Bigfishbest

I've been thinking about that particular event. Leonard Cohen has a song about it as well that put me on this track.

Now, as a historical fact, back in those days, sacrificing ones children was a not uncommon thing to do. The old testament god in several places tells the israelites NOT to put their children to the fire, as the term was. But if you read the texts you find that the israelites weren't very good at following commands, and one could guess that god knew that.

So he puts his favorite follower through the worst nightmare imaginable, demanding that he sacrifice his beloved son. Put him through the ringer, of doubt, despair, fear, and sorrow, let it sink in what it actually means to sacrifice a child. Then stop him. It's basically show don't tell. Put the experience of the evil of that action into his heart, and vaccinate him against such ideas. And while Abraham took that lesson to heart, I'm reasonably certain that Isaac took the lesson even more, and taught it well to all his descendants.

Is it a shit thing to do? In one man's perspective, yeah. But to set a people on a path away from human sacrifice, I'd say it wasn't a very high price to pay.

And that's if you take the story and all literally. If you take it figuratively, as a demonstration of what is the path to goodness, to people in a bronze age culture, I'd say the story carries the message across exceptionally well.

I'm a history teacher, and the first thing you learn is that history must be understood by its own time and standards, not by ours. The story of Isaac is a great example of what in our modern eyes is pure malice, but to its original culture it was a story that had the function of making a culture better.

The who? The Hu! Who? The HU!

French aristocracy? Who ordered French aristocracy?

You made me think stubeef had died. Bad meme! Bad!

Dickin around with lil'dicky

Can you guys stop complaining on Lemmy and get together a labor party. Any day now would be great.

Thank you so much America and RFK. Vaccines have become contested as scientific fact, and the only way to truly show the world the truth, is to rip away vaccines from a country that has them, and count the dead before and after. Your willingness to sacrifice potentially thousands of American lives to prove your opponents' point, is almost Christ-like in its self-sacrificial nature, and Trump-like in its mythical level of stupidity and disregard for the value of human life. The rest of the world thanks you for ridding our countries of any traction vaccine skeptics might ever have had. We thank you for your service.

Still have a few shares from the old gamestop squeeze, said I'd keep them as a memory. Might not now.

It makes me challenge my selfishness. It gives me the strength to care when I'd prefer not to. It lifts compassion as my highest ideal. I strive to forgive those who trespass against me, instead of seeking revenge. I might be an ok person without, or possibly bad. But I'm definitely better with.

Iirc, people in Soviet breadlines had money, but supply was limited and prices not allowed to follow demand. Money to spend, but nothing to buy.

Yes, not disputing the veracity of these, I have better things to do with my time, but putting them in context would be honest. Divide these cases on the number of congregations and present to me whether faith based groups have a higher or lower number of such abuses as compared to society at large. That would indicate whether there is a correlation or not.

I'm sure we can dig up similar stories from sports and conclude that sports is just as evil. On the other hand millions of children enjoy sports and never experience abuse (thank gods), and likewise, millions of faithful people are encouraged by their faith to do good and don't abuse anyone.

Now there is an element in many faiths of trusting people who wield social power and such human groups are often attractive to abusive personalities, who seek that power, for the sake of their own personal goals and desires.

A final note, your own mental development shapes how you think of God. A child thinks he's a man with a beard in the sky. A philosopher may think of the divine as a personal or unpersonal force of good. I find it very hard to understand how someone who believes in a life after death, where wickedness gets punished for eternity, can commit child abuse. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I just can't fathom why someone who truly believes in judgment can set themselves up like that. They must either not believe and merely use the trappings of religion as said above, or do believe, but be persons suffering from the most cognitive dissonance generating defective programming imagineable.

I dunno, it's Friday and I'm in a mood, but religion (not organized) makes me try to do good to all my fellow humans.