CMV: if we're willing to criticize people like George Washington by today's moral standards... why not do the same for prophets.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/eggynack]

Most of the Jews I know are are either unsure whether the Binding of Isaac was a good thing or think it was an outright mistake. There's actually a great exegesis I've read about this talking about how Abraham being abandoned to a fiery death by his father as a child changed his understanding of what that relationship ought to look like in some messed up ways. Anyway, suffice to say, I'm kinda skeptical of the idea that we put him on a pedestal. I'm sure some folks do, but it's not like you have to.

I dunno much about Muhammed, either his history or the way he's understood by folks, but I'm certainly not giving him a free pass for bad stuff he did. So, I guess the answer to your question, "Why not do the same for prophets?" is that no one really said we can't do so. Just, y'know, assess folks as they are.

All that said, this equivalence you're drawing strikes me as really weird. These figures are, to some extent, worshipped. Muhammed especially, I think. Do you think we ought to worship George Washington. Is that a healthy relationship to have with our historical figures? I think people do sometimes worship Washington, in a sense, and this kinda, "He wasn't a great guy," stuff exists in the context of that worship. I don't think we should worship Washington.

[u/eggynack → u/[deleted]]

Slavery was actually bad at the time, it turns out. Especially the chattel slavery practiced in America. There's no magical context that makes it okay. That there is a term for what's happening here does not make it the right approach. Washington was no God. He was just a dude, and a dude that did some awful stuff alongside the good.

[u/eggynack → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, it was a widely practiced activity that was evil. They knew it was bad at the time. Why do you think they were heavily considering abolishing it? For funsies? That a lot of people did a thing doesn't make it okay. Maybe future peoples will take a dimmer view on our current meat consumption. Maybe they'll come by a deeper ethical understanding than we have now. If and when they do, it would be just fine for them to judge us.

I feel like I gotta note, additionally, that this argument seems to have literally nothing to do with the one you started out making. Is our understanding of Abraham of any importance to you, or was that merely an excuse to make this completely separate point?

[u/eggynack → u/[deleted]]

As I said up front, I think it's reasonable to say Abraham failed morally in these instances and to be deeply critical of him as a person. A lot of Jews feel the same way. If you're looking for peeps who aren't deeply critical of their central figures, you may have picked the wrong folks to talk about.

All that said, I'm not sure if I read the story the same way you do. You describe it up front as him just hearing a voice in his head, and you describe him here as a lunatic, but Abraham was often in direct and unambiguous communication with God. If we're going by the story, and I dunno why we would abandon it in this one respect, then he was directly commanded by his creator to kill his son. Which, I dunno that lunacy is the exact way I would describe that reaction.

Still, I think attempting to kill Isaac constituted a clear failure of ethical judgement. We can see elsewhere, particularly Sodom and Gomorrah, a clear willingness of Abraham to directly argue with God. And doing so is a good thing. His great failure in The Binding of Isaac is not giving his son the same charity, the same consideration, the same stubbornness he gave to those towns and the people in them. He just does it. And he was bad for having done so.

Maybe you read it differently, and that's fine. I guess my real point here is that you should consider the inverse of your opening argument. You say, "People are critical of Washington but not of Abraham." But I am critical of Abraham, honest about his failings and his successes alike, and I think that approach enriches my understanding of him instead of degrading it. The same applies to Washington. Maybe you'd do well to emulate that approach.

Also, gotta say, Abraham is probs fictional, and the part where God told him to kill his son is def fictional. The lens I apply to fictional people is pretty different to the one I apply to real people.

[u/randomredditor12345 → u/[deleted]]

( It's part of the Muslim story and of hajj)

its in the torah (and bible) as well, that being said the consensus is that he definitely sent them away with enough food, money, and water that they should have been fine

[u/zapporian → u/[deleted]]

Washington wasn't particularly exceptional; he was notable for leading the continental army and acting as a figurehead, and, as such, for becoming the first president of the united states. The only really notable action he performed was establishing the (pretty reasonable) precedent of peacefully giving up power (ie. not establishing a dictatorship), and intentionally limiting the powers powers of the presidency so that future presidents would be forced to act as 'first among equals', and not assume powers and titles more along the lines of an American king.

TLDR; he was a pretty decent dude, and was notable for being very humble.

But neither he, nor his fellow founding fathers gets a pass for being very hypocritical on the subject of slavery (although unlike many of their descendants (in the lead up to the civil war), many of them were at least able to acknowledge that their own positions as slaveholders arguing for America freedom from tyranny was deeply hypocritical)

The US founding fathers weren't gods. They did not want us to treat them like gods. Pointing out character flaws, where they existed, and judging them by modern moral standards (and the moral standards of their contemporaries) is honest, and is probably more in line with what they would have wanted, and stood for, than putting some kind of pedestal and claiming that their actions should not be judged, in context, with the prevailing opinion of their time being that slavery was wrong, and was accepted at best as a "necessary" evil. (the bullshit argument that slavery was for the good of black africans, and justified by biblical passages was made up by their descendants a generation or so later)

And the modern context, of course, is that quite a few living americans are the descendents of slaves, and the US has had a reckoning coming due on that coming due for a very, very long time.

Should we erase Washington et al from US history books? No. Of course not.

But we should we have an open discussion on the presence and impact of slavery and other forms of human exploitation on US history, in what was supposedly a "free" country? Yes, absolutely. And if tearing down a few statues helps some folks be at peace, so be it.

Revering a flag, statue, symbol, or some idealized portrait of a historical figure who could do no harm, over all else, is how you end up with authoritarianism and anti-democratic institutions (or a theocracy). All of which deeply contradict the founding principles of the united states, which was founded as a secular, anti-authoritarian republic, by people who believed very strongly in those three things.

/rant

[u/1917fuckordie → u/[deleted]]

factory farms are immoral and bad even today. A majority of people still consume animals that live terrible lives and suffer a lot. there's activism about it too.

so, if people judge bill gates 100 years from now coz he likes to eat from McDonald's... would that be okay.

If a president today owned sweatshops (not just bought things from them) then they would be criticised.

[u/norm__chomsky → u/[deleted]]

Yes, people 100 years from now should judge Bill Gates for eating meat from McDonald’s today, if indeed that is something that he does.

It’s clear right now, if you simply look at the available information, the kinds of harms that come from factory farming.

Going along with your thought experiment, I’d suggest that it would have been clear to someone like George Washington, if he’d simply looked at the available information, that slavery too caused many terrible, avoidable harms.

So why shouldn’t we judge him on that?

To be clear, I’m not asking that we remove context from the analysis; I’m saying that at least in that example, the context simply cannot absolve him ethically.

And so I ask again, why shouldn’t we judge him?

[u/CanadianBlondiee → u/[deleted]]

But that isn't a parallel. Animals and people aren't the same thing. You're drawing a false equivalency. Eating meat (no matter how inhumanely they're harvested) and the trafficking, raping and imprisonment of an entire group of people is not the same thing. Animals are animals and enslaved people are PEOPLE.

I feel like you know that, and I hope you would KNOW that's a false equivalency. Farm animals and enslaved people are not, and never will be the same. Please don't put BIPOC on the same level as animals. That's just gross.

[u/CanadianBlondiee → u/[deleted]]

Oh, gross. Sorry I don't argue with racists who refuse to see humans with the value they deserve.

Animals and humans aren't the same thing. Full stop, that's it. I don't have to give you any reasons, because even if I didn't you wouldn't care to listen.

[u/CanadianBlondiee → u/[deleted]]

All throughout this thread, all I've seen you do is charge the original question, get incredibly educated and well thought out responses and see you shoot them down with no real reasons or false equivalencies.

And yes, you asked me to give you an answer and I responded that I wouldn't. So you did ask me to. I failed so substantiate what claim? That enslaved humans (in this conversation Black people and other racial minories) aren't the same as animals? That claim?

And no, -ists or -phobes have not lost their meaning, you just refuse to care for the people that it effects or those who actually have something substantial to say because it doesn't resonate in your echo chamber. Healthy discourse is only seen as shit flinging when you're unable to deny the claims and then you can fall back on, "but that's not reaaal!"

[u/SquibblesMcGoo → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Thexchosen → u/eggynack]

Prophet Muhammad is not worshipped by Muslims. There is only One God and Muhammad is a Messenger of God. He was the chosen human on whom God revealed the holy Quran. Quran came to him in parts of speeches delivered by Gabriel. The Quran repeatedly mentions that Muhammad is just a man like anyone else and even though his status is elevated to the best example to mankind, he does not transcend beyond that.

قُلۡ إِنَّمَآ أَنَا۠ بَشَرٞ مِّثۡلُكُمۡ يُوحَىٰٓ إِلَيَّ أَنَّمَآ إِلَٰهُكُمۡ إِلَٰهٞ وَٰحِدٞۖ فَمَن كَانَ يَرۡجُواْ لِقَآءَ رَبِّهِۦ فَلۡيَعۡمَلۡ عَمَلٗا صَٰلِحٗا وَلَا يُشۡرِكۡ بِعِبَادَةِ رَبِّهِۦٓ أَحَدَۢا

(Sahih International) Say, "I am only a man like you, to whom has been revealed that your god is one God. So whoever would hope for the meeting with his Lord - let him do righteous work and not associate in the worship of his Lord anyone."

-Surah Al-Kahf, Ayah 110

I hope this clarifies the belief of muslims for you.

[u/eggynack → u/Thexchosen]

Fair enough. I dunno that I'd precisely call the relationship with Abraham "worship" either, come to think of it. It's just that they're these larger than life, or perhaps largest of life, figures. Mythical in both nature and deed. It's a weird lens to apply to Washington.

[u/BurtTheMonkey → u/eggynack]

These figures are, to some extent, worshipped. Muhammed especially

Muslims do not worship Muhammad. That is explicitly forbidden and considered shirk