Bible - Great threat to morality?

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~a giant wall of text that didn't address the issue~

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You know, Catholics don't have a monopoly on Christ. What's funny is I have some friends who are Catholic who go to Mass on Saturday night and show up bright and early at my church (the Baptist church just across the street) because they like the music better.

But no, it doesn't set a dangerous precedent. Well, it doesn't if the person reading the Bible reads ALL of the Bible, not just isolated events to support whatever crazy notion they may have.

First, the would-be sacrifice was a test of Abraham's faith, and Abraham (if you read the story) responded to questions by saying that God would provide the sacrifice. It is a test to show how a person who will be totally committed to God's will ought to be a patriarch of an entire people dedicated to God's service. God never "leads us into temptation," but "delivers us from evil."

Second, human sacrifice is forbidden as an act of worship. Yes, that came later with the law given to Moses.

However, if God had accepted Abraham's sacrifice of the son who was chosen to head God's family on earth and rather gave Abraham another son in his place (from whom the Israelites would have descended), we might find that the religion itself might have found human sacrifice acceptable and God would have instructed Moses NOT to write any prohibitions against it.

But child sacrifice was NOT unheard of in other religions, and it is expressly forbidden in Yahweh worship.

There IS a parallel with Jesus' sacrifice. The important differences are that "the Father and the Son are one," meaning God's sacrifice of Himself in a physical form, and that Jesus served as both the sacrifice AND the high priest of the sacrifice. While Abraham was poised to sacrifice the next head of God's chosen people, Isaac was NOT Abraham's "one and only" son. Don't forget about Ishmael, and don't forget Abraham married again after Sarah's death and had other children. There are NO other gods, either equal with the Son or subordinate to Him. Just us. For all the faults that are within us and originate from us, God accepted the blame and the death penalty for that blame. So the sacrifice of Jesus, the "One and only," occurs at a heavier price than Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. And in this case, there was no going back.

Besides, self-sacrifice in the Christian context does NOT mean that we engage in some kind of suicide pact. Suicide happens at one's OWN hands. Going to one's death because one refuses to deny Christ means dying in the same manner as Christ died. TRUE Christians have no problem facing their own deaths. Something that disturbs me about living in the USA is just how many people are Christians because they are comfortable being Christian. I wonder how many self-proclaiming Christians would still be Christians when faced with recanting or death. Sure, that would drive Christianity underground, but the Bible also says "Whoever denies me before man, I will deny Him before the Father." We have no choice but to be open about our faith when we are asked, so the only "public" profession we could make would be before fellow believers. I think Christians would take the religion much more seriously if they understood they could die for being "outed."

But as far as a great threat to morality goes, you have to consider what the Bible actually calls believers to do. We are NOT to pose any serious threat to the political or cultural status quo. In the USA, we are guaranteed the right to speak our minds and vote according to our conscience. With our freedoms (including religion) comes the responsibility to be active politically. At the time the NT was written, Christians were seen as a political threat, so political maneuvers such as universal abolition of slavery in Roman world was out of the question. Christian slave owners, however, were put in a position by their faith to treat their servants as though they were free, and Christian servants were to seek freedom IF they could gain freedom but otherwise be respectful of their masters, showing a proper servant-like attitude just as Jesus displayed to His disciples.

In terms of modern-day morality, IF slavery were still an established institution, it sounds to me like Biblical principles of how slaves and masters should relate to each other would still be an excellent guide as to how that institution is to be carried out. However, I think that the reason that slavery as an accepted institution is either dead or nearly dead is because of Biblical emphasis on freedom and human decency, especially since OT laws regarding slavery were only written because God knew and understood the evil nature of mankind and the desire to enslave others. We're responsible for our own freedom; but if we are to lose our freedom, at the very least we have a Godly means of dealing with involuntary servanthood.

The emphasis of the value of life is a recurring theme of the Bible. The 10 Commandments might be viewed as an outline for laws in any country in the world. I've already mentioned fair treatment of slaves/servants. What about women? In a time when women were treated more like property than human beings, the Bible emphasized fair treatment and gave wives a certain amount of power and authority within the household. When searching for an appropriate wife for Jacob, why did Isaac send him to his own family? Because of Rebekah's complaining about her daughter's-in-law married to Esau--she said she was sick to death of those Hittite women. When Jacob was getting ready to leave Laban, what did he do? He consulted with his wives first. And speaking of Jacob's wives, if you want good reason against polygamy, check out what went on between Rachel and Leah competing with each other to see who could make the most babies. It was war. In certain cults in which polygamy is practiced today, it's not unusual to find the same or similar kinds of power struggles among so-called "sister wives." Not to mention that the first marriage instituted by God, Adam and Eve, was between ONE man and ONE woman, "the two become one flesh."

Proverbs deals with, among other things, properly acquiring and managing wealth. Ecclesiastes reminds us to keep things in proper perspective.

And then the gospels, which constantly reinforce the idea that we should all "love each other."

Abstaining from sexual immorality has a lot of benefits--preventing unwanted pregnancy, avoiding STDs, not to mention emotional consequences. I'm aware of other ways to have sex that also avoid those risks, but you gotta admit abstinence works every time. Rape is a horrible, violent crime and rape victims will probably mostly agree that rapists ought to be put to death along with murderers. If a man gets a woman pregnant, he should make every effort to support her. Yep, that's in the Bible, too.

We don't like liars and thieves, right? Neither does the Bible.

I could go on and on, but the Bible provides a rock-solid moral code. The Pharisaic attitude of "eye-for-an-eye" established a system of equivalency for personal injury in which the wrongdoer could still contribute to society while at the same time paying a penalty for injury against another. The Sadducees were a little bit more heavy-handed than that--they wanted to enforce these laws a bit more literally, but by and large the Pharisee doctrine was the prevalent one. We still do this. Criminals who are incarcerated for their crimes, especially for minor felonies and misdemeanors, can opt for community service if they are unable to pay fines or if they pose no significant danger while locked up for an extended period. I even got out of paying a traffic ticket by playing a free gig at a nursing home--my typical fees for things like that would have actually exceeded the ticket, but I didn't even have the money to pay the ticket and I didn't have anyone booking me at the time. Criminals and other debtors were released from their debts at the Year of Jubilee. While we don't have institutionalized slavery, many of us become indebted to others and find ourselves unable to pay debts due to reasons beyond our control (loss of a job that ordinarily would have been secure). While a slave in Biblical times could run away from an unfair master, we are able to use the justice system for bankruptcy proceedings. One command in the Bible is "Do not muzzle an ox while it treads the grain." In bankruptcy, you can protect your house and your primary means of travel along with any professional tools of your trade, so the concept is exactly the same. The Bible in many ways is more fair to more people today than many systems of government, sometimes including even our own. So I fail to see how the Bible poses any real threat.

According to the Bible, since there is a prohibition on child sacrifice and murder AND because we are instructed to discern between what you call "the voices" tell us to do and what is established as the will of God as set forth in the Bible, one may readily ignore "the voices" if they are instructing someone to do what is known to be evil. You're refusing to acknowledge the point of what God instructed Abraham to do.

@ waltur

You can't blame the Bible for some nut taking something out of context. Btw, this tactic has been tried before in an attempt to silence Conservatives.

i repeatedly avoid the subject of "the point" because "the point" was revealed after abraham tried to DO "what god instructed abraham to do."

you're refusing to acknowledge "what god instructed abraham to do." are you telling me that abraham did not know that sacrificing his own child was evil? how was it a test of faith, if he did not?

you can't have it both ways. either we are to obey god when he pops up in our head or we are to follow our morals (yours being defined by the bible). filicide is pretty evil.

The concept that God requires a test to discover Abraham's character is in obvious conflict with the concept that God is omniscient. God, under the idea that He sees and knows everything, needs no tests.

Just cause God can do something doesn't mean he will do something. In theory the Police could wiretap you home at anytime and completely ignore the courts as long as you don't find out about it. Does that mean they should do it? Same thing with nosing in on Abraham's thoughts or manipulating him like a puppet at his will he could do it but then that would make him become the tyrant you claim him to be.

If God is omniscient, then he should already know what everyone is or will ever think. And what's so much more worse about "peeking into" Abraham's thoughts than manipulating him in the way he did?

You have something known as 'free will' in the equation too, Again just because God can do something doesn't mean he will do something.

In the past people may have looked to the bible for moral guidance but nowadays its not necessary. Our attitudes have changed so much in the last century that looking for moral guidance in the bible is like trying to figure out Windows XP using a windows 3.1 manual.

I think the threat is from those who cling to the bible now and try to preach its content. So yes your thread question is correct. I agree with it.

I've actually seen more blatent acts of intolerance from the left and from Atheists than I have seen from Christians or Jewish people.

I've actually seen more blatent acts of intolerance from the left and from Atheists than I have seen from Christians or Jewish people.

What acts were these? Intolerance goes hand in hand with religion especially christianity. More death, suffering and extortion has occured in the world at the hands of religion.

I think some small town somewhere issued a fine over a plastic baby Jesus.