John Lennox on the Freedom

 

Question: "Why would you choose to worship a God who forbade you from eating from the Tree of Knowledge and who keeps you dumb?"

Lennox: "That's a good question. I notice it was originally asked by a snake! The notion that God is trying to keep us down is the original lie." pic.twitter.com/nLu9a16gm0

— Danny (@Truth_matters20) November 9, 2025

Shocking 5000 Year Old Secret ✨ What Did Adam And Eve Really Eat?

This video does a good job in summarizing the theology that the fruit Adam and Eve ate was symbolic of sex. The video does not go as far as some say that the Eve had sex with Lucifer in the garden and that was what the fruit was and not really a fruit. I think the video is correct that sex was not prohibited when God created Adam and Eve. God told them to be fruitful and multiply before and after the fall. What do you think?

The Secret of the Serpent in Genesis: What the Hebrew Text Reveals Will ...

This video summarizes the theory that the serpent in Garden of Eden told about in the Book of Genesis was not really a snake but a fallen angel - Lucifer. What do you think? The video leaves a lot of questions in the air. Was the fallen angel in the form of a snake? What did Eve see what was talking to her? Some people even assume that all animals talked to Adam and Eve to explain why Eve wasn't concerned about a snake talking to her. The way I understand the passage is that what destroyed human relationship with God was the fact of their disobedience and not just the fruit they ate.

Jacob Was Right

Ever wonder why the the land of Canaan was divided among the Israelites when they took it in the Book of Joshua the way it was. I mean check out the map on the left. Simeon is completely enclosed in Judah for example. And Levi tribe does not have any centralized territory. Instead they had cities throughout the land. Amazingly if you look at Jacob's prophetic last blessings on his sons, you can see that he correctly tells how the PromiseLand would be given to his descendants according to each son's descendants. Keep in mind that Jacob spoke the following over 400 years before Israel entered the Promise Land. Jacob was right! Why? God told him.

49 Then Jacob called for his sons and said: “Gather around so I can tell you what will happen to you in days to come.

2 “Assemble and listen, sons of Jacob;
    listen to your father Israel.

3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn,
    my might, the first sign of my strength,
    excelling in honor, excelling in power.
4 Turbulent as the waters, you will no longer excel,
    for you went up onto your father’s bed,
    onto my couch and defiled it.

5 

Keep in mind that the oldest son is supposed to get a double portion of inheritance.  But notice Ruben gets only one. 

“Simeon and Levi are brothers—
    their swords[a] are weapons of violence.
6 Let me not enter their council,
    let me not join their assembly,
for they have killed men in their anger
    and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
7 Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
    and their fury, so cruel!
I will scatter them in Jacob
    and disperse them in Israel.

8 

And look at Simeon - his territory is totally within Judah and Levi does not even get a territory.

“Judah,[b] your brothers will praise you;
    your hand will be on the neck of your enemies;
    your father’s sons will bow down to you.
9 You are a lion’s cub, Judah;
    you return from the prey, my son.
Like a lion he crouches and lies down,
    like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?
10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,[c]
until he to whom it belongs[d] shall come
    and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
11 He will tether his donkey to a vine,
    his colt to the choicest branch;
he will wash his garments in wine,
    his robes in the blood of grapes.
12 His eyes will be darker than wine,
    his teeth whiter than milk.[e]

13 “Zebulun will live by the seashore
    and become a haven for ships;
    his border will extend toward Sidon.

14 “Issachar is a rawboned[f] donkey
    lying down among the sheep pens.[g]
15 When he sees how good is his resting place
    and how pleasant is his land,
he will bend his shoulder to the burden
    and submit to forced labor.

16 “Dan[h] will provide justice for his people
    as one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan will be a snake by the roadside,
    a viper along the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
    so that its rider tumbles backward.

18 “I look for your deliverance, Lord.

19 “Gad[i] will be attacked by a band of raiders,
    but he will attack them at their heels.

20 “Asher’s food will be rich;
    he will provide delicacies fit for a king.

21 “Naphtali is a doe set free
    that bears beautiful fawns.[j]

22 “Joseph is a fruitful vine,
    a fruitful vine near a spring,
    whose branches climb over a wall.[k]
23 With bitterness archers attacked him;
    they shot at him with hostility.
24 But his bow remained steady,
    his strong arms stayed[l] limber,
because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob,
    because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,
25 because of your father’s God, who helps you,
    because of the Almighty,[m] who blesses you
with blessings of the skies above,
    blessings of the deep springs below,
    blessings of the breast and womb.
26 Your father’s blessings are greater
    than the blessings of the ancient mountains,
    than[n] the bounty of the age-old hills.
Let all these rest on the head of Joseph,
    on the brow of the prince among[o] his brothers.

27 “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf;
    in the morning he devours the prey,
    in the evening he divides the plunder.”

28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, giving each the blessing appropriate to him.

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FacePlant of the Day - Debunking Christianity: Dear Christian, Would You Kill Your Kid for God?

JM Green has recently posted an article on  Debunking Christianity that attempts to discredit Christianity and Judaism using the story of God telling Abraham to kill his son as a sacrifice. This is one of his best written papers I have read on this site. He attempts to actually use the text and respond to real objections to his argument that a Bible believing Christian would raise. However, he still faceplants in his attempt. A failure. My comments are in red. 

Christian parent, I have a question for you.

Would you be willing to murder your child to prove your loyalty to your boss?

Imagine that your boss came to you and said, “Look, I know you are a good
employee and all, but I really need to know for sure that you are 100%
loyal to my company.  So, next Saturday, I want you to take your son on a
camping trip, and while you are in the mountains I want you to cut his
throat and burn his body, to honor me as your boss.“

You would look at your boss like he was insane, and refuse to do it –
right?  I hope that I am right in assuming that all of you would refuse
such a vile request.

I have two small chiidren: 7 and 4 and no way would I kill my children just to placate a person who just signs my paycheck. I could always get another job but I cannot replace my children. 

Let’s up the stakes a little. What if – instead of your boss – it was your
god who told you to kill and sacrifice your child - to demonstrate your
faith? Would you do it, or not?

Which god would that be. My God made the universe including earth, Me, you, and my children. That God redeemed me from sin and death. That God is not just my boss but my master. Therefore this is more than just a "yes/no" question. If you think your God is asking you to murder your own children, it is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. More on this later. 

Again, I would love to think that most of my Christians would refuse to do it,

but I suspect that right now, some of you are experiencing some mental
dissonance; feeling uneasy about saying “no” to your god, and hedging
with thoughts like, “Of course, God would never ask me to do something
like that.” 

Wouldn’t he?  It’s exactly what the Bible claims that Yahweh asked Abraham to do. 

“Take
your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the
land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the
mountains, which I will show you.”  Genesis 22:2

As Christian, aren’t bound to obey whatever command your god was to give
you?  Doesn’t your god’s will supersede your own desires?  So why are
you balking?  

Of course I am bound to obey whatever God commands and my will does not even come close to superseding God's will. The next question is would God command me to do something like that just because God commanded Abraham to do it? Nope. God commanded Moses to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt, does that mean I am commanded to lead Israel out of Egypt? Nope.  Would a God that would make the fooling commandments also command me kill my own children?

⁸ But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. - 1 Timothy 5:8

 
and

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. - Ephesians 6:4   

Let me hand back to you all the standard responses that Christians offer: 

“Are you qualified to judge God?”

“His ways are not our ways; his thoughts are higher than ours.”

“God must have a good reason for wanting this, and it will all make sense in heaven one day.”

Still not willing to say that you would kill your kid for your god?  Oh ye of little faith!

The mental struggle and tension you are feeling is a conflict between what
your innate love, empathy, and reason tells you (murdering my child is
horribly wrong) and what your religion tells you (obeying my god is
always right).

If you are honest you have to admit that there is no loop hole in the Bible that could be used for justifying a parent to murder his or her own children. NOTHING. The lack of faith here is Green's. Green does raise a valid point: Why was God justified in his commandment of Abraham and why was Abraham justified in obeying him? For Abraham's part obeying God is always the way to go. No where does the Bible say that this was easy for him, but he trusted God so completely. 

Can you see how insidious it is that your religion and Bible present
something as vile as child-murder and human sacrifice as good, when
commanded by your god?  Why then do so few Christians seem bothered when
they read, or hear sermons about this story?

Because we understand it better than Green does. 

Hebrews 11:17 holds up Abraham as a hero of faith – someone to be admired:

“It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was
testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to
sacrifice his only son, Isaac…”

“But,” some of you will no doubt be saying, “He didn’t actually go through with it, God was only testing him.”
True, but according to the story, he was in the process of carrying out the

murder of his son, until Elohim had an angel stop him at the last
second.

Abraham was fully willing to murder his own child, to please his god, and the Bible praises him for it. 

Let that sink in.

If the point is that God is not worthy of such a sacrifice then Green does not know or understand Abraham's relationship with God. That's not surprising if you have no relationship to God of your own.  There is much more to say but let's save those comments in rebuttal to his arguments

As to the ‘testing’, why in the world would a god who know all things
(including the hearts of men, according to the Bible and Christian
belief) need to carry out such a sadistic test?  An all-knowing god
would know exactly what Abraham would do already, so it would be a
pointless exercise.

It was not a test to see if Abraham was loyal or worthy. God had already declared that Abraham was righteous.  The point was to give other people the picture and example of what true Faith looks like. The point wasn't to show God what Abraham was made of but to show him and all those who would hear of Abraham's faith. 

Hebrews 11:19 speculates that Abraham was willing because he believed that his
god would raise Isaac back from the dead, after he killed him.  It is
quite possible that a deranged mind might rationalize the act in this
way, but it does nothing to remove the horror and immorality of it.

Green is forgetting several things. First, Isaac was promised to Abraham. And God promised to bless Abraham and the entire world through Isaac. But Isaac was not born until Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was in her 90's - pointing to Isaac's birth being nothing but a miracle. Added to that Abraham had been waiting 25 years for that promised to be fulfilled. Given that God had kept his promise of a son born of miraculous birth, Abraham was more than reasonable in believing that if God commanded him to kill Isaac that God would raise him from the dead. Nothing immoral there. Everything else God had said was true, why would this be different. Just basic logic. Again, I would not kill my children because God would not tell me to do it.

The other justification that believers offer for the disgusting story is this:

“It is a beautiful foreshadowing of how God would one day sacrifice his own son for our sins.”

Ah yes, a human sacrifice which was to be a beautiful foreshadowing of another human sacrifice… lovely!

Green does not realize how amazing a foreshadowing it is. According to Jewish tradition, Isaac was not a child at this time, but a grown man in his early thirties - like Jesus. There is the assumption that Isaac was a child many Christians make but nothing in the text says that. And like Jesus, Isaac could have stopped the situation himself, but did not. In Judaism, Isaac is thought of as the hero of the story not the victim. 

§       Do you think that it is right for human beings (especially children) to be used as mere objects - pawns -as a kind of twisted sermon illustration? 

     There is not a just a sermon illustration happening here. We get to see how much God loves us. God sacrificed his son for us and we didn't ask him to but needed him too. We needed a good picture of faith.

¹⁸ Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”^{[d] 19} Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. ²⁰ Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. ²² This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” ²³ The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, ²⁴ but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ²⁵ He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. - Romans 4:18-25

 

      If you tried to murder your child in the name of religion, but stopped at
the last minute, what harm do you think that would do to your child’s
mental state and to your relationship with that child?

T

T  There is no evidence in the text of Isaac and Abraham's relationship was negatively impacted. I'm certain that Isaac had his own relationship to God and Isaac learned more about God and his father that day. I think it deepened his relationship. In Genesis 25:9 both Isaac and Ishmael buried Isaac suggesting that the three of them reconciled on good terms.

I regard the Bible’s celebration of a parent who is willing to murder his
child and offer him as a human sacrifice to be both immoral and evil.

Thestory is presented in such a way in Christianity, as to desensitize the
reader to the true horror of what is going on.  The reader’s loyalties
are directed away from the child-victim, and aligned to the perpetrator
(Abraham) and the instigator (Elohim).  This is dehumanizing, and a
perversion of morality.

That is very distorted view. The point was the God would provide his own sacrifice and not one of us would have to give up our own sons to pay for the sins of humanity. God does not require human sacrifice. The God man Jesus sacrificed his own life. It was not taken from him. 

There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer  - Deuteronomy 18:10

In closing, I offer this 1-minute video clip of the late Christopher Hitchens’ response to the Abraham/Isaac story:

 I can't comment on the video because for some reason the clip was not working on the original article when I first responded to this article.

Christian reader, if after viewing the clip, if you are more bothered by
Hitchen’s f-bomb than you are by the fact that your religion
romanticizes a parent being willing to murder his child, then I would
suggest that your moral values are seriously deficient.

Agreed. But the story is not about a parent being willing to murder his child. 

If you are troubled by the Abraham/Isaac story, and would not
be willing to kill your child to prove your faith, then
congratulations, you are more moral than the god you worship.  If this
is the case, then please ask yourself why you are worshipping such a
god.  

UM, no. The only reason why  this story of Abraham and Isaac could be troubling is if you did not understand it. If you reject Christ, you do not understand it. 

A god who would ask a parent to murder their child is not loving, moral,
or holy, and is certainly not worth of worship.  A book which promotes
such an immoral act disqualifies itself as a source for morality.  Why
not do the moral thing, and reject the Bible and it’s sadistic god?

What about a God who would sacrifice his son to save people he created who hate him and his son? How moral and just is that? I ask because it's the same God. It is not sadistic. It was not Abraham's conflict and suffering about sacrificing Isaac that brought God joy or pleasure. It was about Abraham's complete trust in God that he was willing to do whatever God told him to do. As a Christian, I should do the same. As a godless heathen one cannot understand that.

Written by J. M. Green

Keep praying for this guy.

Debunking Christianity: Dear Christian, Would You Kill Your Kid for God?

Debunking Christianity: Did God Want Us to Fall Into Sin?

Today, John Loftus posted the following YouTube video. It's one of the videos created to parody Christianity to the point that it seems to make it crazy to believe Christianity. The problem with the video is that it makes assertions and draws conclusions that are inconsistent with what the Bible believes. The video assumes that God set up Adam and Eve for failure and actually desired for humanity to fall into sin.  The video then sets up a provocative question by asking what would the earth be like had Adam not disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. The picture being painted rests on several assumptions. I'm going to focus on the ones that jump out that are in direct contradiction with the Bible. First the lie and then the truth.

1. Had Adam and Eve had obeyed God, humanity would overpopulate the earth in endless orgies.

It was never intended by God for men and women to have different than heterosexual and monogamous marriage relationships.

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^[a]5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’^[b]? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” - Matthew 19:4-6

2. Human anatomy and the created order is the same as it is now. 

Sin changed everything. I see no reason to assume that if Adam and Eve were not limited by sickness, pains or mortality  as we that they had any of the unpleasantness that comes with life now - like having excrement that stinks.

3.  Our experience of free will and reasoning is the same as what Adam and Eve had before the fall.

When people claim to have free will it always amazes me. If we had free will we should be able to choose to not sin. We cannot. We sin on purpose and not on purpose. Consciously and unconsciously. Everyone who had come into the world as a descendant of Adam is a born a sinner - enslaved and some never become aware of that and many deny their chains.  Bottom line is none of us know what it's like to not have to sin no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. Adam and Eve knew because they were perfect. You and I are no near close.

¹² Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

¹³ To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. - Romans 5:12-14

4. Childbirth was always intended to be painful.

We do not know what child birth would have been like had Adam and Eve had obeyed God. None. The Bible does not tell us. The pain and suffering that comes with it only came into being after the curse of sin and death came over us.

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.” - Genesis 3:16

Thanks, Adam and  Eve.

5. The serpent tried to talk Adam and Eve out of  disobeying God. 

The serpent did not try to help Eve. He tricked Eve into questioning God's single command and convinced her to distrust God. This the exact tactic the devil employs against us today and this exactly the lie that the maker of the video has fallen for. The things is that all who reject God has fallen for this lie.

 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. - Genesis 3:1-7

Additionally, something I have a huge problem with is the idea that God does not have a good reason for allowing Adam and Eve to be tested in their obedience and know that they would fall would not have a good reason for it. Think carefully. We know every single human being is so unique that one cannot have any other mother or father than the biological pair you have. We also know that you could not have conceived at any other time than the time you were conceived. Hold this thought as you consider the following passage:

²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸ ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’^[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.' - Acts 17: 24-28

The Bible very clearly teaches that your existence and everything about it is due to God's intervention in His creation. You exist because of the plan God has in mind and He put you at the time and place where you can best find him. And it's not just about you. Think of all the people you interact with and who you affect and they affect you. God's taking all of that into account also. This includes not just the good things we do but even the bad. For example, would you still exist as the person you are now had there been no American Civil War? World War I?  Vietnam?  Could you even be able to know all the causes and effects? Not away. You'd have a better chance to understand and explain gravity...and no one has been able to do that either. Personally, just the little bit I know about my family histories and world history, I wouldn't be here without a lot of people's pain and suffering. That's a humbling and sobering thought. That makes us all responsible and accountable. God allowed evil because He has sovereign reasons to allow it and one of them is because He loves the "you" that you are. If things had not gone exactly the way they have, that "you" would not exist, and neither would all those you are connected to. Instead of trying to figure out why God allows evil, one should remember if God were to obliterate evil God would have to start with us.  On top of that praise God because that Evil is on the leash. Evil is under God's control and God's purposes are good in all that God does.

Remember this example. Joseph experienced much evil and suffering that wasn't his fault in any way. It started with his brother betraying him and selling him into slavery. How did Joseph respond?

¹⁹ But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? ²⁰ You intended to harm me,but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. ²¹ So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. - Genesis 50:19-21

This is true even about Jesus crucifixion. When Adam sinned, God wasn't thinking "Oh, crap! What am I going to do now?!"  Jesus was not plan B. Or like a bubblegum or duct tape holding something together that was broken.


Debunking Christianity: Did God Want Us to Fall Into Sin