i have been saying this forever, that christians have "mini botched passovers" and dont understand that jesus simply meant to remember him during passover. they dont even do it right, they often dont use the right type of bread but rather bread against passover law.
God was simply testing Abraham.
God knew the outcome in advance, so what was the point of the test? To have Abraham prove that to himself?
Either way that's a kinda fucked up test, and I wish I could see Abraham's emotions during this trial. In the form of text he almost seems ruthless, handling the order with the same composure as American Psycho.God has to let things play out, or else it wouldn't happen at all, even stuff like this.
Why would he want that to play out? What would the endgame goal even be?
Even if just looked at as fables rather than literal history, what kind of lesson is this supposed to teach us exactly; To follow God even when the order is terrible, and hope He changes his decree part way in?
Clearly I'm missing the point of the story.
It's not our potential that matters, it's what we actually do. Knowing Abraham would obey God is one thing, but having Abraham actually play it out is what contributes to his development, as it is with us all.
So instead Abraham gets to sit there having spent days contemplating the ritualistic murder of his first born son, the favorite, dreaming up all sorts of nightmarish horrors in his head as they traveled to the mountain (which had to have taken days, maybe longer), just for God to be like "Psych, you just got punk'd"?
If I were Abraham, that is when I would have lost my faith. If I were a true follower and He put me through that just for it to have been some fucked up test or prank or whatever, I'd be stuck sitting there asking a lot more questions about our Creator, feeling like some avatar in The Sims for God to fuck with whenever He wanted while couching it as if it were for my own good.
If Abraham were not tested in this way, what would have really happened other than him not being rewarded with babies?
Personally I don't know if God knows the future when it comes to us.
Doesn't knowing the future fall under being an All Knowing Entity, and if he does not know the future, then why do they mention God's gift for prophecy more than once, and even detail a bunch of things over it in relation to The Rapture?
Our creation came to God at a price, and I do believe a part of him is in us, which is why our souls are so valuable to an entity that wants to be God. An entity that both hates us and wants to be us. Not that I would know, but it's probably that we for one can defy God in ways an angel cannot.
His plan is to undo the price he paid anyway, and He's timeless, so I'm left questioning why He'd prolongue The Rapture this long, what He has to gain by waiting longer and longer rather than enacting the wrath and correction of it now, or earlier.
Is He trying to teach Satan a lesson or something, like the case with Job, effectively rendering us a tool, a learning aid, for a greater being to such a degree that we don't really matter at all?
God was simply testing Abraham.
God knew the outcome in advance, so what was the point of the test? To have Abraham prove that to himself?
Either way that's a kinda fucked up test, and I wish I could see Abraham's emotions during this trial. In the form of text he almost seems ruthless, handling the order with the same composure as American Psycho.he did it to set an example that god should be trusted 100% and those who trust god are truly lead by him, and for a people to be lead by god their representative must be a man who is lead by god and will lead them in that way through trust in god.
Yet when people test other people this way they're seen as horrible... and yeah, the 100% trust thing is sort of my problem with it.
It shows Him to be a God of Law more than Good that He'd pride obedience towards something so inhuman rather than hope he spares his own son as the correct answer to the test. If it were a god worth following, they would not ask for such a thing even in this manner, and even if God gave me some kind of prize for getting the answer right when it should have been wrong I'd forever be stuck with very impure questions, and probably some kind of post trauma over the ordeal if I truly loved the one I was supposed to sacrifice for what... mere appeasement?
I also still find it confusing that the first message came from God's voice, then the following ones from an angel.
he did it to show people led by god have good things happen to them, as Abraham's son went on the father an entire people seemingly as numerous as the stars. he didnt want adam and eve 2.0 where adam trusts god so little he puts eve above him and eats the apple. for all abraham knew if he didnt sacrifice his son millions would die, or maybe in sacrificing his son something good would happen to his son.
Yet when cults say this stuff they're seen as horrible.
abraham trusted god so much, he trusted god with the fate of his son. and that trust was correct. god did not allow the sacrifice to go through. and with this example god set he also showed even when it seems like we should not trust god, we still should.
If we are to follow orders that seemingly go against God's commandments and the like simply because it came from God, what's to stop someone from doing the same thing when Satan disguises himself as an angel of light? It would appear no differently to someone once God begins giving orders outside of His own guidelines, like what the fuck is someone supposed to do once they hear deific voices (or their own crazy voice) at that point when they lack the means of identifying the source from being a weak smol human?
Speaking as someone on the schizo-spectrum, I'd find such blind obedience being taught as a moral to be a dangerous thing to be teaching people. If my own crazy decided to speak in the voice of God the source material would be there to reinforce the belief.
Effectively you're telling me the passages want to expect reward over following arbitrary decisions of something that isn't even human.
after all, who wants to live in a world under a god that cannot be trusted? That's terrifying.
To be honest I find a world where God exists more frightening, but then again figure which side of the fence I speak from. 🤣
abraham had no ill will for his son nor would god encourage it.
He even responded to his son calmly during the march to his ritualistic execution, like some sort of psychopath.
They don't show him having felt anything at all, and his words seem so calm.
abraham simply trusted god enough to know whatever god asked for was good. and the son trusting god and his father abraham the same.
They don't talk about how the son felt after these trials, I'd personally be pretty 'wtf' if my father had me walk for miles, up a mountain, just to tie me up as a surprise sacrifice.
He could have at least had the courage to tell his son God wants him dead, but rather... he made not telling him seem easy.
Again, this is not really at you and more at the source material.
I want to say in advance that I do appreciate the time you took to respond, and that my response here is my take on it rather than being facetious:God was simply testing Abraham.
God knew the outcome in advance, so what was the point of the test? To have Abraham prove that to himself?
Either way that's a kinda fucked up test, and I wish I could see Abraham's emotions during this trial. In the form of text he almost seems ruthless, handling the order with the same composure as American Psycho.he did it to set an example that god should be trusted 100% and those who trust god are truly lead by him, and for a people to be lead by god their representative must be a man who is lead by god and will lead them in that way through trust in god.
Yet when people test other people this way they're seen as horrible... and yeah, the 100% trust thing is sort of my problem with it.
It shows Him to be a God of Law more than Good that He'd pride obedience towards something so inhuman rather than hope he spares his own son as the correct answer to the test. If it were a god worth following, they would not ask for such a thing even in this manner, and even if God gave me some kind of prize for getting the answer right when it should have been wrong I'd forever be stuck with very impure questions, and probably some kind of post trauma over the ordeal if I truly loved the one I was supposed to sacrifice for what... mere appeasement?
it wasnt traumatic for abraham because Abraham isn't you or me, not even his son. abraham knew that only good would come of this. abraham was simply taking part in the example god was setting WHICH was that all god does is good in the end.
I also still find it confusing that the first message came from God's voice, then the following ones from an angel.
god speaks through angels, the angel would give a message through the voice of god. an angel and gods voice are one in the same.
he did it to show people led by god have good things happen to them, as Abraham's son went on the father an entire people seemingly as numerous as the stars. he didnt want adam and eve 2.0 where adam trusts god so little he puts eve above him and eats the apple. for all abraham knew if he didnt sacrifice his son millions would die, or maybe in sacrificing his son something good would happen to his son.
Yet when cults say this stuff they're seen as horrible.
what do you mean? please specify
abraham trusted god so much, he trusted god with the fate of his son. and that trust was correct. god did not allow the sacrifice to go through. and with this example god set he also showed even when it seems like we should not trust god, we still should.
If we are to follow orders that seemingly go against God's commandments and the like simply because it came from God, what's to stop someone from doing the same thing when Satan disguises himself as an angel of light? It would appear no differently to someone once God begins giving orders outside of His own guidelines, like what the fuck is someone supposed to do once they hear deific voices (or their own crazy voice) at that point when they lack the means of identifying the source from being a weak smol human?
Speaking as someone on the schizo-spectrum, I'd find such blind obedience being taught as a moral to be a dangerous thing to be teaching people. If my own crazy decided to speak in the voice of God the source material would be there to reinforce the belief.
Effectively you're telling me the passages want to expect reward over following arbitrary decisions of something that isn't even human.
thats not what i was saying, it wasnt about obedience it was about trust me even when things eem bleak and in the end it goes well
after all, who wants to live in a world under a god that cannot be trusted? That's terrifying.
To be honest I find a world where God exists more frightening, but then again figure which side of the fence I speak from. 🤣
this is not the debate
abraham had no ill will for his son nor would god encourage it.
He even responded to his son calmly during the march to his ritualistic execution, like some sort of psychopath.
They don't show him having felt anything at all, and his words seem so calm.
they were calm because he knew nothing truly bad was happening, the son was also calm. they both knew something good was happening.
abraham simply trusted god enough to know whatever god asked for was good. and the son trusting god and his father abraham the same.
They don't talk about how the son felt after these trials, I'd personally be pretty 'wtf' if my father had me walk for miles, up a mountain, just to tie me up as a surprise sacrifice.
thats all assumption
He could have at least had the courage to tell his son God wants him dead, but rather... he made not telling him seem easy.
what? no he wasnt sure
Again, this is not really at you and more at the source material.
???????
God was simply testing Abraham.
God knew the outcome in advance, so what was the point of the test? To have Abraham prove that to himself?
Either way that's a kinda fucked up test, and I wish I could see Abraham's emotions during this trial. In the form of text he almost seems ruthless, handling the order with the same composure as American Psycho.God has to let things play out, or else it wouldn't happen at all, even stuff like this.
Why would he want that to play out? What would the endgame goal even be?
The next quote from me addresses that.
Even if just looked at as fables rather than literal history, what kind of lesson is this supposed to teach us exactly; To follow God even when the order is terrible, and hope He changes his decree part way in?
Clearly I'm missing the point of the story.
Life is a test and a part of our making. You are being tested by God. It's his nature.
It's not our potential that matters, it's what we actually do. Knowing Abraham would obey God is one thing, but having Abraham actually play it out is what contributes to his development, as it is with us all.
So instead Abraham gets to sit there having spent days contemplating the ritualistic murder of his first born son, the favorite, dreaming up all sorts of nightmarish horrors in his head as they traveled to the mountain (which had to have taken days, maybe longer), just for God to be like "Psych, you just got punk'd"?
If I were Abraham, that is when I would have lost my faith. If I were a true follower and He put me through that just for it to have been some fucked up test or prank or whatever, I'd be stuck sitting there asking a lot more questions about our Creator, feeling like some avatar in The Sims for God to fuck with whenever He wanted while couching it as if it were for my own good.
You aren't Abraham though. Most people aren't like him. God put him through what he can handle.
If Abraham were not tested in this way, what would have really happened other than him not being rewarded with babies?
The possibilities are endless aren't they ? Anyone's guess could be right or wrong.
Personally I don't know if God knows the future when it comes to us.
Doesn't knowing the future fall under being an All Knowing Entity, and if he does not know the future, then why do they mention God's gift for prophecy more than once, and even detail a bunch of things over it in relation to The Rapture?
When I think about about it, time is an illusion. Sure it's significant and a useful tool for measuring, but it only appears as it is because it's unified with space. God has always been, time is his idea. It's been said somewhere that God knows how many hairs are on your head. But to be clear, I said I don't know if God knows the future "when it comes to us". From my understanding, prophecy is in accordance with a plan. For example what's terrorfying will surely terrorize.
Our creation came to God at a price, and I do believe a part of him is in us, which is why our souls are so valuable to an entity that wants to be God. An entity that both hates us and wants to be us. Not that I would know, but it's probably that we for one can defy God in ways an angel cannot.
His plan is to undo the price he paid anyway, and He's timeless, so I'm left questioning why He'd prolongue The Rapture this long, what He has to gain by waiting longer and longer rather than enacting the wrath and correction of it now, or earlier.
By our understanding. God would be older than the oldest parts of the universe by an unrecognized amount of time. Yet we gather time doesn't exist in the thereafter. People who claim to experience eternity say they can't tell how long they've been there, it's immeasurable.
Every perceived moment there is an eternity. Spending an eternity in hell could mean something else for all we know, but his plan isn't to undo us. Universally speaking the Earth itself is very young. Our time is much shorter. Less than a blip in eternity are the light of the stars, while the universe will spend most of it's time in darkness.
Is He trying to teach Satan a lesson or something, like the case with Job, effectively rendering us a tool, a learning aid, for a greater being to such a degree that we don't really matter at all?
Yes pretty much.
Job was another rare case of a unique person. What he went through was for him, but, sometimes we go through horrific and heartbreaking experiences and we bounce back. Job's faith in God marks his faith that things can and will get better. If Job's losses pinned him down, there he'd remain, and we know that intuitively from our own personal experiences.
If we lost someone we love, and keep our head down for life, we'll certainly be fucked for life. Fortunately life is temporary, but as it's been said, the biggest regrets are what we never did.
God was simply testing Abraham.
God knew the outcome in advance, so what was the point of the test? To have Abraham prove that to himself?
Either way that's a kinda fucked up test, and I wish I could see Abraham's emotions during this trial. In the form of text he almost seems ruthless, handling the order with the same composure as American Psycho.he did it to set an example that god should be trusted 100% and those who trust god are truly lead by him, and for a people to be lead by god their representative must be a man who is lead by god and will lead them in that way through trust in god.
Yet when people test other people this way they're seen as horrible... and yeah, the 100% trust thing is sort of my problem with it.
It shows Him to be a God of Law more than Good that He'd pride obedience towards something so inhuman rather than hope he spares his own son as the correct answer to the test. If it were a god worth following, they would not ask for such a thing even in this manner, and even if God gave me some kind of prize for getting the answer right when it should have been wrong I'd forever be stuck with very impure questions, and probably some kind of post trauma over the ordeal if I truly loved the one I was supposed to sacrifice for what... mere appeasement?it wasnt traumatic for abraham because Abraham isn't you or me, not even his son. abraham knew that only good would come of this. abraham was simply taking part in the example god was setting WHICH was that all god does is good in the end.
This is why I see the dude like some kind of Psychopath, a normal, functioning father would be much more heartbroken over something like this right?
I also still find it confusing that the first message came from God's voice, then the following ones from an angel.
god speaks through angels, the angel would give a message through the voice of god. an angel and gods voice are one in the same.
So why did the story bother differentiating between the two, rather than sticking to just one theme? Does it mean something more when an angel's physically there?
The role of angels when they're on Earth gets kinda weird. Their portrayal of beings who do not understand worldly sin is pretty out there for how naive they're portrayed in the story of Lot, but that's is a tangent.
he did it to show people led by god have good things happen to them, as Abraham's son went on the father an entire people seemingly as numerous as the stars. he didnt want adam and eve 2.0 where adam trusts god so little he puts eve above him and eats the apple. for all abraham knew if he didnt sacrifice his son millions would die, or maybe in sacrificing his son something good would happen to his son.
Yet when cults say this stuff they're seen as horrible.
what do you mean? please specify
The idea of becoming selfless towards a superior voice for promises of salvation, like when the Heaven's Gate cult said to wear Nike's shoes while group-suiciding to go to heaven, or the whole Jonestown self-poisoning so they could ascend together. Cults have appropriated such ideas to have people go outside of their usual morals, and I find that scary if you consider that Abraham doesn't seem to have been told what would happen if he said no, he was just like "My first born? Anything for you God" as he calmly goes about premeditated murder over a period of days.
This also grants a semblance of credence to those who aren't all there that think God told them to kill pop stars or political figures, as this story is largely saying it is okay to ignore God's laws if God's seen as the one telling you what to do.
abraham trusted god so much, he trusted god with the fate of his son. and that trust was correct. god did not allow the sacrifice to go through. and with this example god set he also showed even when it seems like we should not trust god, we still should.
If we are to follow orders that seemingly go against God's commandments and the like simply because it came from God, what's to stop someone from doing the same thing when Satan disguises himself as an angel of light? It would appear no differently to someone once God begins giving orders outside of His own guidelines, like what the fuck is someone supposed to do once they hear deific voices (or their own crazy voice) at that point when they lack the means of identifying the source from being a weak smol human?
Speaking as someone on the schizo-spectrum, I'd find such blind obedience being taught as a moral to be a dangerous thing to be teaching people. If my own crazy decided to speak in the voice of God the source material would be there to reinforce the belief.
Effectively you're telling me the passages want to expect reward over following arbitrary decisions of something that isn't even human.thats not what i was saying, it wasnt about obedience it was about trust me even when things eem bleak and in the end it goes well
In this case, what's the difference? Trusting in God is also over Abraham following his orders isn't it?
It really looks like a freakishly inhumane loyalty exercise. Again, imagine a human making someone else do this and it seems insane, yet this voice in space gives the orders and it's perfectly normal.
I really can't bridge that, it ignores their humanity almost entirely as some kind of messed up trust exercise, and the reward doesn't seem equivalent to the cost (if Abraham weren't a psychopath anyway) any more than a billionaire telling you to commit murder and then changing his mind after the fact before showering you in gifts.
after all, who wants to live in a world under a god that cannot be trusted? That's terrifying.
To be honest I find a world where God exists more frightening, but then again figure which side of the fence I speak from. 🤣
this is not the debate
It still shows where my POV is coming from, I cannot relate to obeying something I personally find so monstrous, yet those who do sit there with flat expressions trying to tell me all this madness is to be taken in stride, that it's normal.
I'm sitting here like "How is God supposed to get away with this, beyond us not having the power to do anything about it?".
abraham had no ill will for his son nor would god encourage it.
He even responded to his son calmly during the march to his ritualistic execution, like some sort of psychopath.
They don't show him having felt anything at all, and his words seem so calm.they were calm because he knew nothing truly bad was happening, the son was also calm. they both knew something good was happening.
That isn't natural for a human at all, and I continue to think something must have been wrong with Abraham if the story didn't otherwise choose to gloss over Abraham's inner torment over this ordeal.
I don't care how much someone trusts in God, that order he gave him is out of line and I'd hope no one I know would follow in Abraham's footsteps if given the opportunity.
abraham simply trusted god enough to know whatever god asked for was good. and the son trusting god and his father abraham the same.
They don't talk about how the son felt after these trials, I'd personally be pretty 'wtf' if my father had me walk for miles, up a mountain, just to tie me up as a surprise sacrifice.
thats all assumption
I didn't assume here though, I perspective took primarily through how I'd respond, then compared it to how I'd imagine a normal person to.
This story goes way too casually, it makes it eerie and uncanny.
He could have at least had the courage to tell his son God wants him dead, but rather... he made not telling him seem easy.
what? no he wasnt sure
Wasn't sure of what?
Even if just looked at as fables rather than literal history, what kind of lesson is this supposed to teach us exactly; To follow God even when the order is terrible, and hope He changes his decree part way in?
Clearly I'm missing the point of the story.Life is a test and a part of our making. You are being tested by God. It's his nature.
Yeah but none of our tests are even half as bad as the Biblical ones, like damn I'd turn on God too if He was doing that shit nowadays.
It's not our potential that matters, it's what we actually do. Knowing Abraham would obey God is one thing, but having Abraham actually play it out is what contributes to his development, as it is with us all.
So instead Abraham gets to sit there having spent days contemplating the ritualistic murder of his first born son, the favorite, dreaming up all sorts of nightmarish horrors in his head as they traveled to the mountain (which had to have taken days, maybe longer), just for God to be like "Psych, you just got punk'd"?
If I were Abraham, that is when I would have lost my faith. If I were a true follower and He put me through that just for it to have been some fucked up test or prank or whatever, I'd be stuck sitting there asking a lot more questions about our Creator, feeling like some avatar in The Sims for God to fuck with whenever He wanted while couching it as if it were for my own good.You aren't Abraham though. Most people aren't like him. God put him through what he can handle.
Yeah but it still raises the question of who Abraham is, especially when the reader is meant to model off of him.
Are Christians really meant to model after someone calmly premeditating filicide?
If Abraham were not tested in this way, what would have really happened other than him not being rewarded with babies?
The possibilities are endless aren't they ? Anyone's guess could be right or wrong.
I'm stuck with asking myself if Abraham would have been sent to Hell for not being strong enough to kill his own son.
Just... wtf man.
Personally I don't know if God knows the future when it comes to us.
Doesn't knowing the future fall under being an All Knowing Entity, and if he does not know the future, then why do they mention God's gift for prophecy more than once, and even detail a bunch of things over it in relation to The Rapture?
When I think about about it, time is an illusion. Sure it's significant and a useful tool for measuring, but it only appears as it is because it's unified with space. God has always been, time is his idea. It's been said somewhere that God knows how many hairs are on your head. But to be clear, I said I don't know if God knows the future "when it comes to us". From my understanding, prophecy is in accordance with a plan. For example what's terrorfying will surely terrorize.
How would God not know the future if he is otherwise all knowing?
Even without direct knowledge of the future He'd be capable of processing everything that's happened thus far to figure where things will go next, like an advanced AI going through probability mechanics with a HUGE base of data to work from and processing power beyond our comprehension.
I guess if he cannot predict our future, my question then becomes 'why not?', as that'd mean God has a weakness that humanity has the capability to exploit, which in turn would make me think Satan would be written as finding us useful rather than spiting us for resembling the creator.
Our creation came to God at a price, and I do believe a part of him is in us, which is why our souls are so valuable to an entity that wants to be God. An entity that both hates us and wants to be us. Not that I would know, but it's probably that we for one can defy God in ways an angel cannot.
His plan is to undo the price he paid anyway, and He's timeless, so I'm left questioning why He'd prolongue The Rapture this long, what He has to gain by waiting longer and longer rather than enacting the wrath and correction of it now, or earlier.
By our understanding. God would be older than the oldest parts of the universe by an unrecognized amount of time. Yet we gather time doesn't exist in the thereafter. People who claim to experience eternity say they can't tell how long they've been there, it's immeasurable.
Time is just measuring the passage of the sun anyway, so what purpose would measuring it even have after you die?
It's like vampire logic, while time still passes they tend to remain roughly the same, untouched by time to such a degree that it might as well not even be a concept. If people didn't age or have responsibilities anymore, why would we keep time other than as a manmade measure of perfection?
Every perceived moment there is an eternity. Spending an eternity in hell could mean something else for all we know, but his plan isn't to undo us.
Ehhh, matter of opinion.
The parts He'd be removing from those He doesn't judge poorly come The Rapture have me think they'd barely be human anymore.
Is He trying to teach Satan a lesson or something, like the case with Job, effectively rendering us a tool, a learning aid, for a greater being to such a degree that we don't really matter at all?
Yes pretty much.
Job was another rare case of a unique person. What he went through was for him, but, sometimes we go through horrific and heartbreaking experiences and we bounce back.
Job's story seems more believable to me than Abraham's, the guy actually suffers and those around him, while judged unfairly by my opinion, were otherwise held accountable to something closer to what otherwise seems more normal by the standards of the religion. Christianity tells their subjects to persevere, so standing strong through those trials fits their themes, stays on message.
Being told to kill your firstborn and going through with it by contrast is not normal, but facing plagues and losing that which you treasure is pretty worldly.
Job's faith in God marks his faith that things can and will get better. If Job's losses pinned him down, there he'd remain, and we know that intuitively from our own personal experiences.
Killing. His son.
Sure he didn't have to do it later but HE didn't know that. I feel like this chapter is telling people to justify abuse or something to that effect.
If we lost someone we love, and keep our head down for life, we'll certainly be fucked for life. Fortunately life is temporary, but as it's been said, the biggest regrets are what we never did.
If life takes them from us that's one thing, but being told to do it yourself?
Dude, that's messed up.
Oh TC. You turned on God long ago.
Life as you know it is temporary. It's nothing compared to eternity. What God did with Abraham is for Abraham. Abraham is a different cat. Perhaps a psychopath who knows. Another thing, when dealing with divine power, no one can say for sure what they'll do when such a being as God personally instructs them to do something.
Not everyone will understand the greater good that comes out of it. I do.
In your case at best God will tell you to clean up your act, cause you're not like Abraham or Job or Samson, or Moses or any of those hotshots that walked a different path than you.
Oh TC. You turned on God long ago.
I doubt the existence of God, can I really turn on something that to me does not exist?
What God did with Abraham is for Abraham. Abraham is a different cat. Perhaps a psychopath who knows.
It's worth pondering if you ask me, it's a story the reader is meant to learn from and model off of.
In your case at best God will tell you to clean up your act, cause you're not like Abraham or Job or Samson, or Moses or any of those hotshots that walked a different path than you.
No one in a first world country walks their paths though, it's kind of a non-statement in this case.
