All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 4, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
46:20
41 Power or Virtue? (A Love Story)
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hello, everybody!
It is 5.17 on Wednesday evening, January the 4th, I think?
It's 5.17 on Wednesday evening, January the 4th, I think, 5th, something like that.
5th?
So I hope you're doing well.
I am in a pleasantly musical mood, having listened to some wonderful music all day long in my fabulous Zen Extra 30 GB MP3 player.
Actually, more like WMA.
I find those files sound just a little bit better.
So, to continue our chat from this morning... Actually, no.
Before I do that, a gentleman named Niels emailed me with A pretty funny email which I think I'll share with you.
I'm not going to read it because I'm driving.
But he sent me an email with the subject line was the word MISTAKE with an exclamation mark after it.
And so I opened it with curiosity, always happy to know when I'm making mistakes so that hopefully I can make one fewer.
And he said to me, gotcha!
It's good to find something that's incorrect, you know, and I appreciate that.
And so it turned out that in one of my semi-misplaced biological metaphors I talked about the egrets on the back of hippos and it being a parasitical relationship, And he is entirely correct in pointing out, of course, that it is symbiotic.
Which could also be said, of course, for the bacteria in my intestines, without whom I would have a little bit of trouble turning a piece of ham into a soliloquy.
So, thank you very much for his catching me out on that.
An excellent correction, and I really appreciate it.
So, to get back to our discussion of religious metaphors, religious imagery, religious mythology, there are two other topics that I think are worth chatting about when it comes to understanding the religious mindset.
And one of them is the story of Job, or as he's occasionally called, Job.
Now, Job was a pretty rich fellow and, you know, loved God, worshipped God, seemed to be a fairly upright patriarch.
You know, probably didn't sell too many of his daughters into sexual slavery.
And, of course, even if he did, it's not like the Bible would have any problems with that.
In fact, I think it even lays out the terms of the contract.
Oh, and if you hear the occasional clacking sound, I'm sorry.
My throat's a little dry.
And so I'm sucking on a little hard candy.
Hopefully I won't choke to death because That would be pretty gross to listen to, so I'll try and be careful with where it's going.
So yeah, Job is this upright, God-fearing guy, pious, and all the good stuff that God wants.
And so God's sort of sitting on a hill one day, and the old black devil comes up, and God is staring with great satisfaction at Job and thinking to himself, by golly, you know, there is a pious worshiper if ever there was one.
And Satan comes up to God, and looking at God sort of sitting there smiling smugly over Job, he says, you know, that guy, he doesn't really love you.
And God says, what do you mean he doesn't love me?
Don't you see him with his burnt offerings and his selling of his daughters and his piety and his holiness?
And the devil says, well, yeah, OK, sure.
I mean, he likes you, but that's only because he's really rich.
You know, so he's kind of giving thanks to you, not because he loves you, but because he's rich, and you made him rich.
So he's just giving you thanks, like you're someone who just gave him money.
And God's like, hmm, I don't like the sound of that very much.
And you can be happy that I don't have access to my echo chamber for the true God effect.
So, what God does is he says that the sort of doubt starts gnawing in God's breast, as it is wont to do, and God then says, OK, well, let me put old Joby to the test.
So then he, through some mechanism I can't recall, causes Job to lose all of his money.
And his sheep, I think his sheep are struck by plague.
He's a farmer, a shepherd or something, some sort of big-time agricultural fellow.
So, his sheep sort of keel over with hoof-and-mouth or foot-and-mouth disease and, you know, all of his livestock die and his crops are burned and all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, he still says, okay, well, I guess this is God's test and it's a test I'm willing to take.
So, thank you, God.
Everything's wonderful and I still love you, love you, love you.
So, God goes back to the devil and says, Ha!
You see?
Job does love me.
You said it was only because of the money and now he has no money and he still loves me.
And the devil says, well sure, he loves you because he's still got his family.
And God's like, mmm, I don't like the sound of that.
So God basically kills his family.
I can't remember in what manner, right?
And Job's like, oh man, that sort of sucks.
I like those.
I mean, I was hoping to make a profit off my youngest daughters, but hey, even the rest of them were kind of nice, and I kind of don't like that they're dead and gone.
But what the hey, I'm still, you know, big with the devout thing, so I'm going to continue to worship God.
So God goes back to the devil and says, you see, now he doesn't even have his family and still he loves me.
And the devil says, well sure he loves you, because he's still got his health.
You know, the guy's still not sick, so he's gonna love you because he thinks you're the source of his health.
So God, as you can imagine, is like, hmm, I don't like the sound of that.
I'd better test him.
And So, you know, basically he lifts his little finger and, you know, Job's skin erupts in sort of virulent pustules and his hair falls out and his toes fall off and he's just, you know, a quivering pile of leprous, scabby flesh.
And, you know, I can't remember how many of these love tests there are, but there's obviously quite a few of them.
And at the end, basically, Job says, Oh, for the love of all that's holy or unholy, I mean, can't we reason about this?
Like, can't we just have some sort of discussion about this?
I'm sort of unhappy that I don't have a God I can reason with who just keeps striking me down with plague after plague.
And, you know, there really is, of course, no logical end to this kind of love test.
I mean, if you've ever been involved with a sort of really insecure partner, like a romantic partner, You know, if she is insecure and does not feel lovable, and if she has a particular mindset, tending a little towards sadism perhaps, then she is going to devise for you a series of love tests, right?
So she's going to behave badly, and then, you know, she's going to say, if you chastise her, you don't love me anymore.
And you're going to say, no, of course I love you.
So then she's going to behave worse.
You know, this is what a psychologist might call sort of a borderline personality disorder where you sort of are drawn to destroy what you claim to love, right?
So this is the really clingy woman who is so clingy that you get like a five-page email after your first date with all of your sort of personality quirks delved into in detail and you can sort of feel that claustrophobic net of obsessive femininity closing over your face so you maybe you back off and it's because she wants you so badly she goes overboard and you know repels you and you know any of this sort of where you know in reaching for someone we knock them over and sort of scare them off
you know that is sort of an indication of an unstable personality and the basic problem of course is a lack of self-respect a lack of self-love and you know this belief that that love should be irrespective of behavior right I mean, this is sort of what the story of Job is talking about.
So, you know, we should, you know, God's basic position is I want Job to love me for no reason whatsoever.
Simply to love me because I am God.
Whereas the devil says that Job's love is conditional, right?
So Job loves you because you give him good things.
And, you know, I really can't see exactly what is so wrong with that.
I mean, I love my wife because she's wonderful to me.
You know, I mean, on every level, she's just a delight to be around and, you know, enriches my life in ways that I would go hoarse trying to describe.
And, you know, the reason that I married her was of the, I don't know, couple of dozen women that I went out with, she was the one who made my life better.
I mean, it's not brain surgery, right?
I mean, it's like, you know, this woman was insecure, or this woman was difficult, or this woman was aggressive, or this woman had a bad temper, or this woman, you know, wanted me to support her but didn't want to do anything to support me back.
Or, you know, this woman was religious and wouldn't give it up despite reason, and this woman was, you know, pretty but not too bright.
And this, you know, you're sort of going through that, you know, Goldilocks and the three bears thing until you find the person who gives you the most benefit, the most sort of, the most unqualified, you know, sweetness and wonderfulness and, you know, everything that's good and juicy under the sun.
And that's who you love, right?
I mean, that's, you don't love somebody who's going to make things difficult for you.
You don't love somebody who's going to make your life horrible, because then what would it mean to love somebody, right?
I mean, we love what gives us benefit, and I don't mean in an exploitive sense, right?
Because, you know, I'm not going to choose somebody who I can exploit, because that's going to be a short-term relationship that I may get a certain amount of goodies early on, but it's not going to last, and resentment is going to grow, and, you know, all that, and that's not going to... that's not very good, right?
I mean, if I took a job as a doctor, you know, I'd get really well paid for about four days until people realized that I didn't have a clue what I was doing, right?
So, I mean, that kind of short-term gain isn't really worth it.
But God, in the Old Testament story of Job, takes an entirely different view of the matter.
So, you know, Job is rich and has a great family life and is successful and is healthy and so, you know, the devil says, well, he loves you because of these benefits that you provide to him.
And so God, like some crazed, neurotic, self-destructive, borderline personality case, starts to strip away all of the benefits that Job perceives to be receiving from him.
So he, you know, strips away his family, his wealth, his health, and so on, and still demands to be loved.
And it's only at the very end that, and I can't remember exactly how it ends, but it's only at the very end that Job sort of falls apart and says, okay, like, enough is enough.
Like, well, what are you trying to do to me here?
So, I mean, this is a very pathological mental state, and it is one in which, you know, God wants to be loved despite the torture that he is imposing upon Job.
And so then the real question is, and I think it's sort of, there's sort of two important questions that come out of it.
One I'll spend a lot of time on, and the other one I'll probably forget, so I'm sorry if you're listening to this for the second time.
I'll do my best.
But, you know, the real question, I think, in the story of Job is something like, well, what is Job supposed to love?
Right?
I mean, anybody who kills their family, destroys their wealth, and makes us sick, you know, to the point of, you know, limbs falling off, is not what we would call a very good person.
I mean, in fact, that would be stone evil of a kind that you almost never see in the real world, right?
And, given that we would not think that This is a very good person.
That person's claim demands that we love them.
You know, it would sort of be akin to a sort of a concentration camp guard who, you know, takes us, kills our family in front of us, destroys our home and all our property, steals our money, and then injects us with some flesh-rotting ailment, and then stands over us and demands that we love him.
I mean, this is exactly the story of Job.
And of course, when we look at it in human terms, we would say, you know, the only thing that I would hope, perhaps, is that my rotting fingers had enough strength to strangle this guy before I left, right?
Before I died.
You know, or I'm just going to expire in sorrow at the loss of everything that I treasure, but I'm sure as heck not going to love this guy.
Because that is, you know, unbelievably sadistic.
And of course, you know, strike eight million against the idea of a non-interventionist God, right?
So then, the question is, do we love God because God is good, or do we love God because God is powerful?
And I just sort of want to let that question simmer for a moment because it is an extraordinarily important question in theology.
And something which the Christians that I've talked to have never had any luck answering.
And the reason that it's an important question is that if we love God because God is good, Then we have to have some idea of what makes God good.
How do we know that God is good?
I mean, isn't it conceivable that everything's completely reversed, and the devil is the one who loves us, and God is the one who isn't good, and so on?
Like, if you don't have any definition of what makes something good, then choosing between God and the devil is sort of like choosing between two different sports teams.
There's no particular criteria by which you would choose to ally yourself with one sports team or another.
You know, it was like flipping a coin.
Because there's no criteria for measuring why your allegiance should be to one or the other.
Now, the other thing that, you know, is important is that, you know, while of course God says he's good, but you would expect any being who was asking for your allegiance to say that he or she was good.
So, you know, the fact that God says something is sort of, you know, doesn't really matter that much when it comes to judging whether God is good.
Just defining God as the good is tautological, right?
I mean, God is good.
Why should we worship God?
Because he's good.
Well, what does good mean?
Well, God is good.
Good is God.
I mean, it doesn't mean anything.
And we could be mistaken.
You know, sitting down here in our veil of tears, looking up at this Your beautiful sky God, you know, we might be actually looking down into the sort of navel of Satan, so to speak.
And so the question of whether we worship God because God is good is very difficult to answer.
We have no criteria by which to judge God as being good, especially since the moral rules that God gives to us He does not himself follow, right?
I mean, he kills, he's full of wrath, he is, you know, genocidal, you know, he tortures, he refuses to help those who are in need despite the parable of the Good Samaritan.
I mean, there's stuff in my other podcasts about this, so, you know, just trust me, it's a little tricky to define God as good when God gives you all these moral rules that, you know, ensure that his actions are bad.
You know, so in this sense, God is much more akin to, you know, what we would call a hypocritical parent, or what has also been called a pedagogical parent.
And a hypocritical parent, or, you know, in my view, a parent, is one who basically says, do as I say, not as I do.
Who attempts, who uses the argument for morality against their children, right?
Because it's the most powerful argument you can make to someone.
And then does not act in that manner and is incredibly offended when somebody else does what they counsel or what they do back to them.
So, to take it from the abstract to the particular, as I mentioned before, like my mother was very violent when I was growing up and was just this complete harridan.
And when I got older and sort of began to tower over her, Then, you know, if I ever got angry at her, she would, you know, be shocked, right?
I mean, when I, you know, she came to sort of, I don't know, about 14 or so, 13 or 14, and she came to sort of hit me and I just grabbed her Her arm, and I said, you know, don't you dare ever raise your hand to me again.
Like, that's over and done with.
And if you do, or whatever, I'm gonna, you know, belt you back.
Because, you know, if you can dish it out but can't take it, I got no respect for you.
I mean, something like that.
And of course, she was shocked and appalled.
You know, oh, don't you dare raise your, you know, hand against me.
It all got kind of shrieky and silly, right?
But, you know, the point is that this is sort of poisonous pedagogy or poisonous parenting.
Because it's so hypocritical, right?
I mean, if my mother has the power to beat me, and she does, because I'm small and defenseless, then, you know, that's obviously a rule that she has.
It's okay if you have the power to beat someone who doesn't.
So then when I have the power, and I attempt to follow that same rule, I mean, or threaten it even, you know, just in self-defense, Then, you know, I'm a bad person and she's a poor old mother and, you know, how can I raise my hand against her and blah blah blah, right?
So that's sort of one example.
A less volatile example of this kind of hypocrisy is, you know, Christina's parents, their sort of trick was withdrawal, right?
So if they, if Christina did something that displeased her parents, you know, which was always kind of tricky to figure out, then they would withdraw from her and not talk to her, which, you know, they always, you know, parents who are bad always find the thing that you hate the most.
And that's how they get you, right?
I mean, and I'm not going to say this is true of all parents, because not all parents are sadists, but If you do have the misfortune to be born to one of these devils, then for me the worst thing has always been physical violence.
I don't mind social humiliation that much.
I don't mind being teased.
I'm not that big on status.
I don't really mind if I don't have any money.
So none of those things.
I don't mind if public humiliation isn't really that big a deal for me.
So, but the one thing that is unbearable to me is physical violence.
And that's not a result of my mother beating me, but that's why she beat me, right?
Because what she did with my brother was much more social humiliation, which is something that he can't stand.
So it's less beating and more being yelled at in public.
And for Christina, the worst thing for her, it's like the Room 101, right?
The worst thing for her is withdrawal.
So that's what her parents did.
And then when she decided against seeing them for some time for a variety of reasons, you know, they were unbelievably angry and upset and so on.
Because, you know, I mean, what's good for the goose should be good for the gander, right?
So if they feel displeased and feel that it's perfectly right to withdraw and not communicate, then surely they have no problem when somebody else does that, right?
Because it's like a rule, right?
I mean, but if they have one standard of behavior for themselves and then the complete opposite standard for everyone else, but they claim that the first standard is moral, right?
Because it always is, right?
They never said to her, You know, we're not talking to you because we know that it's tortuous for you and we want you to conform, right?
They said, we're not talking to you because you've done a bad thing and you're a bad girl and this is what we do when someone does something bad, right?
So it was like a just retribution.
It was considered to be a moral thing to do.
And so, of course, you would expect that to be reversed and for them to say, well, I'm very glad that you learned this moral rule called withdraw from those who have done wrong to you.
And, you know, we're glad that you're applying it.
You obviously have learned your moral instruction well.
Of course, they did nothing of the kind.
You know, they're shocked and appalled.
And how can you do this to us?
And, you know, you're a bad girl now for withdrawing, right?
So, they're good people for withdrawing when they're displeased.
But my wife is a bad person for withdrawing when she's displeased.
So, I mean, this is the kind of stuff that you see in families all the time.
It's the kind of natural abuse that parents, you know, get into, right?
And...
You know, I wrote once in a novel that parents dominate their young with the lazy rod of absolutes.
And then when their children get older, they defend their own actions with the lazy fog of relativism or something like that.
I think it was worded a little better, but I was sort of pretty aware of this sort of hypocrisy that goes on with parents.
And so in the story of Job, It very much is this sort of poisonous pedagogy wherein God as the parent, you know, is angry at the idea or is discomforted at least at the idea that he may being loved for the benefits he provides.
Right?
Which is, you know, in a sad sort of way, you know, kind of evil, right?
Because if I expect to be loved, not for any benefits I provide, but for some other criteria, then I am going to have to test that by being abusive towards someone, which is, of course, what Job ends up doing.
And, you know, the other thing that you would sort of expect in this story is that God, you know, who's all-knowing and can see into the heart of things, you know, would know whether Job liked him for his virtue, like whether Job loved God for his virtue or not.
And he would also, it seems kind of silly to me, that God would just sort of fall into Satan's trap here, right?
I mean, would just sort of Satan obviously wants God to act badly against Job so that Job's faith will be tested.
And again, in the way that I talked about this morning with the Garden of Eden, this is It's a similar kind of story, because misfortune should be what helps you understand that there is no God.
I mean, if you were a rational human being, or even had some interest in rationality, and weren't, sort of, didn't have your intellect and integrity smashed down by all of these stupid absolutes when you were a child, it's religious nonsense, socialistic nonsense.
Then you would say, okay, well, God is all good.
God loves me, this and that.
Yet, you know, I have leukemia or, you know, something like that.
And you'd say, well, what's going on here?
Isn't that sort of a disproof of the idea that God is good, right?
And so, you know, the devil is in a sense, you know, and this is a metaphorical and somewhat subjective take on the story.
So, you know, if you like it, great.
If you don't, I'm not going to be too offended.
The devil is sort of the reality principle here trying to wake up Job.
Right?
I mean trying to wake him up to the reality of his situation.
Right?
So the way that the devil tries to wake up Job and to get him to recognize reality is to tempt God or to taunt God into abusing Job.
Right?
So what is the devil really showing here?
He's showing Job the virulent and destructive and psychotic side of God.
Now, isn't that, at some point, going to be enough for Job to say, OK, OK, I get it.
I get it.
I'm missing something.
I'm not right about something.
I get it.
And so, in that sense, you know, the devil is actually performing a favor.
To Job, right?
He's giving him a view into the sort of genocidal psychoses of the deity that he claims to worship because this deity is good.
Now, of course, the Christians call this a test of faith, right?
And I sort of call this a test of stupidity.
Like, are you stupid enough to continue to cling to blind absolutes when every single piece of evidence points the other way?
I mean, Christians always translate this into a virtue, right?
Like, the less reason you have to believe in God, the more beneficial, the more virtuous it is to believe in God.
So, yes, it's easy to believe in God when you're doing well.
But when you're doing badly, that is when your faith is tested.
It's like, no, that's when your stupidity is tested.
You know, and Christians always seem to pass the stupid test in this sense.
I mean, they pick up the paper, they know what goes on in the world.
I mean, I remember, gosh, this is many, many years ago, I knew a gentleman when I was first in the business world.
And he was an accountant.
And I did some work for him in his office and then he asked me to set up a whole computer system for him, so I did.
So we drove to his house.
And you know, I was still dead broke at this point.
I had just left university and so I was sort of casting about for my next step.
You know, he had a big house.
I can't remember.
It was like six bedrooms or something like that.
And we came in through the parking lot and I just, you know, I've always appreciated and admired nice things, you know.
Again, I don't think anybody's stolen them from me and I sort of, I'm glad that I have them now myself because, you know, I worked very hard to be able to afford them and achieve them.
So I said to him, wow, you know, this is a nice place.
And he turned to me and he said, with a kind of insufferable smugness that I can still recall so vividly now, he turned to me and he said, yes, the Lord has been good to us.
And my, oh my, oh my, didn't I just want to blow up at him.
Oh my Lord, I still remember that course of adrenaline that went through my body.
I mean, my heavens, can you imagine That saccharine vanity and pompousness behind that statement.
The Lord has been good to us.
I mean, I think he meant his family, or to me.
And I thought, oh my Lord.
So, the Lord has been good to you, and of course this is, you know, based on the fact that you're a virtuous Christian, I would assume.
And was the Lord just not good to me by placing me in the family I grew up in?
Is the Lord just not good to people who were born in Kosovo who have to endure shelling and bombings?
Was the Lord just not good to children born in the Nazi regime?
Was the Lord just not good to all of the people in the Rwandan massacre?
Were people not good to the people who ended up as body parts in Idi Amin's fridge?
I mean, my God, I've got to tell you, that stuff just turns my stomach.
The idea that somebody can think that they're singled out for special treatment by God without having any thought to what this implies about everybody else who suffers.
Oh, my heavens.
I mean, I've got to tell you, I could do five podcasts on my moral rage about that, but there's no need to because I think I've communicated how I feel about that kind of stuff already.
So, this desire of Satan's to wake Job up by provoking this question, right?
Why do I love God?
It's the same way that Job, sorry, that Satan tries to wake up Adam and Eve from this narcoleptic foliage-based coma called the Garden of Eden.
He's trying to wake them up.
You know, he's saying, look, if you just obey blindly, You're dead.
There's no point being alive.
And then when they eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then God curses them, sends them out of the garden, and they get work and babies.
You know, seems like a pretty good deal to me.
So, in a lot of places in the Bible, the devil can be, I think, clearly seen as trying to wake mankind up, to wake mankind out of this psychosis This phantasmagorical hell of religion by pointing out sort of the moral contradictions, right?
I mean, there was some Schwarzenegger film where Gabriel Byrne played the devil, I think.
And, you know, the devil said at one point—and the devil always gets the best lines, right?
I mean, the devil said something like, oh, so when anything—oh yeah, of course you're into God.
I mean, God gets all the good PR.
You know, anytime anything bad happens, it's my fault.
Anytime anything good happens, God gets all the credit.
And anytime anything bad happens, well, He works in mysterious ways, and I get blamed.
Of course you're gonna love the guy, or something like that.
Which is, you know, entirely true.
I mean, it's the kind of silliness that human beings, just as a species, we just need to break out of this psychotic biosphere of hell, of religious Fantasyland, you know, not just for the sake of, you know, violence, the violence that it causes, but just for the sake of, it is a sickness, you know, it is a kind of mental malaria or sleeping sickness that we just have to rouse ourself out of.
So the one final text that I would like to have a chat about, and actually I had a brain squeeze on the highway, I couldn't remember the names of the people, so I've just kind of checked it at home.
The last story that I'll talk about in terms of the Bible is from Genesis 22 verses 1 to 19, the New Living Translation, as opposed to the old Undead Translation, which is Abraham's obedience test.
You know, so we've already talked about the obedience test that has occurred in the Garden of Eden.
We've also talked about the obedience test that God has with Job through Satan's provocation.
And so I'm going to read you this passage, which I think is very interesting, and then we'll have a little chat about it, because these are very revealing things to understand about, you know, the foundations of the major religions in the world.
So, here it goes.
Later on, God tested Abraham's faith and obedience.
Abraham, God called.
Yes, he replied, here I am.
Take your son, your only son, yes, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah.
Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you.
Well, the next morning, Abraham got up early.
He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son Isaac.
Then he chopped wood to build a fire for a burnt offering, and set out for the place where God had told him to go.
On the third day of the journey, Abraham saw the place in the distance.
Stay here with the donkey, Abraham told the young men.
The boy and I will travel a little farther.
We will worship there, and then we will come right back.
Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac's shoulders, while he himself carried the knife and the fire.
As the two of them went on together, Isaac said, Father?
Yes, my son, Abraham replied.
We have the wood and the fire, said the boy, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?
God will provide a lamb, my son, Abraham answered, and they both went on together.
When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood on it.
Then he tied Isaac up and laid him on the altar over the wood.
And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to kill his son as a sacrifice to the Lord.
At that moment, the angel of the Lord shouted to him from heaven, Abraham!
Abraham!
Yes, he answered.
I'm listening.
Lay down the knife, the angel said.
Do not hurt the boy in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God.
You have not withheld even your beloved son from me.
Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush.
So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering on the altar in place of his son.
Abraham named the place, The Lord Will Provide.
This name has now become a proverb.
On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.
Then the angel of the Lord called again to Abraham from heaven.
This is what the Lord says, Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son, I swear by my own self that I will bless you richly.
I will multiply your descendants into countless millions like the stars of the sky and the sands on the seashore.
They will conquer their enemies.
And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed all because you have obeyed me.
Then they returned to Abraham's young men and traveled home again to Beersheba where Abraham lived for quite some time.
So this is the love test for Abraham and I think it is an important aspect of a biblical metaphor, a biblical story.
I mean what is really not sort of explored here is Isaac's viewpoint.
So I kind of want to get you to understand what this means from a sort of ethical or sane standpoint.
So you're some kid and your father has visions or hears a voice in his head telling him to kill you.
Telling him to stab you through the neck on a mountaintop.
And your dad says, okay, I believe that.
I think that's fine.
I think that's a great idea.
Let's go.
And, you know, then he basically misleads you, sort of says, you know, don't worry, God will provide a lamb, my son.
Which is, you know, God will provide a lamb, my son, right?
So it's sort of one of these things that's actually true, but it's sort of misleading.
And so your father ties you up and is standing over you, ready to plunge a knife into your throat or into your heart, because he's heard a voice telling him to do it.
And then, just as he's about to murder you in cold blood, You know, you sort of see him cock his head and look up at some mountain and then, you know, have some conversation with something that's not even there, right?
Some imaginary angel.
And then he unties you and instead he drags over a ram and, you know, guts the ram instead and kills the ram.
And then he says, huh, I guess I, it was a test.
Yeah, it was a test.
And now we're going to be great.
You know, we're going to do well.
We're going to have lots of children.
So, okay, we can go home now.
And if that doesn't strike you as strange enough, you know, imagine the following.
It's so important to denormalize this stuff and to understand what is really going on.
Imagine the following.
Imagine you come over to my house for dinner, and my son seems kind of stunned and withdrawn and shaking.
And I, you know, you say to me, you say to Christina, you know, well, what happened to your boy?
Like, is he okay?
And Christina says, oh no, I mean, he's a little shaken up, of course.
I mean, Steph tried to, you know, Steph was going to kill him today.
And you say, what?
What?
And Christina says, oh yeah, no, he, you know, Steph gets, he has these voices, and these voices tell him to do things, and the voices told him to stab our son to death today.
But it's okay, because, you know, at the last minute the voices changed their minds and told him not to stab our son to death, but instead to stab a ram to death.
So he did that instead.
And so, you know, it's fine.
I mean, and then the voice said, don't worry, because you were about to kill your son, but didn't, you're going to get lots of blessings.
So, you know, I guess, you know, we're off the hook for now.
Well, I mean, how would you react to something like this?
You know, would you say, huh, okay, well, that explains it.
Or would you sort of back slowly away from such a household and would you just call children's aid and the police and just get me as a psychotic, murderous lunatic away from my son?
Now, of course, as I've mentioned before, the Christians and the religious people in general find it very important.
I mean, it is absolutely essential to get children to believe in these religious texts.
Because no sane human being is going to believe them when they get older.
And this is sort of an example of a love test wherein you are supposed to threaten your children almost unto death to get them to believe in God.
And, of course, the kind of trauma that would be inflicted upon you on being dragged down and, you know, virtually stabbed to death by your own father because he's hearing voices is the kind of trauma that, you know, would help people believe in the unseen, right?
Because, you know, if Dad hears voices, maybe they told him to stop today, but they may not tell him to stop tomorrow, right?
So there's no particular way in which you would ever be able to trust your father if your father pulled a stunt like this with you.
You know, even if he said, no, no, I think the voices have told me that I'm not supposed to kill you.
You know, at least that's what they're saying today.
You know, I'm not sure that you'd feel all too relaxed in the middle of the night when your dad got up to take a pee.
You'd probably be like, okay, is it tonight?
What are the voices saying, Dad?
Is everything okay?
Am I going to make it through to the dawn?
And, you know, people will say, oh, this is a metaphor, this and that.
Well, you know, it's not.
I mean, this is biblical facts.
This is what is considered to be something that has actually happened.
And, again, it points back to this idea of parenting, this idea of, do we worship God because God is good, or do we worship God because God is powerful?
Now, certainly, any sane human being would, you know, if they believed in a deity, if they believed in a god and the god was good, And then God said, I want you to kill your son for me.
Well, any sane human being would say, you know what?
I may have made a mistake on this whole good God thing.
You know, maybe this is from the devil, maybe whatever, right?
But you know, you don't, you can't apply any moral criteria to commandments from God, right?
This is what makes it so dangerous.
This is why someone like George Bush can hear voices telling him to invade Iraq.
And believe that they come from God, right?
Rather than from his own psychosis or, you know, let's say if you believed in these things, from the devil.
Because, you know, it doesn't matter.
There are no moral criteria that you could apply to commandments of God, right?
Which is why religious people who are really, you know, into religion, really can't be stopped by moral criteria, right?
Because they pray to God and whatever God tells them, they do.
And there's no moral rules that you can apply that would say, no, this can't be coming from God.
I mean, George Bush, if he was really religious and consistent or even vaguely sane, right, he would say, oh man, did I just, I think I just heard a voice in my head telling me to go and kill, you know, 130,000 Muslims.
To put the country at war and to invade a foreign country that's never threatened us?
No, that can't come from God.
God says thou shalt not kill.
So, okay.
Well, I guess I need to go and see a doctor and, you know, get myself checked out and maybe get some meds because, you know, you really shouldn't be hearing voices telling you to go and kill lots of people.
But, you know, there really aren't any moral criteria that people apply to these things because God himself is above his own moral law, right?
Which is why religious societies end up with governments that are above secular law, right?
That there's no law that you, in Muslim societies, there's no law that the governments are subjected to because there's no moral law that their God is subjected to.
And, you know, these stories in the Bible are the foundation of that belief.
That power, that power is above the law.
That power is not constrained by any rational or moral objections.
And so, you know, when a Christian says to me, or a Muslim says to me, I worship God because God is good, right?
Allah, Akbar, whatever it is.
That God is good, then I sort of have to question that.
How do you know?
Under what criteria would you believe that voices in your head were coming from the devil rather than from God?
Right?
I mean, if God told you to kill your child, would you do it?
If God told you to invade a foreign country, would you do it?
If God told you to stone to death an adulteress, would you do it?
You know, and they really can't answer that, because if they say, no, you know, moral laws are more important than faith, then they sort of have to look at these stories in the Old Testament in particular and say, well, if moral law is more important than faith, then God is subject, my faith in God is subject to a moral law.
And since there's so many things that God does that are just stone evil, Then, obviously, I have to put aside my faith and wake up to some sort of tangible reality.
So, of course, faith can never be subject to a moral law, because the moment you start subjecting a god to moral law, then the whole concept of religion just falls to the ground.
You know, so if it is ever baffling to you why I fight so hard against religion, it's because it is a core area of human belief that has a great deal of power, that is completely outside and above any objective or rational moral law.
And it's these stories within the Bible that reinforce and almost generate that message from scratch.
And as a byproduct of all of that, you know, and this is sort of pretty important as well, as a byproduct of all of that, or maybe that's why it exists, I don't know, you get parents who are above the moral law.
And when parents are above the moral law, then children get abused and exploited.
And religion is just one aspect of those.
I'm not saying that the only bad things that happen to children is exposure to religion.
I mean, there are many worse things that happen to children.
But the most important thing that I'm trying to get out of this is that there is no human being who is above the moral law.
There is no human being who is outside of reality.
There is no human being Who can use the argument for morality and escape its consequences, right?
I mean, I don't care if you say to me there's no such thing as morality.
I mean, okay, so I never have to worry about you because you're never going to be out there advocating anything.
But the moment that you say to me, such and such is good, this was the right thing to do, this is moral, this is ethical, this is appropriate behavior, this is good, this is bad, this is right, this is wrong, well then I'm gonna, by golly, I'm gonna test you.
I'm gonna say to you, well okay, if that's what you believe, let's make sure that you have some idea what you're talking about so that you're not just using the argument for morality to sort of abuse, exploit, and confuse people.
You don't mess around with this stuff, as I've often said.
If you want to get involved in moral discussions, you kind of better know what you're doing, right?
Like, I don't walk up to a surgeon's table, grab a knife, and start hacking because I don't have a clue what I'm doing.
And that would be far less damaging than what happens to people from the argument for morality.
So I'm sort of saying let's build reclaims of expertise in this most essential of human areas and get the people out of the arena who are just mucking about and exploiting people and using this most treasured and powerful set of syllogisms just for the sake of justifying their own petty actions or controlling their children or believing in something because it's socially comfortable or whatever.
And just tell them, look, drop your surgeon's knife and get out of the operating room.
You have no business here because you don't know what you're talking about.
So, this is one of the reasons why I think it's important to look at these biblical stories to help understand just how they continually portray the fact that power is above all moral considerations.
And this translates to how we view the state.
It translates to how we view our parents and our churches and our larger social institutions.
And so I think it's very important if you're going to start to take this on to really understand why it is that people defer to the state and why it is that they don't apply the same moral rules to their rulers that they do to themselves or to their children or to each other.
The root of it is in these biblical tales and the root of it is in poisonous parenting that says do as I say not as I do and never question me because I have ultimate power and I am subject to no moral law.
This comes directly from The Bible comes directly from terrible, terrible parenting, which is all too common these days.
Well, thank you so much for listening, as always.
It is, gosh, 618.
Time for me to have something to eat, and I hope you're doing well.
▲
Export Selection