe there was ever a man Abraham or a God who participates in the world, but I've heard that Old Testament stories should be read as the story of the nation, not individuals, and there probably is some important to be gleaned from it all. I've also heard that many scholars of the Torah believe that Abraham failed the test.

[_Sethbag]

I don't think God has ordered anyone to kill in the last 300 years or so.

God doesn't exist, fewl. And any God who did exist, and created this whole universe of billions of galaxies of billions of stars per galaxy, would be smart and capable enough of killing off some poor sap himself if he really wanted, or needed it done. Think about this for just a second. No, I don't mean read what I said so that you can rebut it, I mean think, as in, with actual brain cells.

What I want you to think about is this:

Why do you suppose that an omnipotent God, who created billions of billions of stars in an enormous universe, and potentially rules and reigns over planets filled with life too numerous to really imagine, would actually need for one human being on Earth to kill another human being on Earth? Why does God actually need people killed? And why, if he actually had a need for people to be killed, would he not just strike them with lightning, or a baseball-sized hailstone, or a small meteor, or something like that? Why would this omnipotent being require the services of a human being to kill off those he wants dead?

Do you not realize that the "big picture" view of this whole situation, where human beings are killing other human beings claiming God said so, is exactly like the situation you might predict if there really wasn't a God and human beings were just killing each other for entirely human reasons, and blaming it on, or justifying it by reference to, some imaginary authority in the sky called God?

Abraham was a jackass. Abraham's imagined God is a jackass, or would be if he actually existed, and had all the attributes and "virtues" ascribable to him by reference to the Old Testament.

You, Sir, are trapped in a bronze-age nomadic people's creation/God mythology, and it's the 21st Century here on Earth and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The God you imagine, the God who orders people to kill other people, the God who orders people to slaughter their own children to "prove" their obedience to his will, does not exist.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

I don't think God has ordered anyone to kill in the last 300 years or so.

God doesn't exist, fewl. And any God who did exist, and created this whole universe of billions of galaxies of billions of stars per galaxy, would be smart and capable enough of killing off some poor sap himself if he really wanted, or needed it done.

Yeah. So maybe making sure someone was dead wasn't entirely the point of the command? In the case of the example in question, that obviously is the case. Maybe you should take your own advice.

Think about this for just a second. No, I don't mean read what I said so that you can rebut it, I mean think, as in, with actual brain cells.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

No. I have done my best to always explain my reasoning for expected behavior. I have never asked a child to engage in behavior that went against their sense of right/wrong.

I sincerely doubt this to be true. Children simply do not have the capacity to understand why we ask them to do certain things. Sure, we might humor them with oversimplified explanations or actual explanations that fly over their head, but some things we ask we do so because we know more than they do and they have (and ought to have) faith that this is the case. It isn't always unreasonable to think the judgment of others should be followed because we have reason to think them more informed or clever than us. Granted, there are limits to this. We are not omniscient after all.

[_James Clifford Miller]

I don't think God has ordered anyone to kill in the last 300 years or so.

You, Sir, are trapped in a bronze-age nomadic people's creation/God mythology, and it's the 21st Century here on Earth and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The God you imagine, the God who orders people to kill other people, the God who orders people to slaughter their own children to "prove" their obedience to his will, does not exist.

Excellent post, Sethbag.

I like your question as to why the God who created billions and billions of stars with the accompanying planets in vast numbers of vast galaxies must have ANYONE killed when He could do it Himself. Many times in LDS funerals, we're told that God DID take some one.

And I particularly like this point:

Do you not realize that the "big picture" view of this whole situation, where human beings are killing other human beings claiming God said so, is exactly like the situation you might predict if there really wasn't a God and human beings were just killing each other for entirely human reasons, and blaming it on, or justifying it by reference to, some imaginary authority in the sky called God?

Bingo, Sethbag.

By the way, I'm intrigued by A Light in the Darkness's claim that:

I don't think God has ordered anyone to kill in the last 300 years or so.

I think the circumstantial evidence is quite strong that if Brigham Young didn't directly verbally order the Fancher Party massacred (and I think he probably did), his bloodthirsty speeches at the time and explicit and direct offering of the Fancher Party's cattle and horses to the Indians of southern Utah set the stage for the resulting killings. The journals, letters, and diaries make it quite clear that the SP, Bishop and John D. Lee thought they were doing God's bidding as relayed through Brigham Young and Apostle Smith.

This might well have been another Abrahamic test, one in which Brigham Young, and the Cedar City LDS leadership failed.

James Clifford Miller
millerjamesc@cox.net

[_truth dancer]

I wrote...

No. I have done my best to always explain my reasoning for expected behavior. I have never asked a child to engage in behavior that went against their sense of right/wrong.

I sincerely doubt this to be true.

You ask me a question to which you expected a paticular response, I did not agree and so I am lying? Wow!

Children simply do not have the capacity to understand why we ask them to do certain things.

I am not saying children always understand. I'm saying I do my best to explain my reasons and would never EVER ask them to engage in behavior which they thought was morally or ethically wrong.

Sure, we might humor them with oversimplified explanations or actual explanations that fly over their head, but some things we ask we do so because we know more than they do and they have (and ought to have) faith that this is the case.

I do not "humor my children". Yes we ask them to do things because we know more than they. I do not expect them to have "faith". And again, I would never ask my children to do something that violated their own sense of right and wrong.

It isn't always unreasonable to think the judgment of others should be followed because we have reason to think them more informed or clever than us.

Not always but often. And in my opinion, it is ALWAYS unreasonable to think God would command humans to harm others to prove obedience or to get a special reward. The world is full of horrific examples of people harming others in the name of God. I can't think of one case where it was reasonable.

Any God that would require, demand, command people to do horrific things to prove their obedience should be questioned. As I stated in my OP, IF God did have such a test, i think passing it would be sacrificing one's own place in heaven to prove to God how much he loved his son, and how beautifully he would honor life.

I think most caring parents would give their lives for their child... the fact that Abraham wouldn't and would sacrifice his son so he could get a place in heaven seems beyond perverted and selfish.

~dancer~