The Unanswerable Questions Which Caused Me To Deconvert, 2

[cogitoergosum]

Here's the second question that I posed to clergy/theologians in the U.S. , Canada, and the United Kindom, and NO one could give me an answer, which was one of the catlyzing factors in my deconversion. In the biblical story of Cain and Abel, I discovered that Cain was actually the righteous hero, and this turned my world upsidedown:

 

CAIN AND ABEL

------- The first murder of another human being was precipitated by a conflict over animal sacrifice. Abel, a shepherd, would slaughter all the 'firstlings' - the first newborn lamb crop of his flock - as an offering to God. This offering found respect with God, even though it says nowhere in Genesis that God had specifically asked for animal sacrifice - the account makes it out to be Abel's idea. Cain, who was a gardener/produce farmer, brought the 'fruit of the ground' as an offering to God - by which it is inferred to mean his first vegetable/plant crop. So, both of them were taking the first crop of their own farming endeavors, and offering them to God. Yet it says God had no respect for Cain and his offering. So right here we have the fact that without having explicitly made any commandments on the subject thus far, at least no commandment that is referenced in the Bible, God automatically shows preference for the bloodletting and death of animals as an acceptable offering when presented with the two options. In Jainism, plants are considered one-sensed beings – they are alive, but do not have mobility or the sense of taste, touch, sight, or smell. Animals as well as humans are classified as five-sensed beings. Why would God prefer the death of a five-sensed organism over a one-sensed one? Why would he disrespect Cain’s respect both for life and for God – the fact that Cain firstly actually offered anything out of his own plant crop which he could have kept for himself, and secondly that he chose to show his gratitude/reverence for God without violence or death to another sentient being, would seem to me two actions worthy of much honor and respect from any divine Deity.

 

Secondly, why could Abel not have ‘offered’ the first of his flock to God in a symbolic ritual, rather than by actually having to kill them in order for them to be considered as ‘given’ to God? Children in the Bible were given/dedicated to God but they did not have to be killed to do this. Christians are supposed to give/dedicate themselves to God, but he does not require us to commit suicide. We give our money to God – but we do not have to burn it to ashes to accomplish this. If the animals needed to be taken from Abel’s possession completely for it to symbolize a true sacrifice and giving, then could God not have just spirited the animals to heaven without death, the way he did with Elijah in his chariot of fire?

 

The Bible then says: “And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.”

 

Well, in a world previously involving no animal sacrifice, I can sympathize with Cain’s anger and distress to suddenly find that your god requires you to slit the throats of other living beings who share the planet with you just to please him. I can imagine Cain was perhaps outright horrified. And yet God tells him that all he has to do to be accepted is ‘do well’. By this I understand the verses to mean that he wanted Cain to go to his brother and ask for or buy lambs so that he could sacrifice them and therefore obtain respect from God. This is ‘doing well’. Cain can’t offer his OWN crops to God which he has raised himself and toiled for, which would seem a much more honest, genuine, and heartfelt way of expressing reverence than having to go run to some other farmer and get extras of their ‘crop’ from them. Not only that, but God has told him if he DOESN’T do this – do well by committing animal sacrifice – then sin lies at the door, waiting to tempt him. This sin turns out to be fratricide. But why was fratricide considered sinful, and killing an infant sheep not? Paraphrased, it says in the New Testament that by faith Abel gave a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, and that God’s acceptance of Abel’s gifts gave testimony to the fact that Abel was righteous. Jesus, when mentioning ‘all the just blood that has been shed upon the earth’ spoke of the blood of ‘Abel the just’. (Nowhere is the blood of the innocent and sinless animals which has been shed upon earth mentioned). John the disciple says later “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.” It was EVIL to offer plants rather than kill an animal?

 

So, the conclusion of the story... Cain, later, while he with Abel in the field, ‘rose up, and slew him’. While this action was extreme, the anger behind it seems reasonable. Firstly, it appears to be Abel’s idea to kill animals for sacrifice in the first place. By Cain’s reasoning, without him around, maybe no one else will carry on this ghastly practice. Secondly, God has preference for Abel’s blood sacrifice, but without his sacrifice as competition, perhaps Cain thinks his will be accepted in absence of other options. Cain is not a shepherd and probably doesn’t know a thing about raising sheep; therefore without the local shepherd there would be no supply of lambs and the only offering available would be Cain’s vegetables. Thirdly, without a supply of lambs Cain will not have to be faced with committing the act of sacrificing another living being. (Later in the Old Testament under Moses there are other offerings listed which are made from flour/grain and oil, grape juice, etc. These were basically goodwill offerings. The blood and burnt offerings were specifically required for sin. Then there was the 'best' and 'firstfruits' offerings, where the people gave the best/first crop of their oil, wine, grain, fruits, etc. They brought it as an offering and then everyone ate it. It's not mentioned in Genesis that Cain or Abel's offering was for a sacrifice for sin - which under Mosaic law much later required blood - but it specifically references firstfruits. Therefore, from my understanding, Cain should have been completely justified in giving HIS firstfruits, which was the plants which he had grown. However, Mosaic law did not even EXIST at the time of Cain and Abel, so where did the laws they were following concerning offering/sacrifice come from? Why would a dead animal be required for a circumstance that was not related to sin offering?)

 

In every sermon or reference I’ve heard of the story of Cain and Abel, Abel is presented as a pure and innocent martyr and Cain as a jealous SOB who murdered his own siblings without warning and for the most trivial of reasons. Yet the way I see it, while the act of murder was an extremist response, the anger and distress over the issue of animal sacrifice does not seem trivial to me whatsoever, in fact it seems completely logically, ethically, and compassionately justified. It is interesting to note that Cain actually killed his brother rather than submit to the lifelong practice of animal sacrifice – that is how strongly he felt about it. If it was not a sin offering it doesn't even make sense that God would require blood sacrifice and would show preference/favoritism to Abel's offering over Cain's.

 

Cain is punished for the murder of his brother, driven from the face of the Lord, condemned to be a fugitive and a vagabond. Yet Abel was respected for the murder of numerous helpless infant animals? God says Abel’s blood ‘cried out from the ground’... but why did not the blood of the firstlings of Abel’s flock cry out from the ground?

 

Nowhere does it say that Cain returned back to God, or began making animal sacrifice. He went out, had a son, and built a city, becoming the father of civilization. His direct descendents variously played the harp and flute, forged bronze and iron tools, and became nomadic herdsmen. So Cain and his generations are the fathers of urban living, nomadic living, music, metalwork, and tool-making. Quite an accomplishment there.

 

Back to the issue. I’ve heard numerous attempts to read into the whole story as that God didn’t accept Cain’s sacrifice not because it wasn’t blood, but because Cain had a bad attitude, or Cain already wasn’t in right relationship with God, or he gave his offering grudgingly and not cheerfully, etc. But nowhere in the Bible account does it make any reference to any of these theories. All that is contained in the account is a direct conflict over animal sacrifice. If the Bible had meant us to understand the story in some other way, would it not have been written more clearly, or with more detail? What is there is there, and that is all I have to go on.

 

And it doesn’t make sense. If God is compassionate, loving, pure, sinless, and he has given us the qualities of love, compassion, and a conscience, then why would he require animal sacrifice?

[Dagan]

Some very good points. It's a troubling story and literalists don't really think about what it's saying about God, and what he wants from us.

 

The best explanation I've heard is that this story is an allegory, showing how people changed from being nomadic tribes dependent on shepherding, to established civilizations, dependent on farms. You can't build a civilization without agriculture and farming, so Cain's path was the one that led to modernity. Abel's path was subsistence, more dependent on God, perhaps.

 

It still doesn't explain why God has such an endless thirst for blood. Christians take it for granted that only blood can make up for sin, but that is not explicit in the story. In fact, that doesn't show up until much later, after the Israelites are established as a people, which would suggest that the Cain and Abel story was written at the time of Israel and animal sacrifice in Jerusalem, written to fit the time in which it was written.

[cogitoergosum]

 

It still doesn't explain why God has such an endless thirst for blood. Christians take it for granted that only blood can make up for sin,

 

Yet what no one seems to ask is WHY only blood could make up for sin. Why not burning a tree? Why not spilling honey over an altar? Why not taking a knife and hacking the hell out of your tent? The answer, if people are to take the Bible literally, is because GOD arbitrarily decided that he happened to decide it was going to be that way, out of the inifinity of other options available. I mean, if we go with the honey analogy, then Christ would have come to earth, performed a miracle to create the biggest beehive of all time, gotten stung a million times while trying to get the honey out with his bare hands, and then, as he went into anaphylactic shock, staggered to the altar and poured honey from the biggest hive ever onto the altar to please God. Christians would sing about the holy bee stings of Christ that cleanse them from sin, and would take it completely seriously that he HAD to give his life to get the honey out of that giant beehive since honey was the ONLY was to cleanse sin.

 

God could have decided on any sin covering/cleansing he jolly well felt like. And, guess what, blood couldn't have been required if God hadn't created blood in the first place. What if we were all intelligent bacteria? What if he'd made us walking, talking plants? It's just as arbitrary as making us mammals with blood. What would God have required then, if he'd never decided to create blood in the first place?

 

I mean, God could have decided that sin could only be cleansed by walking three times in a circle and yelling hubba-hubba-hubba, and then Christ wouldn't have had to die at all, and neither would the animals. So why DIDN't God decided on the circle-walking-hubba method? Because he's a sadist?

 

Well, of course he's a sadist because he created Satan and hell in the first place, KNOWING ahead of time what was going to happen...

 

There's so many logical fallacies in the Bible that it's beyond insanity.

[Ouroboros]

And it doesn’t make sense. If God is compassionate, loving, pure, sinless, and he has given us the qualities of love, compassion, and a conscience, then why would he require animal sacrifice?

That's right.

 

Why would God, of any kind or quality, need animal sacrifice to be happy? What's missing in God's live, so that he has to be surrounded by death? What is he missing? Why is he so bloodthirsty?

 

And why would Yahweh be a God who needs animal sacrifice just like the other heathen gods? What's different with Yahweh? Nothing. He's just like the other pagan gods.

 

Looking at the pagan gods, the reasoning was that blood contains life, and to make contact with the gods you have to give the gods some gift to please them. Just like when a guy needs to ask their wife for permission to go with the boys, he brings some flowers... Anyway... To make the gods happy to see you, you bring them a gift. But how do you give a gift to a spirit? You can't give them milk and cookies, no you need to give spirits a spiritual gift. So what is a spiritual thing you can give them? Another soul. A life. So how do you give a life to the gods? By sacrificing them and then do some magical mumbo-jumbo with the blood to transfer it into the unseen realm.

 

Then, what would be the higher form of gift? Animals are just the lower life. Ah, give the gods the gift of another human soul to serve as a slave for them. Then they will be really happy. So slay a human, and win the favor of a god.

 

And how can you top that? How can you give a more valuable gift than that? Oh, I know. Slay a GOD. Now THAT is the ultimate sacrifice to please the gods. Kill one of their own, and they'll be impressed.

 

That would be a terrific story, wouldn't it? Nah. It won't sell, no one will buy it... or would they?...

[ShallowByThyGame]

In a hunter/gatherer civilization, it was the hunters and purveyors of meat(perhaps a rarer resource) who were given more societal status, and the wealthy influenced the stories to make their way of life seem superior.

 

I have answered your question. In the tribal culture this story originated from, those who provided meat were either seen, or wanted to be seen, as the cream of the crop. Those who raised animals probably had more risk, but also earned more profit and power. The bible is advising others to do this, as they will more likely be 'blessed', which is another word for 'wealthy' in the old testament.

[cogitoergosum]

Ah, I see, so it's class snobbery. Kind of like a different version of the white collar worker looking down at the blue collar one.

 

And think how much good revenue in the sheep business this story would have created. Everyone would have to come flocking (no pun intended, lol) to their local shepherds to buy lambs off them, since lowly vegetables obviously weren't sufficient.

[Phanta]

Well, in a world previously involving no animal sacrifice, I can sympathize with Cain’s anger and distress to suddenly find that your god requires you to slit the throats of other living beings who share the planet with you just to please him.

 

I'm a little confused...are you saying that previously, Abel did not kill his flock for food? Were they just for wool/cheese/milk?

 

?

 

In every sermon or reference I’ve heard of the story of Cain and Abel, Abel is presented as a pure and innocent martyr and Cain as a jealous SOB who murdered his own siblings without warning and for the most trivial of reasons.

 

You might enjoy reading Herman Hesse's Demain.

 

Phanta

[cogitoergosum]

Well, in a world previously involving no animal sacrifice, I can sympathize with Cain’s anger and distress to suddenly find that your god requires you to slit the throats of other living beings who share the planet with you just to please him.

 

I'm a little confused...are you saying that previously, Abel did not kill his flock for food? Were they just for wool/cheese/milk?

 

 

Well, there could be two views on that. 1.) The first assumption, without taking it in context of further chapters of Genesis, is this is a subsistance farming society. People raise food for their practical NEEDS. Probably nothing is wasted. Eating the sheep, using their wool and milk and bones and hides would be all part of the natural cycle of life and survival. Just like cutting down a tree to serve as firewood. To sacrifice a young lamb would have been a WASTE, and gone against logic and the natural order. How much more wool, meat, etc could have been obtained if it had been allowed to grow to maturity? Perhaps it could have been bred to increase the size of the flock. Also, removing it from its mother at such a young age would have caused considerable distress to the ewe. It would not have been caring husbandry, nor practical or natural or non-wasteful. What would you think if your local organic hobby farm neighbor took the Dempster cattle they'd been so carefully raising for meat, milk, and breeding, and decided to start shooting them at two weeks of age because they thought the clouds were fond of the site of splattered brains? Would that seem honorable and decent?

 

2.) But, taken in context of Genesis, yes, I am saying that they did not eat meat at that time. If literalists are to trust the Bible as a chronological and coherant book, there is no evidence that there was any meat-eating going on before the flood. God had given every fruit tree and every seed bearing herb to be as meat, and that edict did not change until Noah emerged from the ark in the mountains of Ararat and God told Noah:

(Genesis 9:2) And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. 3Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things."

 

God is saying, "you know how I gave you plants to eat? Well, now, I'm giving animals to you to eat just like the plants. And, because of this, ALL animals, who were never afraid of you before (obviously, since Noah was able to gather two of every kind of wild beast known to man and bring them to live with him on the ark. If you know anything about wild animal rescue, you know that some of them are so terrified of humans that when dealing with injured wildlife, the sound of the human voice can actually put them into shock. Contrast this to Noah bringing wild animals without incident into an enclosed space - the ark - and living with them for a year) will now be terrified to death of you, because you are going to hunt them, and farm them or slaughter, and they're going to develop a survival instinct that tells them to stay the hell away from you because you're no longer in a symbiotic relationship with them, you have now become a predator."

[cogitoergosum]

Of course, I want to add as an addendum to my previous reply that I of course no longer believe the account of Genesis to be true, factual, or historical in any way. Cain and Abel never existed and so Abel neither ate or did not eat meat since he did not exist. Likewise there was no pre/post diluvian dichotomy between animal behavior towards man nor was there any pre/post diluvian switch from a vegetarian to meat eating society since Noah never existed. Humans have always been omnivorous and have always engaged in both symbiotic and predatorial relationships with different species based on environment, era, and culture.

 

However, if someone takes the Genesis account literally, they will find that according to Genesis this was a vegetarian society, and the sacrifice was most likely a horrifying and gory concept to Cain, who has previously seen his brother tending the sheep, sleeping next to them at night, milking them, pulling their wool, and suddenly he's now throat-slitting the lambs? And not only that, God now wants Cain, who doesn't even own sheep, to add to the senseless slaughter?

 

The thing is, the account doesn't even specify exactly how Abel committed the sacrifice, but we do know that the description of next sacrifice in Genesis - the numerous ones Noah offers to God after the waters of the flood recede - describes it as a burnt offering.(Which was of course a 'sweet savour' in the nostrils of God which made him so very sentimentally happy that he decided to never wipe everyone off the face of the planet again no matter what, and also decided to let seedtime and harvest and the seasons and day and night continue throughout time). If Noah was offering burnt offerings it stands to reason that this was the accepted practice and may have been what Abel did. Which would have been all the more barbaric and wasteful to Cain. He probably thought his brother was a lunatic. Not only should we kill baby sheep, we should set them on fire, muhahaha! The problem is there's never actually any description of the sacrificial steps so there's no assurance given, to be honest, that there was even any throat-slitting/bloodletting at all and it's possible the animals were bound and burnt alive.

 

Which brings us to an interesting point. If Noah automatically offered burnt sacrifices, and it stands to reason this was a customary and inherited practice, so it's likely that Abel himself offered burnt sacrifice, and if the first visceral reaction of God mentioned in the Bible in regards to burning bodies was that it was a 'sweet savour' to him, it brings the conclusion that BLOOD was actually not what this tribal god was requiring or was fond of, it was burning flesh. Makes you wonder if the concentration camp ovens were also a sweet savour to him, but I digress. The point is that according to the Genesis accounts, this god is a pyromaniac. And I mean this in the most literal definition of the term. God's reaction to Noah's sacrifice confirms his pyromania: "Pyromania - A type of impulse control disorder, pyromania is an impulse to deliberately start fires to relieve tension and typically includes feelings of gratification or relief afterward. Pyromania is distinct from arson, and pyromaniacs are also distinct from those who start fires because of psychosis, for personal, monetary or political gain, or for acts of revenge. Pyromaniacs start fires to induce euphoria." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyromania

 

Believe me, I actually just came to this discovery about burnt vs blood sacrifice and the pyromania of God while I was typing. But it brings a very interesting twist into the whole thing, wouldn't you say? As a matter of fact, the first involvement of blood in the sacrifice that I'm aware of was to ward off the Death Angel in Eygpt, but even after that the majority of sacrifices were burnt until you got into the whole Levitical high-priesthood and the Holiest of Holies deal.

 

The question being then, why wasn't Jesus immolated? It seems a bit arbitrary to associate him with the least common and latest arriving form of sacrifice in the OT.

[cogitoergosum]

Since I just realized that the God of Genesis didn't require blood, he required cremation and ashes and the stench of burning flesh, I googled it and came across a fantastic page from the site The Unspoken Bible which outlines in detail why the ancient tribes would have used burnt offerings (believing the smoke to be the soul of the person/animal going up to heaven towards God), and lays out an eminently clearcut case that the requirement of child sacrifice was NOT confined to Abraham and Jephthah, but was actually a systemic thing which was required consistently of ALL the Israelites, and that cannibalism also came into this. If you thought the Biblical God was horrifying, wait until the truth of this article really hits you between the eyes. This is great stuff to use in debates:

 

http://www.usbible.com/Sacrifice/sacrifice_moses.htm

[cogitoergosum]

Interesting link on the actual meaning of the Cain/Abel story and who/what they were meant to represent in Hebrew mythology.

 

http://www.usbible.com/Sin/Cain_and_Abel.htm

[Hydroman74]

More great questions. I've asked several people as well about the need for sacrifices. The answer is always, "Because that's how god chose to do it."

 

Anyways, I have another question that's a little off topic. Who told the truth in the garden, the serpent or god? God told Adam and Eve that the day they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that they would die. The serpent told Eve that she would not die if she ate the fruit, but she would be like god and know good and evil.

 

Adam and Eve both ate the fruit and lived for a little over 900 years. Now, I've heard it said that they died spiritually. If that's the case, is that how vague god communicates with people? The serpent, Adam, and Eve all believed it to be a physical death. Next, let's say it was a spiritual death that god was talking about. Guess what then? Their sin didn't bring about physical death to everyone, it only brought about spiritual death. So, since Adam and Eve died physically, they weren't created immortal. But, the bible says the wages of sin is death. So, it that talking about physical death or spiritual death?

 

I've also heard that to god, 1 day to him is like 1000 years to us, so Adam and Eve died in the correct time frame. This is laughable. If anything, that verse is only saying that god isn't affected by time. The verse could have just as easily said, "To god 1 day is like 1,000,000,000,000 years to man."

 

Now, after Adam and Eve at the fruit, what did god say? He said, "They have now become like us, knowing good and evil." Just what the serpent said!!

 

So, who told the truth in the garden?

[ebonileigh]

I hear you loud and clear, and I agree, the christian god concept and it's religion is a horrifyingly bloody one. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins", what a tragic myth which has been acted on for centuries. I'm so glad you're here. Why is there no OUTCRY about all the animal sacrifice not only then, but it still goes on today. When will the human animal realise that he/she is just that, an animal, and that all other animals and creatures should have the same rights as the human animal. I abhore the dominance, use, abuse and slaughter of animals for the purpose of human endeavour.

BLOODY RELIGION, literally. SICKENING.

So glad you're here.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

In semitic religions, Cattle and Grain are always fighting about something. Whether it's Cain and Abel or Lahar and Ashnan. It's an allegory, meant to show the fighting between farmers and herders. As said above. Though the Cain and Abel story sounds remarkably like another story involving a person named Set/Seth.

[★ Citsonga ★]

Interesting link on the actual meaning of the Cain/Abel story and who/what they were meant to represent in Hebrew mythology.

 

http://www.usbible.com/Sin/Cain_and_Abel.htm

 

I started reading that but stalled out when I came to this:

 

According to Eve, God was the father of the firstborn Cain and Adam fathered Abel.

 

I've never heard that interpretation before, and the biblical text doesn't agree with the notion that Adam wasn't Cain's father:

 

Genesis 4:1

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

 

"Knew" means physically, and therefore "Cain" was "conceived" sexually when "Adam knew Eve."

 

The statement, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," appears to merely be praising gawd for the outcome. Kinda like when someone goes to a doctor and gets medication for an ailment, and after the medication does its job the individual says, "Praise da lawd for healing me!" Gawd didn't heal the person, the prescribed medicine did, but that doesn't change the fact that the person wants to "give gawd the glory."

[cogitoergosum]

In semitic religions, Cattle and Grain are always fighting about something.

 

You're absolutely right, I never realized that before. Even in Pharoah's dream, cattle and grain are fighting.

 

A really interesting book which charts the history of grain agriculture and its destructive force, both as one of the most major causes of human conflict (outside of religion, although religion itself had a lot to do with trying to obtain agricultural blessing), and the major cause of environmental destruction since the dawn of civilization, is The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith. Because the beginning of the book is aimed specifically towards vegetarians/vegans, since it is trying to deconstruct the myth that cessation of meat eating is the way to save the earth, for any student of history I'd recommend starting on page 30, where the book begins to chart why humans switched from hunter-gatherer to farmer, and the domino effect this has had ever since. It is an absolutely fascinating look at history from a perspective that most have never been taught before. I'd recommend it to everyone who wants to understand history, understand the state of the world today, and understand the central motivating forces behind the writing of the Bible and the conflicts found therein.

[Seeking]

God now wants Cain, who doesn't even own sheep, to add to the senseless slaughter?

 

And he did, by sacrificing Abel! I mean, if sacrificing a sheep = good, then sacrificing a human = better, right?

[StevoMuso]

One point I'd like to add to this discussion: Gawd always wanted innocent blood - not just blood. He wanted a "pure" lamb or "unblemished". And my all-time "favorite" horror-story, mentioned many times on this forum in different contexts, is that Gawd Himself killed a one-week old baby to punish King David for adultery and murder. Can't get more innocent blood than that!

[★ Citsonga ★]

One point I'd like to add to this discussion: Gawd always wanted innocent blood - not just blood. He wanted a "pure" lamb or "unblemished".

 

Of course, because the priests wanted dinner to be perfect!

 

And my all-time "favorite" horror-story, mentioned many times on this forum in different contexts, is that Gawd Himself killed a one-week old baby to punish King David for adultery and murder. Can't get more innocent blood than that!

 

Ah, but babies are steeped in SIN! They're just terrible, unrepentant heathens, I tell ya!

[StevoMuso]

One point I'd like to add to this discussion: Gawd always wanted innocent blood - not just blood. He wanted a "pure" lamb or "unblemished".

 

Of course, because the priests wanted dinner to be perfect!

 

And my all-time "favorite" horror-story, mentioned many times on this forum in different contexts, is that Gawd Himself killed a one-week old baby to punish King David for adultery and murder. Can't get more innocent blood than that!

 

Ah, but babies are steeped in SIN! They're just terrible, unrepentant heathens, I tell ya!

LOL, yes. The sick part is that Christians actually believe all the shit in their blood-religion.

[mwc]

So, both of them were taking the first crop of their own farming endeavors, and offering them to God. Yet it says God had no respect for Cain and his offering. So right here we have the fact that without having explicitly made any commandments on the subject thus far, at least no commandment that is referenced in the Bible, God automatically shows preference for the bloodletting and death of animals as an acceptable offering when presented with the two options.

It says "3 And after a time, Cain gave to the Lord an offering of the fruits of the earth. 4 And Abel gave an offering of the young lambs of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord was pleased with Abel's offering;"

 

This is reasonably accurate. The Hebrew is roughly "qets yowm" which I guess would be something like "end time/day/year" (don't quote me on that). So they just started offering for no good reason from what I can tell. Maybe "qets yowm" means something to someone, like the end of the season, but I would think these two seasons would be different (planting/critter seasons). I suppose it *could* be season and this could be why the plants are rejected. It was simply the wrong time of year? At this time the "right" time would have probably been in the fall but the animals are probably being offered earlier near the beginning of summer so the harvest wasn't probably taken in yet (summer solstice vs. fall equinox). Most of the years began in fall, including the Hebrews but then, with Moses, moved to spring (well, the religious year at least).

 

Since in the previous chapter Adam is told, quite clearly, that he's going to be getting his food from the ground until he's dust I'm not sure why anyone would start playing with livestock (especially if they still talk): "17 And to Adam he said, Because you gave ear to the voice of your wife and took of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take, the earth is cursed on your account; in pain you will get your food from it all your life. 18 Thorns and waste plants will come up, and the plants of the field will be your food; 19 With the hard work of your hands you will get your bread till you go back to the earth from which you were taken: for dust you are and to the dust you will go back."

 

This still doesn't explain why there was any need for any offerings at all. "Sin" isn't even mentioned until *after* the offerings are made. "Sin" isn't an issue. "Sin" is something that a person can master and not something that requires offerings.

 

Secondly, why could Abel not have ‘offered’ the first of his flock to God in a symbolic ritual, rather than by actually having to kill them in order for them to be considered as ‘given’ to God? Children in the Bible were given/dedicated to God but they did not have to be killed to do this.

There are a number of passages that would indicate children were offered up in a non-symbolic way just like sheep were.

 

Well, in a world previously involving no animal sacrifice, I can sympathize with Cain’s anger and distress to suddenly find that your god requires you to slit the throats of other living beings who share the planet with you just to please him. I can imagine Cain was perhaps outright horrified. And yet God tells him that all he has to do to be accepted is ‘do well’. By this I understand the verses to mean that he wanted Cain to go to his brother and ask for or buy lambs so that he could sacrifice them and therefore obtain respect from God. This is ‘doing well’.

This is because you're projecting. There is nothing in the text itself that requires us to think that Cain was supposed to get lambs and try again. If lambs were the method of appeasing this "god" at this point in time why is it that no further offerings, especially involving lambs, are required from Cain? Once Abel was dead it seems that this would be a good time to teach Cain the valuable lesson of killing baby sheep (though it can mean other animals not just sheep...the word is used again in chapter 21) to "fix" the problem of "sin" but we do not. No one gets that lesson. We don't even see this word for offering again until Abraham and Isaac way off in chapter 22. This isn't a pressing issue.

 

Nowhere does it say that Cain returned back to God, or began making animal sacrifice. He went out, had a son, and built a city, becoming the father of civilization. His direct descendents variously played the harp and flute, forged bronze and iron tools, and became nomadic herdsmen. So Cain and his generations are the fathers of urban living, nomadic living, music, metalwork, and tool-making. Quite an accomplishment there.

You'll find out in other books that those aren't the "good" things you think they are. They're "evil" and fallen angels are the cause. Cities were the places that horrible things happened. So it's not surprising that this "bad" Cain fellow would be the source of it all.

 

The reality is what happened is what the author of the story wanted to happen. That's how all stories work, isn't it?

 

And it doesn’t make sense. If God is compassionate, loving, pure, sinless, and he has given us the qualities of love, compassion, and a conscience, then why would he require animal sacrifice?

Because you think that animal sacrifice goes against all those virtues that you've attributed to your model of a god which put either you or this model of god in error. If that model of god is correct then obviously you are in error and animal sacrifice is "compassionate, loving, pure, sinless" as you've stated.

 

mwc

[★ Citsonga ★]

Since in the previous chapter Adam is told, quite clearly, that he's going to be getting his food from the ground until he's dust I'm not sure why anyone would start playing with livestock

 

Maybe for the wool for clothing. Ya know, they just had to cover the bodies that mankind didn't realize were "naked" until they ate the magical fruit.

[Arctic]

I believe alot of xians disconnect from the reality of the murder and genocides of god.

It was not until I left the faith that I stopped and started picturing myself there in that time and watching people getting killed and woman raped,

I always try to imagine myself being there in person and watching it live, to get a idea of how savage and blood hungry this beast is.

[mwc]

Maybe for the wool for clothing. Ya know, they just had to cover the bodies that mankind didn't realize were "naked" until they ate the magical fruit.

The problem with that is "7 And their eyes were open and they were conscious that they had no clothing and they made themselves coats of leaves stitched together." and "god" followed up with "21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins for their clothing."

 

So "coats" of "leaves" and then of "skins." Nothing here to indicate they learned how to do anything with wool. Sounds like they could have tanned hides if "god" was feeling generous enough to let them watch his handiwork but that's about it (though if he's really all light it's more like insta-tan which is useless in the real world). Their leaf sewing skills could help them put them into something larger I suppose.

 

mwc

[★ Citsonga ★]

Maybe for the wool for clothing. Ya know, they just had to cover the bodies that mankind didn't realize were "naked" until they ate the magical fruit.

The problem with that is "7 And their eyes were open and they were conscious that they had no clothing and they made themselves coats of leaves stitched together." and "god" followed up with "21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins for their clothing."

 

So "coats" of "leaves" and then of "skins." Nothing here to indicate they learned how to do anything with wool. Sounds like they could have tanned hides if "god" was feeling generous enough to let them watch his handiwork but that's about it (though if he's really all light it's more like insta-tan which is useless in the real world). Their leaf sewing skills could help them put them into something larger I suppose.

 

mwc

 

I was being sarcastic, of course. But yeah, they would rather use the hides, since it gives them an excuse to kill the animals instead of just shaving them.