In Aztec society it was an honour to be sacrificed.

When a plant is dying it sacrifices a part of itself it can miss. The gardener then prunes it and the plant will recover. Humans are different, not all of our tissues can regenerate to that degree. We cannot sacrifice our own flesh & blood, it goes against our nature.

How about this, don't create the sacrifice in the first place.. Unless having children itself is some sacrifice to the gods of society and tradition.

Children are devils. I'd rather the devil that I know.

Besides, when thinning the herd, you take out the females, so there's that.

In God we trust.

This is the bible story that, even more than Job, popularises atheism. — unenlightened

You go with Bob, I'll go with Randy:

I burn down your cities - how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why I love mankind
You really need me
That's why I love mankind

A rising tide lifts all 'oats.

Brotherly love:

Humans are different, not all of our tissues can regenerate to that degree. We cannot sacrifice our own flesh & blood, it goes against our nature. — TaySan

Human digits are formed in the womb by the selective death of embryonic cells in the limb ends. Incomplete cell death results in webbed hands/feet.

But the state of nature is what we have fallen from, as the story goes,

In Aztec society it was an honour to be sacrificed. — The Opposite

Well aren't we multicultural! Let me speculate on the rationale since your contribution is a tad telegraphic. We of the Christian tradition might have considered crucifixion an honour, even to the extent that the mythos has it that St Paul, (or was it St Peter?) preferred to be crucified upside down so as not to o.d. on the honour. which is to say that the highway 61 of ancient times continued right down to S America.

How about this, — schopenhauer1

Your wisdom is necessarily the fruit of other's folly.

the bible story that, even more than Job, popularises atheism. — unenlightened

Yes. So what do you need old chap? That's where we start, isn't it? A bloodthirsty vengeful deity that has to be propitiated. And the Christian twist is that God sacrifices himself for us. So you are unsatisfied by God's sacrifice, and also by your own? I guess you better get back to route 66.

Brotherly love: — Shawn

Pigs are jolly fellows, and i won't have a word said against them. Au contraire. I'll have a song sung in their praise.

This isn't fucking facebook! Say something, don't just post memes!

It's interesting that Abraham changed God's mind that day, but only when it was about authority.

I felt that I could afford a little indulgence.

This isn't fucking facebook! Say something, don't just post memes! — unenlightened

Didn't you advise against responding in the OP? The pictures are just decorations for your thread. Get a sense of aesthetics.

Bob Dylan was a big fan of Woody Guthrie's. You can see it in the OP and in this song:

Crickets are chirpin’, the water is high

There’s a soft cotton dress on the line hangin’ dry

Window wide open, African trees

Bent over backwards from a hurricane breeze

Not a word of goodbye, not even a note

She gone with the man

In the long black coat



Somebody seen him hanging around

At the old dance hall on the outskirts of town

He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask

If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask

Somebody said from the Bible he’d quote

There was dust on the man

In the long black coat



Preacher was a talkin’, there’s a sermon he gave

He said "Every man’s conscience is vile and depraved

You cannot depend on it to be your guide

When it’s you who must keep it satisfied."

It ain’t easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat

She gave her heart to the man

In the long black coat



There are no mistakes in life some people say

And it's true sometimes you can see it that way

I went down to the river but I just missed the boat

She went with the man

In the long black coat



There’s smoke on the water, it’s been there since June

Tree trunks uprooted, 'neath the high crescent moon

Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force

Somebody is out there beating a dead horse

She never said nothing, there was nothing she wrote

She went with the man

In the long black coat

-- BaBob Dylan

It's interesting that Abraham changed God's mind that day, but only when it was about authority. — Shawn

Had this been a total submission to God, @unenlightened?

He's just finished Ramadan.

I think that there's a certain truth to what you glean at of the so-called "hippies". The traded the marches and songs of the Civil Rights Movement for Happenings and Psychedelia, thereby effectively creating the various classes that exist within Pop Culture today. Though I like Happenings and Psychedelia, as well as every form of free expression, there's a way of interpreting political events following a series of events in 1968 as having resulted in the form of political suicide that is to engage in political terrorism. It's just a way of interpreting them, though.

If anyone actually plans on engaging in an actual conversation about this, I feel like this article could, perhaps, be somehow relevant.

With that being said, I should also like to quote Bob Dylan. "Keep a good head; always carry a lightbulb."

Isaac was 37 when Abraham took him up the mountain to sacrifice him and Abraham was 137. That the story states God had to intervene to stop the sacrifice indicates Isaac was a willing participant, considering he could easily have fended off his old as shit father.

As to Kierkegaard's argument that this story shows faith in its purest form, I don't get it. Abraham didn't have faith in God, he had empirical evidence of his existence. God told him he'd allow Sara to become preggers at 99 years old, and then she did. That'd make me a believer.

It's interesting that Abraham changed God's mind that day, but only when it was about authority. — Shawn

I reckon it's not the most interesting part, personally. It happens when you have actually got your knife out and bared the neck of your most prized possession. We haven't even made it to the right highway, yet.

Well aren't we multicultural! — unenlightened

This thread is too monocultural; Christianity doesn't even have a god of death - only evil. The Aztecs had a god of death who lived with his wife in a windowless house.

Didn't you advise against responding in the OP? The pictures are just decorations for your thread. Get a sense of aesthetics. — frank

I prefer to do my own decorating.

If anyone actually plans on engaging in an actual conversation about this, I feel like this article could, perhaps, be somehow relevant. — thewonder

There's a lot of scope for interesting diversions there. But I'm going to rule out politics as doomed to failure to the extent that it attempts to solve moral problems with social structures. In the distinction I am trying to look at, politics belongs to route 66 - reward and punishment. If you want to reduce drunk driving there are two ways to go, you can introduce laws and breathalyzers, or you can stop drink-driving. It's not that politics is unimportant, but it is all amelioration of psychological/moral problems.

As to Kierkegaard's argument that this story shows faith in its purest form, I don't get it. Abraham didn't have faith in God, he had empirical evidence of his existence — Hanover

From my position, I would say that either you or Kierkegaard has misunderstood the nature of faith. Empirical evidence is irrelevant to faith. My belief in justice is not increased by the discovery that it occasionally prevails, or decreased by the observation that it commonly does not.

This thread is too monocultural; Christianity doesn't even have a god of death - only evil. The Aztecs had a god of death who lived with his wife in a windowless house. — The Opposite

If you want to expound that cultural understanding, I am listening. But my own culture is what I speak from. But I suspect you are bullshitting and know not of what you speak.

But my own culture is what I speak from. — unenlightened

Why do you have to talk from that?

But I suspect you are bullshitting and know not of what you speak. — unenlightened

I'm not bullshitting, but I'm not sure I'm contributing much. It's difficult to answer the question because I don't have any children. Although, if I did have a son I think I would switch the trolley - not sure which road that is... 66?

But my own culture is what I speak from.
— unenlightened

Why do you have to talk from that? — The Opposite

Because it is alive in me. As alive as opposition is in you. It's difficult to talk about Aztec religion because it is not alive; it is not practiced. It is, therefore only brought into the conversation through the modernist Western scientific lens of archeology. So the multiculturalism is a pretence, and you speak from the same tradition as me.

My own thread referenced so disdainfully in an OP - what to do? I weighed whether to respond. I attempted some augury during my daily woods-wallk ( a chickadee, some crows) but since I don't know how augury works, I've had to rely on other means.

Luckily those other means were forthcoming. Two on-the-nose synchronicities today.

(1)There's a long lecture series I'm listening to, and today happened to be the episode on Christianity. The lecturer devoted about 1/3 of that to the discussion of agape, about 2/3's of that to 1 Corinthians 13.

(2) One of my daily rituals is to hit up a random-bible verse website and then read the full chapter that verse is from. Some days you get page-long censuses of tribes, but today, I shit you not, I got Romans 4 - Paul's take on Abraham

A preponderance of well-arrayed tea leaves incentivizes me to respond.
****

The first thing I would say is that I'm confused at the intensity of this moral reaction if its simply in response to my thread. That thread was about the systematic misuse of surveys in academia; this thread, which cites mine disapprovingly, is about willingness-to-sacrifice-children as proof of moral character. (and I'm not sure if it's intentionally leaning-into the Kierkegaard stuff I mentioned on the other thread, or if its a coincidence.)

But the second thing: I just don't follow your OP - I get the threads of

[true moral courage versus moral mercantilism ( cost-benefit etc)]

[hippy hedonism versus the moral path]

[pop culture mythology]

& I feel the tone of the loom

but the last few paragraphs confuse me, and I don't think its just because I lack the moral character to grasp them. I think the general meme-y reaction is because of that - it's hard to parse the point.

----

We're both given to a sort of peacocking, i think. We both do it, the OP was doing it, and I've responded by doing it. I think we should cut through it here though, if we can. How would you sum up the OP in a few sentences? I promise to respond myself in a few sentences, in plainspeak.

well, that's true actually.

What would you do if the trolley was on my son's track?