The bible also contains a similar story in which the sacrifice went ahead.
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Jephthah-8217-s-Daughter
I wonder how often a priest selects this passage for the Old Testament reading!
David
I was happily unaware of this horrific story and I now blame you for making it become part of my consciousness David :). Seriously - this is obviously appalling and proves once again that this idea of God as an entity "who is always right", is "good even when s/he is bad", has to be appeased and requires worship and bloodshed is a primitive, extremely dangerous concept which is barely tolerable only to the extent that those who subscribe to it do not "act it out" in the real world (tragically, Islamist terrorists are still doing so in our time and age).
Incidentally, in the Abraham story, the moral thing to do on the part of God would have been to punish Abraham for his stupid, blind obedience. If God (which I will refer to as IT) had really been a God of Love, of course it would not have come up with such a disturbing test in the first place (as I said in my previous post), but, crucially, even if it had, it would have punished Abraham for even contemplating carrying out the extremely "unloving action" (murder) which it had supposedly instructed him to carry out. I mean, if I had been Abraham that would have been my spontaneous reaction! "You, supposedly a loving God, are asking me to murder someone to please you? Then BY DEFINITION you cannot be a loving God but rather a demon, so f**k right off". Incredible that the Christian tradition does not see it this way!!! I honestly, sincerely do not understand how these people think !!! Basically, I think they DON'T think. And having a religion which tells them that God is always right saves them from working out for themselves what is right or wrong.
Problem is, Christians are required to "buy the whole package" i.e., Old and New Testament (incidentally, I am not an expert but I have been told that according to the Bible apparently Jesus endorsed the Old Testament, too, which would make this character in the official New Testament highly objectionable, too). I guess most Christians are not aware of these horrible passages, and/or they choose to ignore them or downplay them ("it's only a story" - even so? What would be its twisted moral purpose, exactly???), or they simply close their eyes and brains and go on living with this cognitive (and moral) dissonance. Which is not even the only one required by this (and plenty more) religions.
This is a general problem with mankind (and it's not necessarily a question of education, really) - the refusal or the inability to think things through, including ethically. But you know, at the end of the day, if people are good-hearted and do not harm others, I don't really care anymore. I've come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time arguing with people who have massive blind spots (because by definition they do not see them) and moreover are already convinced that their beliefs are the Ultimate Truth.
Ah, and with reference to your other post about God -- indeed, it's always a problem to use that word because, conveniently, it means all things to all believers, and in the West it does conjure up images of the Christian God. In general, in order to talk about God we should first be clear whether such an entity is separate from us or not. New Agers/ "love and light people" conveniently switch perspective so that when something is "bad" it's "us causing it because we have moved away from God/because it's our ego doing this", while when something is good (love etc) it's "God". This is a very typical, manipulative method to make you feel inferior and "wrong" while obviously if you are a creature of this God how can it be your fault that you can fall? Who gave an ego that can (allegedly) damage you so much? You were clearly designed to make this possible. If you design a product deliberately making it possible for it to malfunction, how can it be the product's fault? Of course, it must have been the maker who was not perfect. That makes sense to me. But 99.9% believers insist that God is perfect and wonderful and almighty. But so why are his products so flawed, if not deliberately?
I can actually say that I, too, believe in "God" if this means believing in a flawed or indifferent "Ground of Being" giving rise to this messy reality, including good and bad spiritual entities - but I doubt I and a Christian would be speaking about the same God, based on this definition, so what's the point in using this utterly confusing word? When I speak with Christians I say "your God" (as defined by the books and doctrine they subscribe to -- of course there are differences among Catholics, Protestants etc but that just proves my point: this word means different things to different people, so it's not a useful concept, really)