Abraham and todays holiday

[thelionheart]

Today the Muslims celebrated the Adha holiday. Today is the day the Hojjaj (those who went to mecca to do the Islamic duty of Hajj:primilage) are expected to do certain rituals near the Holy Mosque of Mecca. One of which is the sacrifice of a sheep or a cow.

I became aware that jews used to give sacrifices to the temple to get the forgiveness of god. In Islam the story is a bit different. The sacrificed animal is to be distributed to the poor of the Muslim nation and that's quite a lot (3 million Hajj) !

The story of this holiday is the story of Abraham and his son, Isma'il. When Abraham didn't have a child for a long time, god blessed him with Isma'il. He loved his son a lot and was very thankful to what Allah has given him. But Allah wanted to test the faith of Abraham so he let him dream that he was slaughtering his son as a sacrifice. In Islam, the dream of a prophet is a direct command from god so Abraham had to execute.

Quran : "My son, I see in my dream that I am slaugtering you what do you think? (given that this is an order from god)"
Quran: "father, do what ever you were commanded to do, you shall find me patient if Allah wills"
Quran: "And when they Surrendered (the literal translation from arabic is : when they became muslims!) and had laid him Prostrate on his forehead we called Oh Abraham Thou hast already fulfilled the vision thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For this was obviously a trial. And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice. And We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times"

Saffat:102-108

Now for the D&D: This is how a muslim should be. A muslim must fulfil the commands of Allah no matter how rediculous they may be (killing your own son). But Still god will not order people to carry loads bigger than what they can carry, and will only order them to do things within their limits.

[Helm]

When was the last time Allah ordered anyone to do anything? It does seem like he's been keeping quiet for the last one and half thousand years.

[thelionheart]

When was the last time Allah ordered anyone to do anything? It does seem like he's been keeping quiet for the last one and half thousand years.

1430 years approximately. But As a muslim I should follow the Quran which tells me exactly what Allah wants from me

[LegionnaireX]

That story is derived from the Hebrew Torah, except in its original form it was Issac, not Ismail, that was to be sacrificed.

[thelionheart]

That story is derived from the Hebrew Torah, except in its original form it was Issac, not Ismail, that was to be sacrificed.

I am aware of that, Luckily we don't accept the Torah as it is today.

[LegionnaireX]

I am aware of that, Luckily we don't accept the Torah as it is today.

I don't understand how this works though. The Quran could not have been written any earlier than the 600s AD. The Torah was most likely first written down during the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BC. That is a difference of more than 1000 years. For 1000 years it was Isaac who was to be sacrificed, then Mohammed comes along and hijacks the book of Genesis, and with one fell swoop completely changes the story to suit is own interests as an alleged descendent of Ismail.

It doesn't really matter whether it was Isaac or Ismail. I despise this story and always have despised this story because it tells the reader to value blind obedience over emotion and critical thinking abilities. This is the sort of blind obedience to God that the writers of the Hebrew Bible use to justify acts of blatant genocide against the original inhabitants of the Promised Land. It is a very authoritarian idea. Abraham didn't even allow himself to ask God why he must sacrifice his son, and to what righteous end it will lead to.

[thelionheart]

I don't understand how this works though. The Quran could not have been written any earlier than the 600s AD. The Torah was most likely first written down during the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BC. That is a difference of more than 1000 years. For 1000 years it was Isaac who was to be sacrificed, then Mohammed comes along and hijacks the book of Genesis, and with one fell swoop completely changes the story to suit is own interests as an alleged descendent of Ismail.

from my faith's prespective, it was the hebrew writers of the Torah who changed the name of the son to be sacrificed to belittle their arab causins. So being closer to the incident doesn't make your data more liable.

It doesn't really matter whether it was Isaac or Ismail. I despise this story and always have despised this story because it tells the reader to value blind obedience over emotion and critical thinking abilities. This is the sort of blind obedience to God that the writers of the Hebrew Bible use to justify acts of blatant genocide against the original inhabitants of the Promised Land. It is a very authoritarian idea. Abraham didn't even allow himself to ask God why he must sacrifice his son, and to what righteous end it will lead to.

Abraham was sacrificing his son's body and not his son! The importance of the story isn't that we should follow god blindly so that he could lead us to our doom. It rather teaches us to trust god, and to know that he want order us to do things we can't handel. Islam commands the muslim to rely on him self and think for himself most of the time. But in addition it give him or her an idiology to follow to preserve his/her faith and spread it. This is according to Islam of course the purpose of life!

[LegionnaireX]

from my faith's prespective, it was the hebrew writers of the Torah who changed the name of the son to be sacrificed to belittle their arab causins. So being closer to the incident doesn't make your data more liable.

In all honesty that is ridiculous. I hope Islamic theologians can do better than that. For over 1000 years before Islam even existed, Jewish scribes were writing down that is was Isaac who was to be sacrificed. In that same time period Arabia had no cultural or political identity. It consisted of roaming, nomadic tribes with their own patron Gods. I'm not even sure the Torah speaks of Arabs as descendants of Ismail. Mohammed may have made that up to give himself some importance.

The scholarly concensus is that much of the material of the book of Genesis was either lifted or influenced from Babylonian literature during the 5th century exile. What the story was in its original oral form is lost to history. But it really doesn't make a lot of sense for the Jews to change their own oral traditions in order to spite a people that said oral traditions wouldn't have a clear connection to for over 1000 years.

Abraham was sacrificing his son's body and not his son! The importance of the story isn't that we should follow god blindly so that he could lead us to our doom. It rather teaches us to trust god, and to know that he want order us to do things we can't handel. Islam commands the muslim to rely on him self and think for himself most of the time. But in addition it give him or her an idiology to follow to preserve his/her faith and spread it. This is according to Islam of course the purpose of life!

The concept of a soul most likely didn't exist when the story of the Patriarchs originated. Not even all Jews today, and certainly few Jews back then, even believed in life after death. The soul entered Western monotheism with Christianity, and even there certainly had influences from Hellenistic beliefs.

If you interpret the story in its proper context, it is very simple: God tested Abraham's faith by asking him to kill his own son.

I still think the entire moral of the story, especially given what you claim it to be, is ridiculous. "Trust God at all times, because he always knows what is right for you and will not make you do stupid things like kill your own son, even though he gave such an order for Abraham to kill his own son and halted the command at the very last second."

Abraham is rewarded for his unconditional faith in God. He didn't even question the purpose of the act? He didn't even question whether it was really God he was talking to? It is uncharacteristic of the God to ask for a human sacrifice, it could have been the devil asking Abraham to commit such an act. Such faith leaves no room for critical thought.

Take for example, a soldier and his commanding officer. A low ranking soldier must have faith in the competence and good will of his superior, or else the entire discipline of the military were to break down. However, if an officer orders his men to fire on a civilian crowd, it is the human duty of the men to refuse such a ridiculous order, atleast until the motivation for such an act is made apparent and is reasonable.

Blind obedience to superiors is what made possible the Holocaust or Bloody Sunday in Russia. By modern war crimes standards, "just following orders" is not legal protection for crimes against humanity.

How the hell is it faith before reason? Its perfectly reasonable to kill anyone in the name of God, if God told you to do it. It puts faith before your own personal perceptions, it puts faith before your own ego and knowledge. Its accepting, ok, I dont know all the facts, God does- this is required because he told me to do so. Thats not unreasonable in anyway. If abraham spat in Gods eye and said no, THAT would be unreasonable.

It is not unreasonable to ask for an explanation for a typically unreasonable act.

Lets say, however, that you are right. Fully trusting in God in reasonable. The problem is we live in a world where God either doesn't speak at all, or speaks through a handful of special people. How do you know whom to listen to? How do you know whether they really represent God's will? A history of violence has been commited by people that believe they are doing God's will. What was and what was not God's will is murky, and unclear. All that is clear is a bunch of dead and bloodied bodies, most likely billions if you add them up across the millenia. And the world is in no better place for it.

[Squiggle]

What are we discussing here, exactly?

[Helm]

What are we discussing here, exactly?

We're discussing for some reason I'm not sure why. One thing I like about Islam is that they have that giant magic black cube thing, I don't know what it does but it looks interesting.

[Squiggle]

We're discussing for some reason I'm not sure why.

Yeah, like theres no topic. He just gave us the Muslim version of an OT story, ok? Is he asking what we think of this? If its moral? Its a pretty simple and straight forward thing, easy as anything to interpret. Trust in and follow God's will, though God will not order you to do anything that is evil, only good. Not much more to say.

[thelionheart]

We're discussing for some reason I'm not sure why. One thing I like about Islam is that they have that giant magic black cube thing, I don't know what it does but it looks interesting.

The Kaaba is the center we face at prayer. It serves no other purpose.

[★Bandiera Rossa☭]

The Kaaba is the center we face at prayer. It serves no other purpose.

It is my understanding that it is similar to the purpose of Icons in Orthodox Christianity, it serves as a focus for the prayer rather than being worshiped itself.

[cfmonkey45]

It is my understanding that it is similar to the purpose of Icons in Orthodox Christianity, it serves as a focus for the prayer rather than being worshiped itself.

Icons in Orthodox Christianity serve multiple purposes, but not necessarily are they the focus of prayers. They mainly serve to illustrate biblical stories or the lives of saints with iconography.

The Kaaba supposedly has some significance with God casting out Adam from heaven, and I guess there is a black rock that is supposedly the repository of the sins of everyone who visits there. From my understanding of the Pre-Islamic Middle East, there were numerous Kaabas, some with Red Stones, Blue Stones, and White Stones, but I guess this one is the only surviving one.

I'm not sure if this is in the Koran, but I remember hearing the story that when Mohammad was clearing out the Kaaba of its contents of Pagan Idols, he noticed an icon of the Theotokos, or Mary with Jesus, and he held it in high regard.

[Sphere]

Its a story common to all three of the Abrahamic religions, and to me it is the most immoral in them.

Abraham was sacrificing his son's body and not his son! The importance of the story isn't that we should follow god blindly so that he could lead us to our doom. It rather teaches us to trust god, and to know that he want order us to do things we can't handel. Islam commands the muslim to rely on him self and think for himself most of the time. But in addition it give him or her an idiology to follow to preserve his/her faith and spread it. This is according to Islam of course the purpose of life!

From my viewpoint, it is a story meant to get people to follow the orders of those who claim to know the mind and the will of God, even if those orders are immoral. In the words of Christopher Hitchens (loosely)...

Left alone, good people will perform good actions, and wicked people will perform wicked actions. But to get a good person to perform a wicked action takes religion

And I assert that the story of Abraham and Issac/Ismail is a perfect example of this.

[Hax]

It places faith before reason, which is the main intent of such a story (if you really, really believe in God no matter what, he'll save you and make you happy! or something) which is catastrophal for a society, from my point of view.

[Squiggle]

How the hell is it faith before reason? Its perfectly reasonable to kill anyone in the name of God, if God told you to do it. It puts faith before your own personal perceptions, it puts faith before your own ego and knowledge. Its accepting, ok, I dont know all the facts, God does- this is required because he told me to do so. Thats not unreasonable in anyway. If abraham spat in Gods eye and said no, THAT would be unreasonable.

[Himster]

We can't follow god blindly because as fallen humans we can't tell the difference between god's word and satan's will anymore and it seems to be getting worse.

[Tankbuster]

How the hell is it faith before reason? Its perfectly reasonable to kill anyone in the name of God, if God told you to do it.

Which brings up the question: is there anything at all God could do that would disprove the statement "God is good?". God ordering murder? Apparently not. God lying or deceiving? Apparently not. God committing infanticide in Egypt or a global genocide? Apparently not.
So what on Earth could he possibly do that would make him 'not good' in a theist's eyes?

If the answer is "nothing", then this creature is obviously bound to a completely other code of morality (in fact he seems to not be bound by any such codes at all), and the statement "God is good" (one of the tenets of your faith) is an utterly meaningless statement.

The Catholic Church ruled over Europe for nearly 1000 years. In that time period, Europe was the most illiterate, technologically backward, and violent place in the world. At the time Arabia was the light of the world in times of science and mathematics. The Catholic Church prosecuted any kind of free thought or scientific progress that didn't conform to doctrine. So don't try to link Christianity to progress.

Sorry, Legionnaire, but all those statements are wrong. And that's coming from a guy who just gave you rep for a good post earlier in the thread.
Christianity, for all its faults, did come to incorporate Neo-Platonism and through that acquired a respect for the works of the Greek philosophers and their inquiries into the natural world. And that was a catalyst for science in Early Medieval Europe, not an obstacle.

[LegionnaireX]

Sorry, Legionnaire, but all those statements are wrong. And that's coming from a guy who just gave you rep for a good post earlier in the thread.
Christianity, for all its faults, did come to incorporate Neo-Platonism and through that acquired a respect for the works of the Greek philosophers and their inquiries into the natural world. And that was a catalyst for science in Early Medieval Europe, not an obstacle.

At the risk of going slightly off track, I'd like to know how this came to be. To be sure, Catholic Europe had its fair share of intellectuals, such as Thomas Aquinas and later Erasmus, but education and intellectualism were confined to the priestly class and higher nobility.

Can the Church really be said to have been a catalyst for the prosperity of mankind, or really even science? Galileo was forced to publically renounce his life's work, and the Church didn't publically apologize to Darwin until a few years ago.

Squiggle basically asserted that Christianity is the reason why Westen society has progressed to become the dominant culture in the world. I'm trying to point out that secular forces are much more likely the cause of our prosperity.