Albertus Minimus

'Ye shall be as gods'

'Genesis 3:4-5
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.'

You shall not die, but be as gods.

The Transhumanist Declaration
(1) Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth.

But what are gods like? Ever read 'The Iliad'? The 'Metamorphoses'? I suspect the Greeks and the Romans were exactly right about what the gods would be like: little more than creatures of their own desires, more bound by themselves than even the mortals they diced with in their games.

The gods are shallow. All their pursuits are games, nothing is for keeps (apart from vanity, apparently).

It is the mortals who have depth, for their transience gives meaning (even in a pre-Christian universe) to their short lives that is unknown to the gods.

So maybe the devil was telling us exactly the truth when he spoke to Eve in the garden of Eden. Should we be able to pluck the apple of immortality, we should be as gods.

Don't say we weren't warned.

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

Malachi 3:3 - "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver."

She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire.

If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"

He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy - when I see my image in it."

This story was sent to me by a friend and I thought I would, in the best traditions of the internet, pass it on.

Getting rid of the kids - part 2

Many thanks to Merry for his (?) comments on the post about Abraham. He said:

'Seems to me that the difficulty we have understanding this story, reveals our lack of faith in God. If we are completely sure that God is all-loving and all-wise, then we will know that whatever He asks us to do is glorious, no matter how strange it may seem to our puny minds. And everyone will benefit, including the sacrificee.'

Of course, Merry is right. However, a question arises: what reason did Abraham have for believing that God is all-loving and all-wise? After all, he was surrounded by cultures who worshipped gods who were at best capricious and at worst cruel. Now, it's true that the God of Abraham had brought the patriarch to a new land, so that was some warrant for his trustworthiness, but I still think it possible that when Abraham heard God's command to sacrifice Isaac he may have feared that his God was, in the end, not so different from the other gods that haunted the land and people. After all, those gods would all require some sort of payment for bringing Abraham into the Promised Land.

What I think is worth emphasising is that God's gift of the Promised Land to Abraham is a free gift. He doesn't require payment in blood for it. And is there not, perhaps, an element of Divine humour to it all? It's not hard to imagine the payoff line, as the knife is stayed: 'I had you there. You really believed I wanted your son's life.'

After all, up until then mankind really had believed that it could buy favours from the gods, with gifts and sacrifices, and the bigger the gift or sacrifice, the bigger the favour. But with Abraham the story takes the first step towards turning around. God gives freely, without sacrifice on Abraham's part. And later the story takes an even more unlikely turn: God sacrifices Himself on our behalf.

How impossible that would have seemed three millennia ago, when children were 'passed through the fire' to buy the favours of Moloch.

Getting rid of the kids, ancient style

So, why did he (almost) do it? I can’t be the only person to think that Abraham showed a certain lack of gumption when instructed by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Now, I know how that’s supposed to show his resignation to God’s will and all that, but not even to ask God if He was quite sure? Even as a child I thought there was something odd about this, and my opinion didn’t change over the years.

However, reading about the culture of the Near East in Abraham’s time, I discovered that the gods people worshipped were, shall we say, thirsty. To ensure the success of an enterprise, or in payment for favours received, the gods expected payment. Thus we read in the Old Testament of children ‘passed through the fire’ to Moloch and of Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter Iphigeneia to Artemis.

Suddenly, the story of Abraham and Isaac becomes much clearer. Abraham has been brought to a new land, and promised that he shall be a father of a great nation. Naturally, God will want his cut. Everything Abraham has known in his time and cultures suggests that. So how can he demur when God asks for His portion? The surprise is that God stops Abraham from killing Isaac.

For God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moloch, one suspects, has a different home.