Would you sacrifice your child like Abraham intended to?

[John Dule]

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

You got me. I admit that I have zero respect people who are willing to murder their own children because the voices in their heads told them to do so.

"Voices in their heads" Really telling on yourself here.
First, I added so many caveats and you jump to the most uncharitable interpretation possible. I just didn't give a complete total No, because of my beliefs around God. God is beyond our comprehension and it's just arrogant for us to play God or claim to know precisely literally everything about God and what he does. Your casual disrespect for religion is just hilarious. I didn't realize we had an r/athiest regular. And unlike Dule, he's actually unlikeable.
I don't go out of my way to tailor my religious beliefs to please athiests. You can be athiest or a non-athiest. I respect that. What I won't respect is your bigotry.
What a joke.

The sheer lack of self-awareness it takes to make jokes about r/atheism users being annoying in a thread where you literally contemplated killing children for your religion… it’s incomprehensible. Ever wonder why atheists are so self-righteous? It’s because we have to put up with the fact that a huge chunk of the society we live in is clinically insane.

[Electric Circus]

If it was truly clear that it was God I was hearing from and not Satan or my own thoughts, Yes.

I don't know how one could ever be certain that God and not Satan is speaking to them.

Depending on your religious views, you can be quite sure of who would make this demand.

[Vosem]

No, I do not have such confidence in my own sanity.

Haran [Abraham's brother] was standing there. He said [to himself]: what shall I do? If Abraham wins, I shall say: "I am of Abraham's [followers]", if Nimrod wins I shall say "I am of Nimrod's [followers]". When Abraham went into the furnace and survived, Haran was asked: "Whose [follower] are you?" and he answered: "I am Abraham's!". [Then] they took him and threw him into the furnace, and his belly opened and he died...

"So let's recap. You believe yourself to be Jesus. You admit that you have been seeing the Devil, and that he commands you to jump off buildings, a command you resist only with great difficulty. You don't know where you are or how you got there, and your only weak explanation is that malevolent demons magically transported you there and meddled with your mind so you don't remember it. Using the Outside View, what is the probability that you are even remotely sane?"

"Look," said Jesus. "Could you just tell me what the temptation is already?"

Satan waved his hand, and a syringe materialized within it. "5 mg haloperidol, IM" he told him.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Well, God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe said, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God said, "No", Abe said, "What?"
God said, "You can do what you want, Abe
But next time you see me coming, you better run"

[PSOL]

No, I do not have such confidence in my own sanity.

Haran [Abraham's brother] was standing there. He said [to himself]: what shall I do? If Abraham wins, I shall say: "I am of Abraham's [followers]", if Nimrod wins I shall say "I am of Nimrod's [followers]". When Abraham went into the furnace and survived, Haran was asked: "Whose [follower] are you?" and he answered: "I am Abraham's!". [Then] they took him and threw him into the furnace, and his belly opened and he died...

"So let's recap. You believe yourself to be Jesus. You admit that you have been seeing the Devil, and that he commands you to jump off buildings, a command you resist only with great difficulty. You don't know where you are or how you got there, and your only weak explanation is that malevolent demons magically transported you there and meddled with your mind so you don't remember it. Using the Outside View, what is the probability that you are even remotely sane?"

"Look," said Jesus. "Could you just tell me what the temptation is already?"

Satan waved his hand, and a syringe materialized within it. "5 mg haloperidol, IM" he told him.

Crap, just lost a bet because of you.

At least I still have AGA.

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

You got me. I admit that I have zero respect people who are willing to murder their own children because the voices in their heads told them to do so.

"Voices in their heads" Really telling on yourself here.
First, I added so many caveats and you jump to the most uncharitable interpretation possible. I just didn't give a complete total No, because of my beliefs around God. God is beyond our comprehension and it's just arrogant for us to play God or claim to know precisely literally everything about God and what he does. Your casual disrespect for religion is just hilarious. I didn't realize we had an r/athiest regular. And unlike Dule, he's actually unlikeable.
I don't go out of my way to tailor my religious beliefs to please athiests. You can be athiest or a non-athiest. I respect that. What I won't respect is your bigotry.
What a joke.

The sheer lack of self-awareness it takes to make jokes about r/atheism users being annoying in a thread where you literally contemplated killing children for your religion… it’s incomprehensible. Ever wonder why atheists are so self-righteous? It’s because we have to put up with the fact that a huge chunk of the society we live in is clinically insane.

People’s sanity has nothing to do with the wide acceptance of religion.

[Vosem]

No, I do not have such confidence in my own sanity.

Haran [Abraham's brother] was standing there. He said [to himself]: what shall I do? If Abraham wins, I shall say: "I am of Abraham's [followers]", if Nimrod wins I shall say "I am of Nimrod's [followers]". When Abraham went into the furnace and survived, Haran was asked: "Whose [follower] are you?" and he answered: "I am Abraham's!". [Then] they took him and threw him into the furnace, and his belly opened and he died...

"So let's recap. You believe yourself to be Jesus. You admit that you have been seeing the Devil, and that he commands you to jump off buildings, a command you resist only with great difficulty. You don't know where you are or how you got there, and your only weak explanation is that malevolent demons magically transported you there and meddled with your mind so you don't remember it. Using the Outside View, what is the probability that you are even remotely sane?"

"Look," said Jesus. "Could you just tell me what the temptation is already?"

Satan waved his hand, and a syringe materialized within it. "5 mg haloperidol, IM" he told him.

Crap, just lost a bet because of you.

You can't just say that and not share what the bet was!

[VBM]

If it was clear that it was God speaking to me and it was clear he wanted me to do it, Yes for certain.
Otherwise No.

If it was truly clear that it was God I was hearing from and not Satan or my own thoughts, Yes.

I hope the two of you never have children.

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

In this scenario, would you not even consider the possibility that your God is evil?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If it was clear that it was God speaking to me and it was clear he wanted me to do it, Yes for certain.
Otherwise No.

If it was truly clear that it was God I was hearing from and not Satan or my own thoughts, Yes.

I hope the two of you never have children.

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

In this scenario, would you not even consider the possibility that your God is evil?

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

[Frodo]

Let's bear in mind that ritualized human sacrifices in the ancient world (including in the Fertile Crescent) to various deities were not uncommon at that point in time, so the fact that Abraham went along with it shouldn't be too surprising.  What is significant therefore is not the fact that the God of Abraham commanded him to sacrifice his child, but that He told him (in the nick of time, as it were) it wasn't necessary -He merely wanted rock-hard proof that Abraham was loyal to Him, and Him alone.  He never again asked it of anyone.  

[Ferguson97]

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

Can you please explain to me how this line of thinking, "God is always morally perfect, he can never possibly be wrong, I will not entertain the idea that he is evil, I would be willing to kill my child if God commanded it" is not comparable to that of a cultist?

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Let's bear in mind that ritualized human sacrifices in the ancient world (including in the Fertile Crescent) to various deities were not uncommon at that point in time, so the fact that Abraham went along with it shouldn't be too surprising.  What is significant therefore is not the fact that the God of Abraham commanded him to sacrifice his child, but that He told him (in the nick of time, as it were) it wasn't necessary -He merely wanted rock-hard proof that Abraham was loyal to Him, and Him alone.  He never again asked it of anyone.  

He may not have asked his followers to sacrifice their children again. He certainly demanded they mass murder children of other nations.

[Frodo]

Let's bear in mind that ritualized human sacrifices in the ancient world (including in the Fertile Crescent) to various deities were not uncommon at that point in time, so the fact that Abraham went along with it shouldn't be too surprising.  What is significant therefore is not the fact that the God of Abraham commanded him to sacrifice his child, but that He told him (in the nick of time, as it were) it wasn't necessary -He merely wanted rock-hard proof that Abraham was loyal to Him, and Him alone.  He never again asked it of anyone.  

He may not have asked his followers to sacrifice their children again. He certainly demanded they mass murder children of other nations.

That hardly distinguishes the Hebrews of the time.  Destroying cities and their peoples and property was a commonplace practice of conquerors, whether it is the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Assyrians, or the Babylonians -or any other expanding empire.  If you resist, we destroy you.      

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

Can you please explain to me how this line of thinking, "God is always morally perfect, he can never possibly be wrong, I will not entertain the idea that he is evil, I would be willing to kill my child if God commanded it" is not comparable to that of a cultist?

In some faiths the idea of God being evil is a very marginal concept at best. That's more common than you are making it out to be. This world is nothing compared to the afterlife anyways, comparatively.

[Ferguson97]

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

Can you please explain to me how this line of thinking, "God is always morally perfect, he can never possibly be wrong, I will not entertain the idea that he is evil, I would be willing to kill my child if God commanded it" is not comparable to that of a cultist?

In some faiths the idea of God being evil is a very marginal concept at best. That's more common than you are making it out to be. This world is nothing compared to the afterlife anyways, comparatively.

This does not answer my question.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

Can you please explain to me how this line of thinking, "God is always morally perfect, he can never possibly be wrong, I will not entertain the idea that he is evil, I would be willing to kill my child if God commanded it" is not comparable to that of a cultist?

In some faiths the idea of God being evil is a very marginal concept at best. That's more common than you are making it out to be. This world is nothing compared to the afterlife anyways, comparatively.

This does not answer my question.

Your question I deemed to be a bad starting point for further discussion. I already dislike the use of the term "cult" in the way you're using because of impreciseness (granted it's a popular usage of it but I don't care about that frankly), so I'm not going to take it upon myself to devalue the conversation by pretending that I don't.

[vitoNova]

If they were being annoying and starting to get on my nerves, yeah.

[RI]

This is such a severely misunderstood story. Abraham was very elderly at the time, and Isaac was a grown adult, not a child. There is no physical way Abraham could force Isaac to do anything he didn't want to do, and killing Isaac without his cooperation wouldn't been extremely difficult. This is beside the point, though, as Abraham knew that God wouldn't let him kill Isaac, at least not in any permanent sense, because God had already made a covenant with Abraham that he would see innumerable generations spawning through Isaac, a promise yet unfulfilled, and God doesn't break promises. Abraham trusted that God would bring Isaac back to fulfill the covenant, even if he did somehow kill Isaac. God alone can undo death and has complete power over it.

Unless God has made a similar covenant with you, I don't see how any of us can be in a remotely comparable situation.

[LBJer]

If it was clear that it was God speaking to me and it was clear he wanted me to do it, Yes for certain.
Otherwise No.

If it was truly clear that it was God I was hearing from and not Satan or my own thoughts, Yes.

I hope the two of you never have children.

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

In this scenario, would you not even consider the possibility that your God is evil?

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

A God that would tell anyone to kill their own child would not be a morally good God.

[Mr. Smith]

This is such a severely misunderstood story. Abraham was very elderly at the time, and Isaac was a grown adult, not a child. There is no physical way Abraham could force Isaac to do anything he didn't want to do, and killing Isaac without his cooperation wouldn't been extremely difficult. This is beside the point, though, as Abraham knew that God wouldn't let him kill Isaac, at least not in any permanent sense, because God had already made a covenant with Abraham that he would see innumerable generations spawning through Isaac, a promise yet unfulfilled, and God doesn't break promises. Abraham trusted that God would bring Isaac back to fulfill the covenant, even if he did somehow kill Isaac. God alone can undo death and has complete power over it.

Unless God has made a similar covenant with you, I don't see how any of us can be in a remotely comparable situation.

1. There's still emotional manipulating, which is possible, and adults aren't insusceptible to be manipulated that way. Ergo Isaac could be lured

2. This only means that it's a redundant exercise on God's part, and at both Abraham's and Isaac's expense.

3. The idea of such covenants can be abused.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If it was clear that it was God speaking to me and it was clear he wanted me to do it, Yes for certain.
Otherwise No.

If it was truly clear that it was God I was hearing from and not Satan or my own thoughts, Yes.

I hope the two of you never have children.

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

In this scenario, would you not even consider the possibility that your God is evil?

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

A God that would tell anyone to kill their own child would not be a morally good God.

Mere humans like you and I cannot ever fully comprehend everything about God. Applying human standards to God is a fools errand.

[Ferguson97]

Mere humans like you and I cannot ever fully comprehend everything about God. Applying human standards to God is a fools errand.

It is literally impossible to have a rational conversation with you if you think this.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Mere humans like you and I cannot ever fully comprehend everything about God. Applying human standards to God is a fools errand.

It is literally impossible to have a rational conversation with you if you think this.

Believing that literally everything in existence (including the divine) can be judged or held to a single moral standard and framework in an all-inclusive way is in itself irrational and ignoring of the complexity of reality itself.

[Ferguson97]

Mere humans like you and I cannot ever fully comprehend everything about God. Applying human standards to God is a fools errand.

It is literally impossible to have a rational conversation with you if you think this.

Believing that literally everything in existence (including the divine) can be judged or held to a single moral standard and framework in an all-inclusive way is in itself irrational and ignoring of the complexity of reality itself.

How can we possibly discuss anything with you if you’re just going to say that your God is immune to and above any and all criticism because he’s “beyond our understanding”? That’s a cop-out answer. It allows you to completely avoid reflecting on your own moral framework.

[Mr. Smith]

If it was clear that it was God speaking to me and it was clear he wanted me to do it, Yes for certain.
Otherwise No.

If it was truly clear that it was God I was hearing from and not Satan or my own thoughts, Yes.

I hope the two of you never have children.

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

In this scenario, would you not even consider the possibility that your God is evil?

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

A God that would tell anyone to kill their own child would not be a morally good God.

Mere humans like you and I cannot ever fully comprehend everything about God. Applying human standards to God is a fools errand.

And yet we're supposed to believe that he is loving and caring in the most human standards possible at the same time, that's what believers say. 

So either that's also a fool's errand too, or we do have to apply human standards, since, we're supposed to have been created in his image.

Anything else is pretty much eating the cake and having it too.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If it was clear that it was God speaking to me and it was clear he wanted me to do it, Yes for certain.
Otherwise No.

If it was truly clear that it was God I was hearing from and not Satan or my own thoughts, Yes.

I hope the two of you never have children.

I am in fact religious. I do believe in an all seeing all knowing God. I deeply respect that many will think differently, unlike you. And I hope you don't raise children sharing the same bigotry towards profound religiosity than you do. Have a nice day, I'm sorry to say I know you.
EDIT: Don't worry, the religiously devout will easily outbreed the likes of you. It's okay.

In this scenario, would you not even consider the possibility that your God is evil?

I would not take that alleged possibility into consideration.

A God that would tell anyone to kill their own child would not be a morally good God.

Mere humans like you and I cannot ever fully comprehend everything about God. Applying human standards to God is a fools errand.

And yet we're supposed to believe that he is loving and caring in the most human standards possible at the same time, that's what believers say. 

So either that's also a fool's errand too, or we do have to apply human standards, since, we're supposed to have been created in his image.

Anything else is pretty much eating the cake and having it too.

I think this criticism could have some mileage against Christian God. YMMV.
But I don't believe in Christian God. I don't think we were made in his image. I have a positive view towards the Christian faith, but it's still not my religion.
Whatever level we are on, God is above that, and has a far wider perspective then we could ever comprehend.