Genesis 22

Holy CRAP!  (Pun intended)

So God tests Abraham, which is kind-of a shitty thing to do in the first place, but the test is KILL YOUR OWN SON!?! And he passes the test by actually INTENDING TO GO THROUGH WITH IT!

There is absolutely NOTHING redeeming in this chapter. I don’t care how awesome you think your God is or how afraid you are of him. I don’t care how great you think the guy is, abdicating your moral responsibility to someone else is just about one of the worst ideas in the history of bad ideas.  So, if he says “Kill your child”, the only way to pass that test is to say “Fuck You”!

What a fucking coward! What was the expectation? If Abraham didn’t obey, God was going to punish him or not reward him, right? OK, fine. You accept that this all powerful monster will treat you as his plaything, but you don’t become a collaborator. You don’t toss your moral compass aside and blindly follow directions.

“Just doing what I’m told” is not a basis for a good moral system, it’s the excuse for a bad one.

The details are incidental. God gives Abraham instructions to sacrifice his only son, Isaac (what happened to Ishmael?) on a mountain. He packs him up, takes a couple servants and off he goes. Just as Abraham has Isaac tied up and the knife ready, God’s angel drops in and lets him off the hook. A ram is provided and they happily kill that. How that is supposed to fix things, I don’t know, but God seems to like dead things a lot.

And Abraham heads back to Beersheba.

And then Abraham learn he’s an uncle. Talk about anti-climactic!