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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[TD1]

Em, there is evidence his father was misleading him. The only point in which he may have realised what was happening was when he was being bound. At the youngest point of your estimation he was 15. So, a child below 16. He realises when his father starts attempting to bind him. He is naturally confused. How could his father do this? Is his father doing this? It would become almost surreal to him. And it doesn't take all that long to do a rough bind and proceed from there.


And then we have the point that even if the son were to consent then it makes it not in the least bit more moral. It may even make it worse if you think of the father emotionally blackmailing his child to take part in this cult-killing.

In modern times, we would see Abraham as a dangerous religious fanatic whose zeal brought him to the pyre but didn't bring him the full way. Because it's in the Bible, he's lauded as an example of good faith. If all Christians were to have such "faith" I would be very worried.

[Bohandas]

Good teachers will acknowledge an omitted technicality if it's brought up to them, and Religion isn't a simplified version of anything anyway.

EDIT:
...It's a complicated version of nothing.

My main point is that just because something is "wrong" doesn't necessarily make it "bad". (Also a lot of lies we tell to children aren't just wrong on a technicality, many of them are just blatantly wrong. Go to any early math class and you'll run into sentences like "you can't take the square root of a negative" or "you can't subtract 5 from 3" on a very regular basis. These statements are arguably "wrong", but we still use them as a tool for teaching.

With complex math eventually, in a later grade, the full version is either explained or at minimum its existence is at least acknowledged.

[Bohandas]

And if its not true then that by itself makes it a bad thing.

I'd be willing to ascribe that it's possible for someone to be taught the moral system of a religion without necessarily being forced to ascribe to all of it's tenets. Even if the way a religion believes things happen isn't necessarily true, they work great as moral system carriers, which allows for things that fall into the "good" moral category generally to be carried to more people.

Also what about the whole "lies to children" thing? Arguably, almost nothing that you've learned in science prior to the college level is actually "true", because they are all wrong things we say to allow you to get closer to the actual truth behind the way the natural world works. Does that make it "bad" for us to teach you these things?

Good teachers will acknowledge an omitted technicality if it's brought up to them, and Religion isn't a simplified version of anything anyway.

EDIT:
...It's a complicated version of nothing.

Though I suppose this could potentially apply to religions that are openly incomplete (Taoism) or openly not true (SubGenius, Discordianism, LaVeyan Satanism, the Cthulhu Mythos) but not to Abrahamic religion, never to Abrahamic religion.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I have one question for the 'if god commanded you would you kill me?', have you done anything to give reason or need for me to kill you?

That's what a moral relativist would ask...  Trying to investigate the situation and weighing factors instead of relying on ironclad rules of conduct in real world situations.

By questioning the rules (and in this case, hypothetical God) you clearly know for yourself that absolute morality isn't enough.  Ideals are an important psychological tool, but they shouldn't get in the way of doing the right thing... Or force people to do the wrong thing.

Abraham thought that god would raise issac back from the dead. He knew that his family would have to come from issac so he wasn't afraid of him dying forever. It still took a lot of faith to do though.

I've never heard this before...  Could you show us where it says that?

No actualy I am asking to make sure this is my god, and not some hypothetical devil or some other. Just because something posing as god tells me to do something doesn't mean I have to do it, I need to know it is god

[origamiscienceguy]

Em, there is evidence his father was misleading him. The only point in which he may have realised what was happening was when he was being bound. At the youngest point of your estimation he was 15. So, a child below 16. He realises when his father starts attempting to bind him. He is naturally confused. How could his father do this? Is his father doing this? It would become almost surreal to him. And it doesn't take all that long to do a rough bind and proceed from there.


And then we have the point that even if the son were to consent then it makes it not in the least bit more moral. It may even make it worse if you think of the father emotionally blackmailing his child to take part in this cult-killing.

In modern times, we would see Abraham as a dangerous religious fanatic whose zeal brought him to the pyre but didn't bring him the full way. Because it's in the Bible, he's lauded as an example of good faith. If all Christians were to have such "faith" I would be very worried.

Abraham thought that god would raise Issac back from the dead. He knew that god would grow his family from Issac. So he knew that Issac wouldn't stay dead. Abraham loved Issac a lot, (Genesis 22:2) so this was a difficult thing for him to do. Abraham would never kill Issac if he thought he would lose him. The faith that Abraham had was that god would grow a family out of Issac. Abraham had faith that God's earlier promises would come true.

[TD1]

Em, there is evidence his father was misleading him. The only point in which he may have realised what was happening was when he was being bound. At the youngest point of your estimation he was 15. So, a child below 16. He realises when his father starts attempting to bind him. He is naturally confused. How could his father do this? Is his father doing this? It would become almost surreal to him. And it doesn't take all that long to do a rough bind and proceed from there.


And then we have the point that even if the son were to consent then it makes it not in the least bit more moral. It may even make it worse if you think of the father emotionally blackmailing his child to take part in this cult-killing.

In modern times, we would see Abraham as a dangerous religious fanatic whose zeal brought him to the pyre but didn't bring him the full way. Because it's in the Bible, he's lauded as an example of good faith. If all Christians were to have such "faith" I would be very worried.

Abraham thought that god would raise Issac back from the dead. He knew that god would grow his family from Issac. So he knew that Issac wouldn't stay dead. Abraham loved Issac a lot, (Genesis 22:2) so this was a difficult thing for him to do. Abraham would never kill Issac if he thought he would lose him. The faith that Abraham had was that god would grow a family out of Issac. Abraham had faith that God's earlier promises would come true.

So the whole point, to prove faith, was pointless as Abraham knew there would essentially be no repercussion. That seems like a foolish test for God to make.

I have one question for the 'if god commanded you would you kill me?', have you done anything to give reason or need for me to kill you?

That's what a moral relativist would ask...  Trying to investigate the situation and weighing factors instead of relying on ironclad rules of conduct in real world situations.

By questioning the rules (and in this case, hypothetical God) you clearly know for yourself that absolute morality isn't enough.  Ideals are an important psychological tool, but they shouldn't get in the way of doing the right thing... Or force people to do the wrong thing.

Abraham thought that god would raise issac back from the dead. He knew that his family would have to come from issac so he wasn't afraid of him dying forever. It still took a lot of faith to do though.

I've never heard this before...  Could you show us where it says that?

No actualy I am asking to make sure this is my god, and not some hypothetical devil or some other. Just because something posing as god tells me to do something doesn't mean I have to do it, I need to know it is god

Jesus could be a devil. Why do you believe he is God, when humans are fallible beasts and liable to write certain...exaggerated things?

[origamiscienceguy]

So the whole point, to prove faith, was pointless as Abraham knew there would essentially be no repercussion. That seems like a foolish test for God to make.

That's not what I am saying. sorry if my previous post was confusing, but God promised Abraham that Issac would father a great nation. Abraham had enough faith in that promise to be willing to sacrifice Issac. He had faith that God would somehow still keep his promise. He thought that God would raise Issac from the dead.

[scrdest]

So the whole point, to prove faith, was pointless as Abraham knew there would essentially be no repercussion. That seems like a foolish test for God to make.

That's not what I am saying. sorry if my previous post was confusing, but God promised Abraham that Issac would father a great nation. Abraham had enough faith in that promise to be willing to sacrifice Issac. He had faith that God would somehow still keep his promise. He thought that God would raise Issac from the dead.

Conclusion does not follow from premise here.

[origamiscienceguy]

Please explain so I can clarify.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

It's part of my beliefs that he was the son of god.
As far as I can tell I believe it.
I'm asking these questions about the scenario to give myself proof that it is god

[freeformschooler]

To the 12 Catholics here/other denominations that do it: what are you doing for Lent? I'm going to be joining the Catholics for a fast tomorrow. Considered giving up coffee for Lent, but let's not be reckless here.

[Orange Wizard]

What is Lent?

[freeformschooler]

What is Lent?

protestant detected

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent

[Orange Wizard]

So it's like a New Year's resolution, but for Easter? Okay.

[mastahcheese]

Even I know what Lent is.

It's a thing for crazy people.