DIVINE COMMAND !!!!

The Lord spoke to Abraham," I am the Lord thy God, and I command thee to sacrifice thy only son".

Abraham replied,"There is something not right here. your commandments say,"Thou shalt not kill".

"The Lord giveth the rules and the Lord taketh away", replied God.

"But how do I know you are God?" insisted Abraham, "perhaps you are the devil trying to fool me?."

"You must have faith,"replied God.

"Faith or insanity?."

"Me almighty!" exclaimed the Lord."what you're saying is that it is reasonable for you, a mere mortal, to refuse to do what I, the Lord thy God,commands."

"I guess so," said Abraham,"and you've given me no good reason to change my mind."

HA HA.. I wish it was so.

IN the book of Genesis, God found a more compliant servant in Abraham, who went along with the instruction to sacrifice his son, when, knife in hand, he was stopped from going ahead by an angel. Abraham has been presented as a paradigm of faith ever since.

What on earth was Abraham thinking? Let us assume that Abraham firmly believed in God and that God exists, and he receives the instruction to kill his son. Wouldn't he be mad simply to go ahead and do so?? It might not be God talking, but the devil; Abraham might be mad; the test might be to see if he refuses. All these possibilities seem more acceptable than the idea that God wants his son dead,since what kind of loving God would command such a barbaric act?

Faith sometimes needs the devout to go beyond the evidence and believe what is contrary to all they previously thought was right and true, consider for a moment the people who believe that God wishes them to become suicide bombers, to murder abortionists or gays or to persecute an ethnic minority. Before you say that God could never command such wicked things, remember that the God of the three Abrahamic faiths not only ordered the sacrifice of Issac, but also condoned the rape of a wife as punishment to the husband(2 Samuel 12),ordered the killing of followers of other religions(Deuteronomy 13)and sentenced blasphemers to death by stoning (Leviticus 24). I wouldn't even start enumerating other loving commandments from other books.

It seems there are no limits to what God might ask,and some people of faith will always faithfully do.