Sauntering in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth last spring, seeing Domenichino’s 1601 painting, Abraham Leading Isaac to Sacrifice –- which depicts the result of God’s command to Abraham (Genesis 22: 1-14) to take up his sword to kill his son Isaac –- we learned from the guidebook that at the last moment an angel stopped him, indicating a ram as a substitute. Killing a harmless ram when it was enjoying its life, all for pleasing this thing called God, is evil, we thought, meaning God is evil.
Last week, Ben Coke, writing in City Weekly, January 19, 2012, page 6, a Salt Lake City newspaper, backed the idea, saying:
If the god of Abraham exists, this evil should be fought and not worshiped, for this god and his goons have caused far more suffering than Hitler and his goons, by many orders of magnitude. This evil god has exterminated more than 98 percent of species (dinosaurs, etc.) and continues to torture us with disease, predation, earthquakes, old age, etc. And his goons have caused immense suffering by their jihads, fatwas, suicide bombings, crusades, inquisitions and subjugation of the New World. And his goons continue to cause suffering even today with their opposition to choosing euthanasia for oneself, opposition to stem-cell research and opposition to birth control. Any moral person would choose to burn in hell rather than worship such a monster.
For a brief biography of Domenichino, click here. For the image of Abraham Leading Isaac to Sacrifice (a comforting pastoral scene ruined by putting in it the evil Abraham), click here.
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