The oddest thing is why anyone with faith would object to the claim that The Binding of Isaac is essentially about obedience. — praxis

I said the story was about obedience. It was a test of faith that required obedience or it would not play out.

God could have tested obedience many ways. Why did God promise descendants, tell Abraham to kill the first descendent, then save him from death? The story is about more than obedience. It’s about what or who we freely choose to obey. We can’t be blind and discern what or who to obey.

Why did God not let Isaac die? One could say the test could not be over until Isaac was dead.

Abraham was blind to how sacrificing his beloved son was going to work out for him, and his son. He had to obey God’s command to sacrifice his son if he wanted to find out. But Abraham had faith, and fully believed that sacrificing Isaac was good and justified, because God said to do it, and Abraham trusted God, absolutely (obviously absolutely - you don’t get more absolute in your trust than Abraham did). That’s not blind faith - that’s trusting that whatever God gives you to see, or takes away from your sight, in the end, He will justify, and it will be good in your eyes as well.

It’s like denying that it’s about blind obedience is an admission that you don’t really believe. — praxis

Did Abraham have absolutely no evidence that God would make good on his word? Abraham was given Isaac when Isaac was thought to be impossible because Sara was old. God had a proven track record. So Abraham had reason to trust God. That’s not blind either.

It is precisely because Abraham was not blind about his choices that only a dramatic test, like killing your only son, would actually test Abraham’s trust. Anyone willing to trust blindly has no idea what they are trusting or even why they are trusting.

Blind faith, if that is all you think faith is, is not the faith I see, or I have. God, according to the Bible, wants us to know him, not emptiness and blindness.

Blind faith in God is not faith in anything.

Faith is faith in. To know in what, we must be fully informed and see.

But we are never fully informed. We don't know everything there is to know. That's kinda the point, isn't it, that we have to act despite not being fully informed?

So if your argument is that Abraham was fully informed, then the story does not apply to us.

And we are back to having to decide without knowing all the facts.

...to the extent of performing an abominable act. That the decision was as you suggest "fully informed" only serves to add to the affront. — Banno

What affront? Are Abraham or Isaac complaining? All were safe and sound at the end of the story. Sounds like you just can’t stomach the brutality of human kind. We’re a bitch to wrangle my friend. All we need is to trust God and no one gets hurt. That’s all in the same story that affronts you.

But we are never fully informed. — Banno

Ok, I’ll concede fully informed was imprecise. Abraham knew what he was doing, he wasn’t blind. He didn’t know how God could make good out any of it, but he trusted God would make good.

All we need is to trust God and no one gets hurt. — Fire Ologist

There are few folk as dangerous as those who are certain they know the will of god.

prima facie, trussing up your son, placing him on a pile of wood and holding a knife to his throat is abuse. It takes a good lawyer to explain this away. Even our @Hanover is not up to the task. But the various churches have been quite adept at hiring good lawyers in cases of child abuse.

Trust in god does lead to people being hurt.

The very question you ask is, I believe, why the story of Abraham was written and became part of the canon. Kierkegaard has a good book about it. :smile: — J

Why would anyone need to read a book about something so obvious?

So you don't have faith in anything? Even in the human race?

Oh, you never know. Might not be so obvious after all . . .

Interesting and thoughtful response.

It's an interesting question, but in my daily life it's really just a word I don't use often (I did in this thread, for obvious reasons). And that means when talking on the topic I have little at stake, but it's also never homeground. So do I have faith in... something? Maybe. Then what follows from that? — Dawnstorm

Nothing much.

For me, we are creatures of prediction and habit. If a particular framing helps us make sense of the world, we tend to stick with it. In reality, any number of fantasies could probably serve this purpose for us.

Many believers find it important to argue that secular people also live by faith, probably as a way to equalize the discussion. They do not want to be seen as irrational or as relying upon magical thinking.

Oh, . Good of you to worry about me so.

I believe quite a few things. I trust in quite a few folk. But in neither case would my belief or trust be unbounded. There is a point at which I would be willing to say "This is wrong".

That point has been sorely tested at times, and sometimes I got it wrong.

There is a place for doubt as well as faith.

There are few folk as dangerous as those who are certain they know the will of god. — Banno

Really? You’ve conducted this survey and know that’s a fact? I know a bunch of real softies, no danger at all, who would say they know what God wants.

There are few folk as dangerous as those who are certain there is no God. How many of those folks turned up on your survey of people who know the will of God?

There are few folks who have sacrificed their lives to save others who did not believe in God.

We can throw people in the buckets we like and the buckets we don’t like all day.

It takes a good lawyer to explain this away. — Banno

Or change the subject to child abuse lawyering, which has nothing to do with Isaac or the story.

You just won’t give an inch.

I haven’t moved you one tiny bit.

Seems to me you think religion is at best, a waste of time, but more likely, a bad thing, that leads to all kinds of harm; that God certainly does not exist; and that faith, of any sort, is a weakness and the better life would have no faith in anything, because having faith is weakness, and prone to irrationality.

That’s what I see as your basic point. I see only your negative account of faith.

Do you have anything positive to say about faith itself?

Not faith in God, or religion. Just faith in other people - what is left of faith, to you?

So we are to get personal?

From your "about" page:

I actually have it all figured out, understand the meaning of life and the nature of what exists, I'm just not telling anyone so you can all discover it for yourselves.

And yet you say of me, "You just won’t give an inch".

There's nought so queer as folk.

Book of Job also puts humanity in its place epistemically. As humans our perspectives are limited and biased and to draw such broad and universal judgments such as which suffering is ultimately "justified" and which is "unjustified" is beyond us. The book stands against man's hubrism and his tendency of all encompassing judgment. In the end Job is rewarded. — BitconnectCarlos

That does make some sense. Still, I balk at a story of a supposedly loving God destroying the life of one of their followers for a bet? But I think it's unlikely that we could possibly agree on an intepretation of this, or any other story, in the Bible. I'm reading a collection of ancient texts written over a period of 1,000 years in various circumstances and for various purposes. You are reading the Word of God. But I have to say, some of the stories in the Old Testament remind me of some of the Greek stories, in which the gods do not behave in a particularly moral way and from which the lesson seems to be that the gods frequently mess about with us, either because they don't care or because they are actively hostile.

If you're convinced that you're all good, how will you notice the signs that you're starting to turn into a Nazi due to bitterness or whatever. It's better to know that you're capable of becoming a monster so you can take steps to change course. You have to start with accepting that you have that dark side. Kierkegaard was right. — frank

I'll sign up to that. Kierkegaard was very perceptive in many ways. The conviction that one knows the will of God is the most dangerous religious belief of them all. Perhaps God was right to try to prevent us from coming to know (or think we know) good and evil.

Really? You’ve conducted this survey and know that’s a fact? I know a bunch of real softies, no danger at all, who would say they know what God wants. — Fire Ologist

From the fact that some religious people have conducted horrors because they believed in God. I don't think anyone would argue that it follows that all religious have, or ever would, conduct horrors because they believe in God. But I do think it follows that religious belief does not prevent people from conducting horrors and can provide a motivation for them to do so.

There are few folk as dangerous as those who are certain there is no God. How many of those folks turned up on your survey of people who know the will of God? — Fire Ologist

There are plenty of other, similar motivations for conducting horrors - nationalism/patriotism, for example. I'm aware that some religious people think that atheists are more likely to conduct horrors than religious people. But I don't know of empirical evidence that that's the case.

prima facie, trussing up your son, placing him on a pile of wood and holding a knife to his throat is abuse. It takes a good lawyer to explain this away. Even our Hanover is not up to the task. But the various churches have been quite adept at hiring good lawyers in cases of child abuse. — Banno

Read this: https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/vayera/the-binding-of-isaac/

After reading it, summarily reject all it says and tell me how horrified you are at the binding of Isaac. That's the process we've followed going on a couple of years here.

The Torah was accepted as the holy source of righteousness well after there were already accepted rules of righteousness. That means no interpretation would change those already accepted norms. How that was done was through rabbinic interpretations and reliance upon Talmudic law, a law of equal priority to the Torah, supposedly handed down at the same time as the written word, high atop Mt. Sinai.

This is just to say if you want to know the law in Georgia regarding X, you can't just read the statutes, but you need to read the case law and Constitution as well, all together.

To those who think child murder is advocated by the Bible, point me in the direction of that church so I can see it. Fortunately all churches I know of have misinterpreted their own sacred texts in a way that saves children. Thank goodness for their ineptitude.,

Not interpreting these stories ethically but instead interpreting them in manners that, for one example, reinforces authoritarian interests by claiming these authoritarian interpretations to in fact be the so called literal word of God then, in turn, reinforces, in this one example, tyrannical societal structures. Which stand in direct conflict with democratic ideals - that can also come about via certain interpretations of biblical stories. God being Love as one such motif that comes to mind - cliched though it may sound to many. — javra

Tyranny can exist under any political system, including democracy. Tocqueville discusses the tyranny of the majority. Plato's philosopher king supposedly had the wisdom to rule and was to be selected by qualification, not democratic vote, which more emulates how religious leaders are chosen. I'm not in favor of theocracy, and I'm fully supportive of the state's power being supreme, but our recent elections hardly yielded a Solomon.

This is simply to renege on your responsibility to decide if an act is right or wrong, to hand that most central of judgements over to someone else. To look the other way. — Banno

This isn't between man and man -- that we can judge. It's between man and God.

Let's say that there is some force out there. If a man dies young, has that force wronged him? How many years is a man owed on this Earth? Is man owed a painless existence? You tell me.

After reading it, summarily reject all it says and tell me how horrified you are at the binding of Isaac. That's the process we've followed going on a couple of years here. — Hanover

That's not what I recall. I will happily accept the essay you point to as a valid interpretation.

I offer another interpretation, were the actions described are seen as obscene, and were we look on the faith Abraham placed in the Lord even to the point of committing an abomination, and are asked whether as mere humans we ought follow our beliefs with such confidence. Because we might be wrong.

"After the trial in which God was found guilty of abandoning his people, a dark and profound silence fell upon the room. A few moments later, the men realised it was time for the sacred Jewish ritual of evening prayer."

Or Cromwell's "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."

It's not between man and man. It's between man and God. — BitconnectCarlos

It was between Abraham and Isaac.

Oh, you never know. Might not be so obvious after all . . . — J

Don’t leaves us hanging.

You were blaming God.

What God does to Job is ethically wrong. — Banno

If you want to blame Abraham or Isaac they are humans so they can bear blame.

The conviction that one knows the will of God is the most dangerous religious belief of them all. — Ludwig V

Dangerous?

There is a place for doubt as well as faith. — Banno

Can I quote you on that?

Ah, too many threads here.

So long as you don't do it to my face...

Too many threads indeed. My point is, one can always blame the God character and think how things should have gone, but in doing so one simply takes on the role of God. It's very natural to do this.

It is written that Joseph lives to 120 but apparently his ancestors lived much longer. It's crossed my mind to point the finger at God for that one. Feels like Joseph got kinda ripped off.

That does make some sense. Still, I balk at a story of a supposedly loving God destroying the life of one of their followers for a bet? But I think it's unlikely that we could possibly agree on an intepretation of this, or any other story, in the Bible. I'm reading a collection of ancient texts written over a period of 1,000 years in various circumstances and for various purposes. You are reading the Word of God. But I have to say, some of the stories in the Old Testament remind me of some of the Greek stories, in which the gods do not behave in a particularly moral way and from which the lesson seems to be that the gods frequently mess about with us, either because they don't care or because they are actively hostile. — Ludwig V

I assure you that I'm reading it as a collection of ancient texts written over a ~1000 year period. Maybe once in a while I see an interesting bit that captures my attention and gets me thinking about how the authors could have written such a thing, but overall it is absolutely a collection of texts written over that time. And if we follow that historical view, we see that "God is love" is at an the tail end of that timeline. Initially, God is quite a bit terrifying because, let's face it, reality is often be terrifying -- and man has the potential to make it even more terrifying than it needs to be through his actions.

My point is, one can always blame the God character and think how things should have gone, but in doing so one simply takes on the role of God. It's very natural to do this. — BitconnectCarlos

It's not just natural, it is inevitable. A part of the human condition is that we each decide what we do next, so in your words we must each "take on the role of God".

That's the odd thing about "ought" - even if someone else tells you how things "ought" be, it is up to you to decide if they are right.

Men can be seen as little Gods in a sense.

Sure. I certainly acknowledge that from a human perspective what happened to Job is terrifying and troublesome. Yet our perspective is not the full picture and it lacks finality. We do not know what comes after this life.

Sorry, sometimes my sense of humor is obscure. Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling is famous, and kind of required reading if you're interested in the Abraham story, so I thought you were kidding about "obvious." He examines the agony of faith vs. ethics from many perspectives, imagining Abraham's reactions in several versions of how the story might have played out.

What I meant about being obvious is that if a person and God are separate there will be fear and doubt, and if there’s no separation, if a person is ‘one with God’, there won’t be fear and doubt. What could be more obvious than that?

I understand. But of course you know that many religious people maintain that complete faith in God erases these fears and doubts. The Abraham story pushes this to the limit. Could a father feel any faith in God under such circumstances?

I assure you that I'm reading it as a collection of ancient texts written over a ~1000 year period. Maybe once in a while I see an interesting bit that captures my attention and gets me thinking about how the authors could have written such a thing, but overall it is absolutely a collection of texts written over that time. And if we follow that historical view, we see that "God is love" is at an the tail end of that timeline. Initially, God is quite a bit terrifying because, let's face it, reality is often be terrifying -- and man has the potential to make it even more terrifying than it needs to be through his actions. — BitconnectCarlos

OK. We are on the same page, in that respect at least. I can even see that the New Testament presents a rather different conception of God from the one in the Old Testament. It's how Christians fit the two testaments together. I get the point that reality is terrifying and gods that reflect that aspect of reality seem entirely appropriate in any pantheon. But the terrors in reality do not reflect any moral laws, so is it likely that such a god would play a part in these stories in these books?

I'm interested in this business about total obedience and total trust. Both Abraham and Job raise it. The fact that both are rewarded muddies the issue, I think. Risking something for massive rewards is different from risking something irrespective of any possible reward. I also am deeply suspicious of a God who feels the need to subject his followers to such extreme tests.
I think it comes back to the Euthyphro problem. Do the gods love piety because it is good, or is it just that piety is what the gods love. Putting it another way, if God asks me to do something, should I do it because God knows what is good better than me? That is faith, but conditional faith. Or should I do it because anything that God asks is good just because he asks it? That is total (blind) faith. I'm with @Banno on this. Blind faith is not a good idea.
Even if you take a strong line and stipulate that anything that God asks is, by necessity, good, one has to bear in mind that one may be deceived in thinking that it is God and not some demon that is asking you to sacrifice your son.

The conviction that one knows the will of God is the most dangerous religious belief of them all.
— Ludwig V
Dangerous? — frank

If someone disagrees with you about doctrine, we do not just have a disagreement. The other is a heretic and any means to change their tune are justified. If someone does not accept Christ, say, the difference is not just a difference, but justifies any means to convert them. Do I have to recount examples?
I'm not saying there are not non-religious examples of the same behaviour. Any radical conviction (faith) can be the basis violence and cruelty.

That's the odd thing about "ought" - even if someone else tells you how things "ought" be, it is up to you to decide if they are right. — Banno

It's not all that odd. If someone tells you how things are, it is up to you to decide whether to believe them.
('m not suggesting that the two decisions are the same - just that there is a parallel between the "is" and "ought" in these language-games.

many religious people maintain that complete faith in God erases these fears and doubts. The Abraham story pushes this to the limit. Could a father feel any faith in God under such circumstances? — J

Erasing fears and doubts is always tempting but not always appropriate. One the whole, I would think that a father that didn't feel such doubts wouldn't be a very good test for God and, perhaps, not a very good father - and we are told that Abraham loved Isaac very much.

If someone disagrees with you about doctrine, we do not just have a disagreement. The other is a heretic and any means to change their tune are justified. If someone does not accept Christ, say, the difference is not just a difference, but justifies any means to convert them. Do I have to recount examples?
I'm not saying there are not non-religious examples of the same behaviour. Any radical conviction (faith) can be the basis violence and cruelty. — Ludwig V

Oh. But in the ancient world people usually respected foreign gods. If you visited a foreign town, you would first go pay respect to their gods and then go about your business.

Religious intolerance (the idea of false gods) came later. It's not so much about knowing divine will as believing that there is only one true divinity, which might be related to psychological integration.