Quotes & Sayings About Abraham's Faith

Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. — Barack Obama

Here it isn't a matter of knowing what the other knows, for Abraham doesn't know anything. It isn't a matter of sharing his faith, for the latter must remain an initiative of absolute singularity. And moreover, we don't think or speak of Abraham from the point of view of a faith that is sure of itself, any more than did Kierkegaard...Our faith is not assured because a faith never can be, it must never be a certainty. We share with Abraham what cannot be shared, a secret we know nothing about, neither him nor us. To share a secret is not to know or to reveal the secret, it is to share we know not what: nothing that can be known, nothing that can be determined. — Jacques Derrida

God calls us, just as he called Abraham, away from the security we knew, out of our old, familiar, little room, down the ladder of faith and into his arms. Jesus called his disciples that way - just as a lover elopes with his beloved. — Peter Kreeft

There can be no doubt that the blessing, of which believers are heirs, is justification by faith; and that the promise, according to which they are heirs of this blessing, is the gospel promise made to Abraham. — Adoniram Judson

Columbus was an Abraham, for he went out not knowing whither he went. Columbus was a Moses, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Only the man of faith is the man of power. Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible. God grant that to-day in that bark we may be wafted by God's blessing, and may land at last on the shores of Heaven, where we shall sing a sweeter Te Deum than that which awoke the echoes on the soil of virgin America, or those amid the splendors of the court at Barcelona. — Robert Stuart MacArthur

The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.
Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Yes, genuine pain and loss coexisted with the deliverance, but it did not have the last word. Its power to hurt him was weakened because he could see the bigger things God was doing in, for, and through him. You can probably find similar events in your life. Hard things persisted, there was no apparent deliverance, but, with closer inspection, you notice a deliverance that went much deeper. And these are eleventh-hour deliverances on this side of death and eternity. Imagine if you gradually developed the spiritual skill to see beyond the immediate moment and catch a glimpse of the glories to come. The basic outline is clear: if you have thrown your lot in with Jesus, everything he has is yours, even the kingdom itself. It would be impossible to ask for more. Those who imitate Abraham's faith are always pushing the last minute farther out until it comes even after physical death. Such a person is fearless. A — Edward T. Welch

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day. — Abraham Lincoln

The purely righteous do not complain of the dark, but increase the light; they do not complain of evil, but increase justice; they do not complain of heresy, but increase faith; they do not complain of ignorance, but increase wisdom. — Abraham Isaac Kook

Should one of them after having caught the greatness of Abraham's deed, but also the appallingness of it, venture out on the road, I would saddle my horse and ride along with him. At every stop before we came to the mountain in Moriah I would explain to him that he could still turn back, could rue the misunderstanding that he was called to be tried in a conflict of this nature, could confess that he lacked the courage, so that if God wanted Isaac God must take him himself. — Johannes De Silentio

The nations are not gathered in automatically. If God has promised to bless "all the families of the earth," he has promised to do so "through Abraham's seed" (Genesis 12:3, 22:18). Now we are Abraham's seed by faith, and the earth's families will be blessed only if we go to them with the gospel. That is God's plain purpose. — John Stott

It was his belief, furthermore, that this religion, so elevated and simple, had repeatedly been corrupted and debased by man, and especially outraged by idolatry; wherefore a succession of prophets, each inspired by a revelation from the Most High, had been sent from time to time, and at distant periods, to restore it to its original purity. Such was Noah, such was Abraham, such was Moses, and such was Jesus Christ. By each of these, the true religion had been reinstated upon earth, but had again been vitiated by their followers. The faith, as taught and practiced by Abraham when he came out of the land of Chaldea, seems especially to have formed a religious standard in his mind, from his veneration for the patriarch as the father of Ishmael, the progenitor of his race. — Washington Irving

16 So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham's. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. 17 That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, "I have made you the father of many nations."[*] This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing. — Anonymous

There is a kind of faith that is based on what you see, and there is another kind of faith that Abraham exercised. — Olusola A. Areogun

Love surely is said to be blind but at times it takes blind turns. — Amit Abraham

For when God is said by these things to try men and prove them, to see what is in their hearts and whether they will keep His commandments or no, we are not to understand, that it is for His own information, or that He may obtain evidence Himself of their sincerity (for he needs no trials for His information); but chiefly for their conviction, and to exhibit evidence to their consciences ...
So when God tempted or tried Abraham with that difficult command of offering up his son, it was not for His satisfaction, whether he feared God or no, but for Abraham's own greater satisfaction and comfort, and the more clear manifestation of the favour of God to him. — Jonathan Edwards

The problem in todays world is that people lack trust in goodness. — Amit Abraham

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves, there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness in which time rolls on and leaves us behind ... those who are open to the wonder will not miss it. Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

I've never bought this idea of taking a therapeutic distance. If I see a student or house staff cry, I take great faith in that. That's a great person; they're going to be a great doctor. — Abraham Verghese

Some communities don't permit open, honest inquiry about the things that matter most. Lots of people have voiced a concern, expressed a doubt, or raised a question, only to be told by their family, church, friends, or tribe: "We don't discuss those things here."
I believe the discussion itself is divine. Abraham does his best to bargain with God, most of the book of Job consists of arguments by Job and his friends about the deepest questions of human suffering, God is practically on trial in the book of Lamentations, and Jesus responds to almost every question he's asked with ... a question. — Rob Bell

Love is a choice. That's why love it's one of gods commandments. People love because they trust. People trust because of faith. Love does have expectations. What we expect by love is eternity. We expect eternity because love is a choice, and you can choose to have it forever. The expectation of having love is a purpose to live, and a purpose to die. With out expectations, why would you love. The natural gift of love it's a purpose to live and happiness. That's why love it's worth dying for. With god or with out god in the picture, that's why love it's worth dying for. — Abraham Ruiz

And we're also remembering the guiding light of our Judeo-Christian tradition. All of us here today are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sons and daughters of the same God. I believe we are bound by faith in our God, by our love for family and neighborhood, by our deep desire for a more peaceful world, and by our commitment to protect the freedom which is our legacy as Americans. These values have given a renewed sense of worth to our lives. They are infusing America with confidence and optimism that many thought we had lost ... — Ronald Reagan

You see, this people [Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, etc.] simply believed that God existed in the situation they were faced with, and they trusted Him rather than themselves. The result? God said, "That pleases Me." They were men and women just like you and I, which is the most encouraging part of all. We don't find golden haloes, or perfect backgrounds, or sinless lives, we just find people. People who failed, who struggled, who doubted, who experienced hard times and low times in which their faith was eclipsed by doubt. But their lives were basically characterized by faith. — Charles R. Swindoll

In America, we have always taken it as an article of faith that we 'battle' cancer; we attack it with knives, we poison it with chemotherapy or we blast it with radiation. If we are fortunate, we 'beat' the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having 'succumbed after a long battle.' — Abraham Verghese

Like Abraham, as we embark on our own journey, have a lil faith, take the imparted wisdoms from our parents/teachers, go forward and be attentive always to the quiet voice of your heart — Daniel Gottlieb

It was not to save a nation that Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, nor to appease angry gods ... Then why does Abraham do it? For God's sake ... He does it for the sake of God because God demands proof of his faith ... He was not justified by being virtuous, but by being an individual submitted to God in faith. — Soren Kierkegaard

Faith is an awareness of divine mutuality and companionship, a form of communion between God and man. It is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith. — Abraham Kuyper

The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will. — Abraham Lincoln

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS — Abraham Lincoln

Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind's desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

To have faith in the Word, Scripture must not grasp us in our critical thought, but in the life of the soul. — Abraham Kuyper

Therefore, the church is not absolutely necessary as an object of faith, not even for us today, for then Abraham and the other prophets would not have given assent to those things which were revealed to them from God without any intervening help of the church. — William Ames

When we look at Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael, we see that God's grace can survive our three-ring-circuses of compromise, rationalization and weak faith. — Carl Prude Jr.

Our relationship with the followers of Islam has taken on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries, where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society. We must never forget that they "profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day". — Pope Francis

It is now my intention to draw out from the story of Abraham the dialectical
consequences inherent in it, expressing them in the form of
problemata
, in order to see
what a tremendous paradox faith is, a paradox which is capable of transforming a
murder into a holy act well-pleasing to God, a paradox which gives Isaac back to
Abraham, which no thought can master, because faith begins precisely there where
thinking leaves off. — Soren Kierkegaard

There is a golden thread that runs through every account of faith from the beginning of the world to the present time. Abraham, Noah, the brother of Jared, the Prophet Joseph Smith, and countless others wanted to be obedient to the will of God. They had ears that could hear, eyes that could see, and hearts that could know and feel.
They never doubted. They trusted. — Thomas S. Monson

Awe rather than faith is the cardinal attitude of the religious Jew. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American. — Aberjhani

If this had not been the case with Abraham, then perhaps he might have loved God but not
believed; for he who loves God without faith reflects upon himself, he who loves God believingly reflects upon God. — Soren Kierkegaard

Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible) — Abraham Lincoln

When Lincoln was asked if God was on the Union's side, Lincoln's unvarying response was that what was really important was whether they were on God's side. — Joe L. Wheeler

First, that faith is not hope, not a mere expectation of future things, but a present receiving of that which is promised in a real and substantial way. It is accepting, not expecting. Secondly, that it is not sight, for it deals with things not seen. The region of the visible is not the realm of faith. When a thing is proved by demonstration, it is not a matter of faith, but of evidence. Faith asks no other evidences than God's Word and its own assurance. It is the evidence. It is not true to say that "seeing is believing." Faith believes where it cannot see; nay, believes what sight and evidence may even seem to contradict, if only God has said it. When God said to Abraham, "I have made thee a father of many nations," there was no sign of it; indeed, the evidence of sight plainly — A.B. Simpson

When we are asked to show our love for God, our desire for him, when he asks us as Jesus asked Peter, 'Lovest thou me?' we have to give proof of it. 'Lovest thou me more than these, more than any human companionship, more than any human love?' It is not filth and ugliness, drugs and drink and perversion he is asking us to prefer him to. He is asking us to prefer him to all beauty and loveliness. To all other love. He is giving us a chance to prove our faith, our hope, our charity. It is as hard and painful as Abraham's ordeal, when he thought he was asked to perform a human sacrifice and immolate his son. — Dorothy Day

Doubt is a first cousin to faith, Ghosh. To have faith, you have to suspend your disbelief. — Abraham Verghese

Religious sentiments are many a times much above reality. All are aware of reality but blinded by faith and faith has always led to many a myths become reality. — Amit Abraham

Why then did Abraham do it ? For God's sake, and (in complete identity with this) for his own sake. He did it for God's sake because God required this proof of his faith ; for his own sake he did it in order that he might furnish the proof. — Soren Kierkegaard

Abraham Lincoln said, "I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this Book upon reason that you can and the balance upon faith, and you will live and die a better man." Coleridge said he believed the Bible to be the Word of God because, as he put it, "It finds me." "If you want encouragement," John Bunyan wrote, "entertain the promises. — Billy Graham

The anchor of meaning resides in an abyss, deeper than the reach of despair. Yet the abyss is not not infinite; its bottom may suddenly be discovered within the confines of a human heart or under the debris of might doubts. This may be the vocation of man: to say "Amen" to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

I trust people with my eyes and ears wide open. — Amit Abraham

Man's glory lies not, Lincoln thought, in 'his goodness,' for this is often nonexistent. He derives glory, instead, from his being made in the image of the Living God. — Joe L. Wheeler

To us, recollection is a holy act; we sanctify the present by remembering the past. To us Jews, the essence of faith is memory. To believe is to remember. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Picture for a moment the scene of a son carrying wood up a hill. He is about to make the greatest sacrifice he can make. Is it Abraham's Isaac? Or Heavenly Father's Jehovah? It is both. It is you. YOU are also God's child. If He required so much from them, why should He require less from us?
He doesn't.
He doesn't want a portion. He requires our all. — Toni Sorenson

You have given me faith and have grown my faith in Your Word. I don't have faith in my own faith, as if I have accomplished anything myself, but I have faith in You and Your faithfulness to me, which is a shield from the enemy's arrows. Just as You were Abraham's shield — Stormie O'martian

Faith like Job's cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him. — Abraham Lincoln

18 Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping - believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, "That's how many descendants you will have!"* 19 And Abraham's faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead - and so was Sarah's womb. 20 Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. 22 And because of Abraham's faith, God counted him as righteous. 23 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn't just for Abraham's benefit. It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. — Anonymous

Simon had been sent by Barabbas to find out if the Nazarene was a fellow revolutionary, a self-proclaimed messiah, or something else. Simon's heart had been strangely moved by this stranger and he was still trying to figure him out. But the Rabbi remained a mystery to him. The centurion had asked him to heal his servant and Jesus replied that he had not seen such great faith in all of Israel. That was shocking enough, to attribute such goodness to a filthy, unclean stranger to the covenant. But then he said that many such people would come to the feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom - in other words, Israelites - would be thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. As an Essene scribe at Qumran, Simon had spent his whole life in rituals of cleanness and separation. — Brian Godawa

One can go back toward safety or forward toward growth. — Abraham Maslow

What God said to Abraham was not 'Obey this law and I will bless you', but 'I will bless you; believe my promise'. — John R.W. Stott

Love for perishing souls inspired Abraham's prayer. While he loathed the sins of that corrupt city, he desired that the sinners might be saved. His deep interest for Sodom shows the anxiety that we should feel for the impenitent. We should cherish hatred of sin, but pity and love for the sinner. All around us are souls going down to ruin as hopeless, as terrible, as that which befell Sodom. Every day the probation of some is closing. Every hour some are passing beyond the reach of mercy. And where are the voices of warning and entreaty to bid the sinner flee from this fearful doom? Where are the hands stretched out to draw him back from death? Where are those who with humility and persevering faith are pleading with God for him? — Ellen G. White

Don't believe in anyone other than yourself - every other will start believing in you. — Amit Abraham

Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised[*] Holy Spirit through faith. — Anonymous

God told Abraham to leave his home and set for journey and to have faith of being taken care of. Not just an external journey, it was also a journey upon into oneself. — Daniel Gottlieb

A burdened heart doesn't equate to a lack of faith. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can heal with a simple command. The burden comes from wondering if that's His will and may it be done. — Donna Lynn Hope

In the darkest night to be certain of the dawn ... to go through Hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God-this is the challenge and the way. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one's faith. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

I have never united myself to any church because I found difficulty in giving my assent without mental reservation to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize the articles of belief and the usual confession of faith. — Abraham Lincoln

I think about something I once heard on the radio. About Abraham and Isaac."
"I was afraid you'd say something like that."
"You asked."
"So what about them? I don't really know much about that kind of stuff."
"There was a pastor on the radio who said nobody should ever preach that story. Do you remember how it goes? God tells Abraham that he has to sacrifice his son to prove his faith."
"I agree with the pastor. It sounds like a sick story. Ban that shit."
"But isn't that exactly what we do? Send young men off to a war in the desert and ask them to sacrifice themselves for a belief? — A.J. Kazinski

Learn to make peace with the mysteries of surrender, submission, endurance. The promise is based on God's grace. The promise comes by faith. All of Abraham's children will certainly receive the promise. And it is not only for those who are ruled by the law. Those who have the same faith that Abraham had are also included. He is the father of us all. - Romans 4:16 NIrV — Robin Jones Gunn

We cannot be passive and silent towards those who reject God's Word and our holy faith. — Abraham Kuyper

What justifies specifically churchly exegesis of Scripture? Can church doctrine guide our reading? Why should it? Why should we interpret the story of Abraham and Isaac by the passion of Jesus? The answer is bluntly simple: What justifies churchly reading of Scripture is that there is no other way to read it, since "it" dissolves under other regimes. Thus a hermeneutical exhortation from this first perspective. Be entirely blatant and unabashed in reading Scripture for the church's purposes and within the context of Christian faith and practice. Indeed, guide your reading by church doctrine. For if, say, the doctrine of Trinity and Matthew's construal of the passion do not fit each other, then the church lost its diachronic self in the early fourth century at the latest, and the whole enterprise of Bible reading is moot. The question, after all, is not whether churchly reading of Scripture is justified; the question is, what could possibly justify any other? — Ellen F. Davis

My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. — Abraham Lincoln

His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right. — Abraham Cowley

Did god make man too perfect,
So that a piece has to be removed
through circumcision? — A.J. Beirens

The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient. — Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln grew immeasurably as he came to think of himself as an instrument of God's will. — Joe L. Wheeler

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

All action is vicarious faith. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Every science in a certain degree starts from faith, and, on the contrary, faith, which does not lead to science, is mistaken faith or superstition, but real, genuine faith it is not. — Abraham Kuyper

Abraham obeyed God in the extremity, and as a result, he became the model of faith. Thus anyone who has faith in God and is thereby justified is a child in the spiritual line of Abraham. If we trust God as Abraham did, we can be confident in any test or trial. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Extermination of city could be prevented
by presence of a few who have faith of God. — Toba Beta

Many of the Bible characters fell just in the things in which they were thought to be strongest. Moses failed in his humility, Abraham in his faith, Elijah in his courage, for one woman scared him away to that juniper-tree; and Peter, whose strong point was boldness, was so frightened by a maid, as to deny his Lord. — Dwight L. Moody

God cannot reveal His faithfulness until we exercise our faith. But because Abraham went all in, God was able to reveal Himself as Jehovah-jireh, God our Provider. — Mark Batterson

The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from religious life. — Abraham Cahan

From the beginnings of Israelite religion the belief that God had chosen this particular people to carry out His mission has been both a cornerstone of Hebrew faith and a refuge in moments of distress. And yet, the prophets felt that to many of their contemporaries this cornerstone was a stumbling block; this refuge, an escape. They had to remind the people that chosenness must not be mistaken as divine favoritism or immunity from chastisement, but, on the contrary, that it meant being more seriously exposed to divine judgment and chastisement. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Paul emphasizes that it is not the natural Jew but the person who puts his faith in Jesus Christ who becomes Abraham's spiritual seed: — David Wilkerson

Faith deals with the invisible things of God. It refuses to be ruled by the physical senses. Faith is able to say, 'You can do what you like, because I know God is going to take care of me. He has promised to bless me wherever he leads me.' Remember that even when every demon in hell stands against us, the God of Abraham remains faithful to all his promises. Jesus Christ can do anything but fail his own people who trust him. — Jim Cymbala

Abraham I cannot understand; in a way all I can learn from him is to be amazed. If one imagines one can be moved to faith by considering the outcome of this story, one deceives oneself, and is out to cheat God of faith's first movement, one is out to suck the life-wisdom out of the paradox. One or another may succeed, for our age does not stop with faith, with its miracle of turning water into wine; it goes further, it turns wine into water. — Johannes De Silentio

God is always with us
It is we who leave God — Amit Abraham

Faith is something that comes out of the soul. It is not an information that is absorbed but an attitude, existing prior to the formulation of any creed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

It takes time to figure it out.Give yourself sometime.It took Abraham 100yrs — Ikechukwu Joseph

It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion
its message becomes meaningless. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Faith opens our hearts for the entrance of the holy. It is almost as though God were thinking for us. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Abraham saw God as Father. He proved Him to be the source of all things. Isaac received the inheritance as a son. It is a blessed thing to have a gift bestowed upon us by God. Yet even what we receive we may seize upon and spoil. Jacob attempted to do this, and was only saved from the consequences by having his natural strength undone. There must be a day in our experience when this happens. The characteristic of those who truly know God is that they have no faith in their own competence, no reliance upon themselves. When Jacob learned this lesson, then in truth there began to be an Israel of God ... — Watchman Nee

We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man. — Sam Harris

Faith is not believing that God can, but that God will. — Abraham Lincoln

God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trusted Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, 'tempting' Abraham, and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two assymetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions. — Richard Dawkins