Sacrifice, God’s Demand for Obedience and Pain
The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio
“And the Lord God said all mankind will suffer greatly for me, and suffer they did. Greatly!” The Blessed Atheist’s brief summary of the entire Old Testament.
Before we leave Abraham for the last time, we need to take a hard look at God’s test, the infamous demand for human sacrifice. Of all the the stories in the bible, this is the one which bothers me the most. Even decades ago, as a born again teen, this was the story that always pulled against my grain. The horror of a god taking his most loyal worshipper and testing him in such a manner upset me even when I was burdened under the full yoke of superstition. My sense of justice rebelled against such a demand. This tale started my path towards a true salvation, a salvation from superstition an escape to reason. It makes me very sad for humanity if this is the god they choose to worship, one who asks for too much, one who waits to punish the unfaithful, one who by a preponderance of evidence, wants us to fail.
We all know the story, but I urge you to read it again, carefully and without bias. Genesis, Chapter 22, or try here. God orders Abraham to take his best loved son, Isaac, and sacrifice him. The story does makes clear that Yahweh ordered this atrocity to test Abraham, to see if he would be completely obedient. Of course, God’s right hand suck up is fully up to the task. He’s quite ready to plunge his knife into the chest of his beloved little boy when God finally decides that he’s loyal enough and stays the murderous hand.
But the question any rational human have to ask themselves is, “Does God ever have to right to demand such a sacrifice?” Does he have the moral authority to demand us to murder those which we love? For the sake of argument, let’s assume there really is the creator of all that we know, a god. Would he have the right to treat his creation with whatever whim strikes him? Does he have the right the demand total obedience and to offer destruction for the multitudes who fail his unreasonable demands?
Hell no! No one ever has the right to demand such things. Obedience to any god is not the same as goodness or righteousness or morality. The sheer demand of such terrible loyalty makes him unworthy of it. One cannot issue such a demand without losing the ethical leadership of the human race. Just because some one is bigger and stronger than we are, does not give them the authority to demand we suffer for our weakness, particularly one who supposedly made us with those weaknesses. Might does not make right. Not now! Not ever!. An omnipotent creator may have a right to lead his creation into some glorious sunlit upland of existence, but never to make these terrible demands on his creation, never to demand blind obedience, never to order infanticide.
I cannot read this story without remembering all the more recent news stories where a woman drowns her children because God told her to, or a raving psychotic tortures his children because he thinks the devil’s in them, or when a suicide bomber, hoping for his 72 virgins, walks into a marketplace and murders dozens. The examples are endless. It’s true, Abraham didn’t go through with his murder, but he was ready to. He was on the verge of sheathing his knife in the heart of his son. The only difference between these other acts and the demand for Isaac’s sacrifice is one of perspective. We react with horror to similar murders today, but exult Abraham for his willingness to murder. Yet, do not all these people have “Faith”? How do you commit any of these crimes without having faith in something other than cold hard reality? How do you do these things without thinking that there is some supernatural escape clause? The very root of these crimes is faith, faith in a God who demands complete and utter obedience, regardless of what is asked. Rigid obedience to voices in your head will always lead down horrid paths. No exceptions! These are paths which humanity, either singly or en masse have traveled many times. Paths where we have done terrible things. Lead by unreasoning faith we have traveled the road to murder, torture and genocide. This blind faith can be in religion, in a demagogue, or in idealism. The faithful blind will lead us nowhere good. Watchful reason must be the rule not the exception. It’s time for us to stop being a mere pet to an imaginary but cruel god.
There may be another way of looking at this event. One I favor far more than the traditional interpretation. Perhaps a test was administered to the human race, a test of readiness to take our rightful place in this universe. This would have to be a place for people willing to assume responsibility for their own lives, to give up excuses, to use our reason, to become, finally, an adult.
By all accounts Abraham failed that test. He was willing to commit horrors for his religion. By a simple command, he was ready to murder his dear boy. If there is a merciful god, I do hope he would be disappointed with that decision.
The correct answer, as we all know, would have been to tell God to go get fucked.
Wow. I only knew of this story via Bob Dylan, but now that I’ve read it for myself…wow.
What stuck out for me was that it went into great, gory detail about the blood sacrifice (my bible says ‘holocaust’) and the messenger stopping Abraham at the last minute and god’s blessing and all that, but it never goes into Isaac’s opinion of the whole deal. In fact, Isaac isn’t even mentioned again in the entire chapter. Abraham simply returns to his servants, packs up and goes home, then there’s something about Sarah’s burial place.
Did Isaac just shrug it off and go along quietly? Was he struck mute by the horror of the whole thing? Did he run away from his crazy father and his father’s even crazier imaginary friend? I know he turns up later, so I know Abraham didn’t just kill him anyway for grins, but the chapter ends rather abruptly and leaves a huge, gaping plot hole.
I’d read ahead, but I’m enjoying your commentary too much to do that
It would have been a far better story if Abraham had said ‘no’, and then god commended him for not doing something immoral, even if he appeared to be asking him to do it. But, of course, the moral of a story like that would have been that morality comes from within, which doesn’t suit the religious mindset.
Thanks for this very entertaining discourse – I am finding it very useful. Tried to read the bible (and the koran, and the book of mormon) a number of times, but the dense language and the utter tediousness means I don’t get through Genesis!
Exactly. That would a very mature telling of the story, but a patriarchal god that rules by fear doesn’t deal well with disobedience — hence most of the Old Testament. In fact, in various Hindu and Buddhist tales as well as Aesop’s Fables, this is often the answer to such a test (although the Bhagavad Gita in its entirety is about Krishna convincing Arjuna to do his duty and fight the civil war to its bitter end).
Thank You for Sharing. Source helps Us become More so much so we no loengr need Source. Many are missing that message.PLEASE don’t put music in these releases. Not everyone likes the same kind of music and the point about this is to get the message across without music.Thanks.
In my fundie upbringing, I was told that the point of this story is a parable/commandment against child sacrifice. Which of course must mean that Abraham and/or his people (these were clan/tribal folk, remember) were already in the habit of practicing child sacrifice – otherwise, why would the Lord Genocide (thank you for that, I intend to use it often in the future) bother telling them not to? Human sacrifice, of children or captives or virgins, is unfortunately part of the known human repertoire, and the bible mentions it as being practiced in the region. So here we may have an instance of the Lord Genocide actually trying to do the right thing, but in his typical guilt-inducing and sadistic way of teaching morality. After all, he started the whole burnt offering thing in the beginning. Why did he wait so long to tell people that while he appreciates good barbecued lamb as well as anyone, they needn’t offer up their first-born? Better late than never, I suppose…
The girls call this reason “having the sense god gave a doorknob,” which may mean that reason and doorknobs entered human experience at the same time.
elisaphant
ottoman
Bubbles and Trixie Institute of Theology
And, of course, this isn’t the only child sacrifice. Good old King Jepthah stupidly says he’ll sacrifice the first thing he sees after coming home from a won battle. Of course, like all good soap operas, it’s his beloved daughter whom he sees first. And the bastard actually goes through with it. No last minute reprieve for her. Maybe it’s because she’s a female and Yahweh has this huge problem with vaginas. What a coward.
Who is intended to learn from this story?
Abraham learned nothing. he was prepared to do what God asked. God must have known that Abraham would pass this test, so he learned nothing, though it is framed (again) as somehting that God doesn’t know.
Isaac learned that his father would kill him if God asked, but I don’t think that is the point.
It only makes sense to me as a story constructed for others to learn by hearing. We, the liteners,are expectecd to learn that God may ask much of us and we must deliver. So, either God tested Abraham adn Isacc so that we would learn from the example, or its a made-up story for us to learn the lesson. God is willing to torture both Abraham and Isaac for our instruction- but doesn’t he already know which of us will pass and which will fail? Doesn’t he already know Abraham from Lot’s wife?
Exactly the questions that got me here. Welcome aboard!
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I used to have fish tanks. One day as I turned on the light in the tank and prepared to feed them, and watched them all come to the front of the tank to me, it occurred to me that in their world I am god (well, goddess, but, you know).
I controlled when in their world it is day and when it’s night. I controlled when they ate. I controlled their water quality.
Now, legally, I had the “right” to destroy them, ala Yahweh, if I wished. I could have taken each fish, one at a time and put them in the freezer or down the toilet BWAHAHAHAHA. I could have starved them, thrown wierd chemicals in the water, electrocuted them… But I didn’t. Why? Because that would be wrong. I felt I had a responsibility to make them happy and healthy specifically because I created their world (well, me and the manufacturers of the tank and filters did, but you know what I’m saying).
So what does that mean? I am more ethical than the god in the bible? I’m better than god? I treat my pet fish better than this god treats humans – I treat my Sims in my computer better! Why would anyone worship that god? The bible doesn’t make sense, and the people that want to change our laws based on a literal translation of it need to be locked in a room with soft walls.
Thanks for writing these critiques. blessedatheist.com is probably one of the most important websites on the net. Keep up the good work!
Wow! Thank you so much for that tremendous compliment. If I can earn even a
small part of that praise, I will have done something. Excellent example
BTW. I’m going to print that out and use it regularly.
The story of Abraham and Isaac is the first indication of what devotion to such a God will entail for all his descendants. In fact, it is the most momentous test in human history, and the Old Testament’s conclusion to this tale tells you all you need to know about blind faith.
If Abraham were a moral, loving, and thinking human being, he would have told God to take a hike and renounced such a being for his cruelty and capriciousness.
What type of god do you have? The God I have love me enough that He gave His Son for me. That is real and undying love. That god sound like Satan himself. He does not have any love for anybody.
I could not agree with you more! I used to be a Christian for 12 yrs, whenever I still believed the biblical god was a god of love. The more I studied the bible (I don’t capitalize the first letter, because the piece of crap book/literature isn’t worthy) the more I was repulsed by Yahweh’s character! Cruel, vindictive, and evil. My mind got exhausted from all of the mental gymnastics it had to endure to try to maintain reasons and excuses for yahweh’s actions. Finally gave up and came to the conclusion “It is what it says it is!” But anyway, just wanted you to know I agree completely and felt like everything you wrote came right out of my mind…..I have thought the same exact things, especially about god asking Abram to sacrifice Isaac. Glad to know someone else finds it repulsive…..I’m surrounded by Christians that’s not bothered by it at all…..blows my mind!
I suspect that if the ideas of the story got recast in different terms without any mention of God, Abraham, or Issac, the vast majority of those Christians would feel bothered by it. In short, they don’t want to believe.