Okay, I dood it. I turned in the resume. I took some of the advice I received elsewhere and also added changes of my own. I could have obsessed more over it but I knew that a resume-writing handholding savior wasn't going to just materialize. Spending more time on it wouldn't be as beneficial as getting it in as early as possible. I theenk.

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In my neighborhood, we don't have an ice cream truck driving really slow down the street, we have the tool sharpener guy banging his bell with a real hammer to tell people he's around to give your knives, lawn mower blades, and saws a tweak. Freaked me out when I first saw his little van, but now it's a sign of the return of spring.

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Yeah, considering some of the jokers out there, I think getting it in is better than getting it perfect. As long as it's fine, if you know what I mean.

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-t, the basic question is this: Did Abraham to the right thing when he followed God's directions to sacrifice his son? Whether God is likely to ask the same of you is not the important issue.

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Go Spidra! Submit those resumes!

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But does it matter if you think that the thing actually happened? What if I just think, "this is a nice story that teaches people that a just god wouldn't actually make you sacrifice your kid"?

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I mean, he made Abe go up to the mesa and all, but then he was all, "PSYCHE! Put down the knife, fool. I was just joshin' ya. I know you'd do it, and hey, that's great...fucked up, but great. But I'd never actually take your kid."

Now I am thinking that my dislike of the Abraham/Isaac story is because I hate practical "jokes"

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I’m not sure why similar demands for child sacrifice by polytheistic gods are relevant here. The story clearly is written to show that Abraham faces a difficult dilemma.

Because you took Abraham out of his cultural frame of reference. As a modern Westerner of indeterminate spiritual belief (that is to say, I don't want to presume what you do and don't believe about anything you don't state outright), it's easy for us to read the story superficially and say we'd be all "Talk to the hand," if God told us to sacrifice our child(ren). Nobody even sacrifices animals any more do they, other than some small, fringe sects like Santaria?

If you'd been raised in a polytheistic culture, and a (blood) sacrificial culture, and had an experience (that you at least interpreted as) with some sort of force/deity that you believed to be real, and this deity was telling you to sacrifice your child, and if the experience seemed authentic to you, you'd have likely been prepared to do it. That doesn't mean it was not horrific to him, but it doesn't mean it is the same for you or me, here and now.

If you had Abraham's cultural frame of reference, you might even see more points to the story. The point, to God, in the Bible's telling of it was certainly as you say, that Abraham was so obedient, he would do even that horrible thing. But to Abraham the man, it must have included something along the lines of, "But then, something new happened with this deity who says he is 'The God'--he didn't want my child after all. He is merciful. He both provided a way out of this painful rite people practice as a way to appease the supernatural, and still commended me for my obedience. He is different."

To people who have that understanding, the applicable point of the story becomes one of, "I was so afraid of what I thought God was asking me to do, but I recognize him as sovereign and so I took a leap of faith, and it turned out so differently from my fears, so I should be obedient like Abraham, because God is faithful and good."

Or what Allyson said:

I just took it as a story to tell people that no just god would ever demand human sacrifice. I mean, he made Abe go up to the mesa and all, but then he was all, "PSYCHE! Put down the knife, fool. I was just joshin' ya. I know you'd do it, and hey, that's great...fucked up, but great. But I'd never actually take your kid."

...

But what I said went a bit further than that to. I was saying that I reached the position that I realised I would hold my moral beliefs independent of any religious beliefs.

I get that, in a very real way. I'd said earlier yesterday to tommyrot that even if I stopped believing my religion tomorrow, I would still think it would be wrong to (I think the example at the time was) be mean, and that goes for my other morals as well (at least most of them). I don't know that I agree they're independent though, or at least, I'm not using 'independent' in the same way, but that's probably largely because of how I defined world view ('religion' isn't sufficient when we're a mixed group, because it's not like the areligious don't have an understanding and opinions on how the world works, what humans roles are in that world, what their duties are to one another, etc.)

Good and evil, on the other hand, get a lot fuzzier in my lexicon. They act a lot more absolute.

Yes, because real events don't happen in isolation. In the abstract we like to think of good and bad, but a lot of stuff in real life is bad, worse, or worst, or it is good, better, or best (and I think I stole that from Lewis).

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My minister Grandfather, on the other hand, had a bible that was six different translations. Each page had three columns, so when you opened the book to, say, Matthew 1 verse 3 you had it in six different ways right there in front of you.

Was this the Jerusalem Bible? 'Cause I think this is the one I need to own for reference purposes.

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Did Abraham to the right thing when he followed God's directions to sacrifice his son? Whether God is likely to ask the same of you is not the important issue.

And if your answer is: Well it all turned out okay, or I don't know, what does that say? The question of the rightness of that action doesn't affect all the other things I believe that inform my religious affiliation. And I'm getting ready to veer into the historical basis of religion vs modern practice and that's pretty far from anything you were saying.

I don't actually take issue with your analysis in a general way. I'm just interested in exceptions to general rules as a general rule.

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