Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to And Judaism has come quite a ways from God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the mountaintop too.

yep, there was also Moses, and then Brian
Daniel — (archived)

and although I take your point, it is important to remember that the point of this 'exercise' was that Isaac was never going to be actually sacrificed. The whole thing was a test of faith .. admittedly a rather nasty one, but to echo the Duke of Wellington: "I don't know what effect they have on the enemy, but they sure scare the heck out of me"

I have heard some religious Jews express opinions to the effect that Christianity has served well as a bulwark against paganism, ie. in the last 2 millenia where Judaism has been too numerically weak to do so effectively.

I once knew a beautiful woman who changed her name from Jane to Pagan, and I think both she and Robert had in mind this direct appreciation of life and nature, ie. without all that troublesome and troublemaking religious ideology getting in the way. Yes I get it - but what they don't realize is pagans end up worshipping every big and little god of this and that which they can think of, and then some. Paganism as you say involves worshipping various major and minor deities, which as a 'multi-theism' is NOT the same thing as Robert's desire for direct, unencumbered spirituality. In fact, for THAT experience, I would recommend a simple, non-ideological (non-aligned) - and heartfelt - personal monotheism.

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