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He didn’t even reveal it (maybe), according to mythology.
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omnipotent and omnipresent (and omni-benevolent?) God
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created angels, without free will, to do his bidding - for… reasons? (He didn’t need them to bc of the whole omnipotent thing, but maybe he just likes their vibe.)
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God decides to fuck with Abraham in a bunch of terrible ways for essentially no reason. This culminates in god ordering him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
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Abraham complies, binds Isaac like a sacrificial animal, and draws his knife to attempt to kill Isaac after begging and pleading with god to not make him do this.
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an angel (who doesn’t have free will, mind you) was watching and called out to stop Abraham.
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Abraham decides that since angels are messengers of god, he doesn’t have to kill Isaac. He finds a ram and kills it instead.
So either:
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God, omnipotent and knowing the contents of Abraham’s heart, unnecessarily ordered him to murder his kid - knowing he would do so and planning to intervene using an angel. In which case he is omnipotent and unnecessarily cruel.
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God, omnipotent and knowing the contents of Abraham’s heart, unnecessarily ordered him to murder his kid - knowing he would do so and the angel intervened without god being able to stop the angel. So angels have free will and/or god can’t control them (is not omnipotent) and god is unnecessarily cruel.
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God, NOT omnipotent and therefore ignorant to the contents of Abraham’s heart, necessarily ordered him to murder his kid to test his faith, and was either stopped by an angel or stopped abraham using the angel.
Orrrrrr… Abraham needed mental help and therapy, which the community should have noticed when he cut off the tip of his dick and DARVO’d his son before torturing wildlife. Instead, when he said “God made me do it, and an angel stopped me,” the ancient orphan-crushing machine turned it into “1 like=1 prayer.”
The community was 100% into the dick cutting though. And the animal torturing. Therapists probably would recommend even more dick cutting and animal torturing
“Therapists warned him, but when he showed them his dick, doctors were ASTONISHED! Make your dick bleed with this WEIRD trick!”
God wants to make sure that the Hebrews will never commit human sacrifice. Cruel to Abraham and Isac, pretty neat for all the people who avoided being sacrificed as a result. Or maybe just the Hebrews want to avoid human sacrifice and they tell that story to sink the point home: their own ancestor could have been killed, let’s not do that to anyone.
Oh for sure. But just looking at it at face value, it brings up some weird questions about the metaphysics involved.
Considering the omnipotence factor, he could’ve just let them know not to sacrifice people some other way, too.
Of course it’s just a myth meant to instruct people in virtues (piety, obedience, not sacrificing people) but there are a great many folks who view the bible as literally true and for whom this line of argumentation would pose some issues.
Christianity literally said “love thy neighbor, do unto others, love thy enemy”, and still its followers have fought wars and murdered people. I seem to remember that the Quran says “if you kill one person you kill the whole world”. That passage apparently is not as prioritized as others. I could go on.
God / The ancient israelites knew that telling people doesn’t quite do it. Ref the 10 commandments. People only seem to learn from lived experience, and in some cases, the lived experience of people they respect. Hence the story is Isaac is actually a lot smarter than we give it credit for.
That’s my take at least
I think god just telling Abraham would be like telling people not to vote for Trump. You know you’re right, they know you’re right, but they do it anyway.
I think he tries this with Moses later and then people don’t do what they’re told.
The value is shows me is that you should do whatever god tells you, even human sacrifice - not to not do human sacrifice. I think you may be looking at it too optimistically lol
I mean, in a world with a god like that, the only rational course of action would be to do what they say. The concept of truly infinite suffering makes that the only rational choice.
That’s why piety is a virtue for Christians, first and foremost. Being a “good person” by their metrics is a byproduct of obeying god since god determines what is good.
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Today’s guest, we have Jesus on why he overturned the old testament but it’s still chill to follow those rules when you feel like it.
So the top 10 are the commandments then?
Brb, gunna multiply god’s own frequency and use it for semi-active missile guidance.
I thought god’s radio was AM. Who am I listening to, then?
“this is Click and Clack at Car Talk”
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA @morto coming to you, live, from the God Star at Car Talk Plaza.
What’s that, God? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of the gun as I killed in your name.
I wonder what his morning show is like?
