Burnt Offerings (Now Made With 100% Real Children)

Pictured: Isaac (almost)

Proving yet again that Abraham is a wonderful person and God is wise and just (/sarcasm), we have the story of Isaac's sacrifice.  I debated including this story because it's so well known, but hey, just because a story is famous shouldn't let if off the hook for being batshit, now should it?  Of course not!  Let's get started!

It all begins when God floats down from Heaven one day and orders Abraham to straight-up murder his only child, Isaac.  Why?  I guess there was nothing on TV that day, or maybe Lucifer ate the last Twinkie and didn't even bother to buy any more, and it put God in a bad mood.  Whatever the reason, God tells Abraham:

"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." - Genesis 22:2.

Now, every child is precious to their parents (except Abraham's other son Ishmael, apparently), but Isaac is literally Abraham's gift from God.  The Big Man Himself promised Abraham and Sarah babies, and it cost them decades, every scrap of one Egyptian woman's dignity and one neglected teenager who rebels so hard he inadvertently founds a new religion before they finally got just one.  This is the golden boy, the child that Abraham and Sarah have spent their lives waiting for.  And God just told Abraham, who is now so old he's legally considered an antique and is therefore not having any more babies, to offer him up as a human sacrifice.  Holy crap, God!  Been schmoozing with the Aztec gods up in Heaven lately?

So let's put ourselves in Abraham's shoes for a moment.  How would you feel if God ordered you to strap your own child down and murder him like your normally would a cow?  Pretty confused and betrayed, and probably even crappier if he was also your magical holy child that God gave you to begin with after decades of procrastinating.  I wouldn't be surprised if most people just renounced their faiths altogether in the event of this happening and went on a crazy hedonistic sin-binge, running over elderly churchgoers on their way to their nightly pan-species orgies.  Because hey, if you go to hell, at least you're away from your lunatic god!

Here's how Abraham reacts:

"And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him." - Genesis 22:3

In other words, he doesn't.  He just kinda says, "Oh, okay.  Cool," saddles his ass, grabs his young men and films a kinky porno rides off to burn his only child alive.  Jesus, Abraham.  You really want to be rid of your family members, don't you?  First you try to pawn your wife off on multiple kings, then when God says, "hey, kill your son!" you're just all over that shit like the Aztecs in drought season.

So Abraham abandons his men at the bottom of the mountain, runs over his human sacrifice checklist (Firewood?  Knife?  Son?) and hauls ass to the summit, though I use "haul ass" in the lightest way possible.  Abraham climbs the mountain, but he's not particularly weighed down because he has Isaac carry the wood that will feed the fire of his own sacrifice:

"And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together." - Genesis 22:6.

Nice, Abraham.  Keep it classy.

Then, to make it even worse, Isaac turns to his dad and asks:

"Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" - Genesis 22:7

Oh shit.  He's onto you, Abraham!  What do you do?

"And Abraham said, My son.  God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering." - Genesis 22:8

Uh ... a little sinister there, Abraham?  Telling Isaac that God will provide a lamb for slaughter - i.e. you, whom he provided to keep his promise to Abraham and Sarah?  That's a line that should be spoken in a menacing Vincent Price voice, while Abraham tents his spindly fingers and smiles in anticipation.  But little Isaac, proving that he is trusting if not particularly bright, accepts the paradox of God providing Abraham the means for his own sacrifice and continues merrily on his way.

At the summit of the mountain, Abraham sets up an altar and gets all set to slaughter his child and then burn the remains.  He ties Isaac down, grabs his knife, raises it ... And then gets faked out.

God, proving himself yet again to be the biggest jerk this side of the New Testament, stops Abraham in the absolute nick of time.  He had Abraham pack up his stuff, haul his ancient butt to the top of a mountain, tie down his own son and almost slit his throat, and why?

So he could prove his faith to God.  Yeah.  God wanted to test Abraham, a man whose life is pretty much behind him at this point.  I mean, I get testing a young man's faith if you want him to, say, go out and obliterate other nations or something.  But a guy who's a century old?  Really?  What does that get you, God, other than shits and giggles?

God, I hate to repeat myself but ... you're a jerk.