Non-believers... which Bible story first made you realize this wasn't exactly 'the good book'?

Question

I was 6 or 7 when I read the story of God demanding that Abraham sacrifice Isaac (in a kids' book of Bible stories)... I realized right away that this particular 'god-character' sounded more like a bad guy.

Answer 1

lot's wife turning into salt--I was 6 or 7

Answer 2

It's a shame that you did not read the entire story and the interpretation of it. God never condoned killing children. He was testing the faith of Abraham, and Abraham was very upset, but was willing to do as he was commanded. God provided the scapegoat...there is a theme which would be difficult for the non-believers to understand. Self sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. This is a theme of love. Christ was our offering, so that we as Issac did not have to die...the ram in the thicket nearby was the actual sacrifice. If you find you are commited to follow obediently, then God will find you ready and waiting to come home with him when he calls on that last day on Earth, as we know it, comes. I want to be ready...don't you?

Answer 3

I am not a non-believer, but as a believer, I believe that every story of the Bible has a point, has a moral, has a lesson to learn. When the people did bad things, and dis-obeyed God and His commands, then obviously bad things happened to the people, and, for example, you learn not to dis-obey God and His commands like the people did in any particular story, whether it was David getting someone's else's wife pregnant, and then putting him on the front lines and having him killed, or whether it is disobeying God and worshipping others, or even disobeying the Ten Commandments...you read the stories, and get a lot out of them, and know not to do what they did.

As to your thinking God is bad because of what he told Abraham to do with Isaac...you did not see the entire story then, the entire picture. God was testing Abraham. While the Devil tries to tempt people away from God, God tests people, tests their faith for Him that He will provide, and is still true and just, which He is. When Abraham was about to do what God requested, God intervened and told him to stop, and then provided the usual lamb for Abraham to sacrafice. And, the rest, as they say, is History. God still remembered His promise to Abraham, and made it so he had a lot of decendants....

Answer 4

The Bible Book is not Good or Bad...It is merely the record of mankind's struggle out of cave mode which he is still today struggling to get out of but extremely difficult when Tradition, Culture, Superstition, Religious Belief System and Stupidism shackles the minds of many. Especially the Churchs that would vanish like darkness vanishes from light without a belief (non-knowledge) system. So the churches and Religious institutions hate knowledge for fear of disintegration. They perpetuate the hoax otherwise they would not survive. In my opinion they have outlived their usefulness. But the Bible is quite simple in its outline evewr since fire was discovered and harnessed at first in the arc of the covenant and later in other things like matches.

Answer 5

There never was a story for me. I have just never believed that God existed. I went to Sunday School and Church as a child, but only because I had too. I have never felt the need for a higher power in my life. Ooohh! that sounds so self-absorbed...

Answer 6

Growing up, one of our largest family events was the Pesach Seder. One of the traditions is to spill a drop of wine for each of the plagues to recognize the suffering of others that occurred before the Jews were set free. As it was a yearly event that actually required participation, I'd say this one takes the cake (ironic, considering you can't eat cake during Pesach). Especially the killing of the first born. To do something so drastic and final as kill and then to do that to children is particularly heinous.

Answer 7

Hi,

In order -

Noah's Ark - a pretty story told to children that is really genocide.

Exodus (my family is Jewish) - god allowed his people to exist in slavery for 430 years and then finally got around to sending someone to clean up the mess.

Post-Exodus - God and Moses write out the Ten Commandments and strangely forget to include something about "Thou Shalt Not Commit Slavery". Apparently, they didn't care about slavery - they just didn't want to be slaves themselves.

Adam and Eve - how can I be given blame for something my ancestors did? How can children be punished so severely for such a small crime that they weren't even capable of understanding. And how did god just wander off and allow a talking snake into his garden with his naive children.

From there I read more of the bible and with every turn of the page the story just got worse and worse and worse.

Answer 8

It wasn't a Bible story that first made me doubt some of what the Bible teaches.

It was a book called, "Adam and Eve and the Serpent". This book explains how the Bible came to be put together.

Sandra F

Answer 9

The story of Abraham doesn't show that the Christian God is a bad guy. God told Abraham to sacrifice his son as a sin offering. He never actually let him do it. At the last minute he stopped him and provided a lamb. Abraham believed that even if He actually killed his son that God would raise him from the dead because God had promised him that through Isaac all the nations of the world would be blessed(Christ eventually came through the geneological line of Isaac) so Isaac couldn't die. Genesis 22:5 say And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship and return to you." Abraham knew both of them were coming back.
Genesis 22:7,8 says And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said: ‘My father.’ And he said: ‘Here am I, my son.’ And he said: ‘Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?’
And Abraham said: ‘God will provide Himself the lamb for a burnt-offering, my son.’ So they went both of them together.
God did provide Himself as a burnt offering in the form of His Son Jesus Christ about 2,000 years later.
Genesis 22:13,14 says Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.
And Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, "In the mount of the LORD it will be provided."
About 2,000 years later on that very spot Jesus Christ was crucified as a sin offering for the sins of the world.
God used the Abraham-Isaac sacrifice as a picture of what was to come 2,000 years later. God asking Abraham to sacrifice his own son was a picture of what God Himself was going to do 2,000 years later. He was going to sacrifice His only begotten Son for the sins of the world so that mankind could have eternal life. No other religion has such a merciful God. In all other religions you sacrifice to God to placate him so he won't come back at you. In Islam Allah asks you to send your son to die for him. In Christianity, God sends His only begotten Son to die for you. How that makes Him the bad guy, as you say, is a mystery to me.

Answer 10

Re: the slavery not in the bible:

Jesus was asked by a lawyer which of the Ten Commandments were the greatest. His response: "Matt.22:36-40: Master, which is the great commandment in the law? (37) Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (38) This is the first and great commandment. (39) The second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (40) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. "

Answer 11

But do you notice it was a test of faith, and in the end God supplied a lamb to Abraham for the sacrifice? Keep reading the story, and you will see that. And in the New Testament, that lamb is the Lamb of God, Jesus, who came to offer acceptable sacrifice for our sins.