Thursday, May 29, 2008

Bible Question

For some time now, I have had a great deal of trouble reconciling the story of God's commanding Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice with God's prohibition of human sacrifice as noted in such passages as Jeremiah 7.31 and 32.35. In those passages, God expresses his anger at his people's idolatry and their having adopted the practice of sacrificing humans to other gods, and he says that the idea of his people performing human sacrifices had never even entered his mind. If the idea had never entered his mind, how do we explain God's request to Abraham?


I suppose one could say that it never entered God's mind that Abraham actually go through with the sacrifice, but that answer doesn't satisfy me. If God doesn't like human sacrifice, why use that as the big test of someone's faith? Why go to the trouble of removing Abraham from his hometown where idolatry was the norm (and human sacrifice certainly could have been a common practice in culture's idolatry) to a place where he could be influenced to worship only one God, but then test Abraham by asking him to perform a practice that he had taken Abraham away from, a practice that we learn later in the bible that he actually detests?

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Lest We Forget

I like most other people spent my Memorial Day weekend having fun rather than observing the original intention of the holiday. The holiday was meant for us remember the sacrifice of those who died during military service. However, the Pentagon does not want us to remember them in this way:


Monday, May 05, 2008

School's Out For the Summer!

I posted my grades yesterday afternoon. Now I am free until the 25th of August! Did I ever mention how much I like being a teacher?