Blood Covenants And You

Question from Chinx:
Should blood covenants ever matter to atheists?

Answer by SmartLX:
If they’re real, yeah.

A blood covenant, as far as I can gather from articles like this, is a mutual obligation between two parties to serve each other in every way needed on pain of a horrible death, not just for the covenant-breakers but possibly for their loved ones.

If one thinks one is a blood covenant, and that the penalty can be enforced, it makes sense to honour it for one’s own safety even if one did not enter the covenant by choice. If a man with a gun is holding you to a supposed blood covenant you should probably do what he says, at least until you can call the police. And if you do enter a blood covenant by choice then you probably have good reason to want to help the other party.

None of this is exclusively in the realm of religious belief or non-belief. Where religion comes into the picture is that Christians, Jews and others think that everyone, not just those groups, is in a blood covenant with God. Whatever God is meant to be doing for us, apparently we are bound to do everything for Him, and we will be punished for not obeying God’s commands.

If you don’t think that’s true, it makes no sense to obey. If there’s only a chance that it’s true, again in the vein of Pascal’s Wager you have to consider all the other possible commitments that might have been made for you by gods and ancestors without your input. By honouring the supposed covenant you’re aware of, you might be breaking the real one. Doing so is by no means the safest move.

So in the end, threatening atheists with the blood covenant is like threatening them with Hell, or demons, or the boogeyman. You have to believe in something at least to some extent to be afraid of it. A lot of Christians think atheists secretly believe in God so these kinds of threats (often phrased as warnings on behalf of God, which is a thin distinction if you don’t believe in God) can be justified internally, but that doesn’t make them work any better.

4 thoughts on “Blood Covenants And You”

  1. Christians of course believe that if you make a promise, especially to your children, you always should honor that promise. But that promise should be one that one intends to keep. Not one that you make just to get out of a bad situation. Now if someone intends you or yours harm in some way, that promise needs not be kept, because it is being made under duress. God made a promise that if we His creation, failed to live up to His laws that He would pay the penalty for our failure, with His own life. this was done at Calvary. With His life given, which was paid to ransom each and every one of the race of Adam, we now, if we accept His sacrifice in our place, are if we never sinned. But naturally since He gave His life in our place, we repay Him by allowing Him to live His life in us. We gain everything, instead of losing everything. This exchange was made necessary since Adam and Eve allowed Satan to usurp God’s throne here on earth making this earth and each and every person property of Satan. Since Christ fulfilled not only what Satan said could not be done by staying loyal to God, trusting only in His Father, and living a life that was in harmony to God’s will, He also showed that Satan’s claims against God were false and that God really did care and loved His creation more than Himself, giving His life for all, and would have done so for only one of us. Thus, we entered into a Covenant with Him, where we made a promise that we would accept Him as our God and serve only Him.
    When Adam sinned that should have been the end of everything. But due to extenuating circumstance, which was the fact that Satan actually initiated the fall, and that Satan, made accusations against God, God set aside the penalty, for a time in order to extend grace to us and give us another chance with out the voice of Satan, pushing us to sin, giving us a neutral environment to see if we would rather accept God or Satan, as our leader. He also is allowing us to see just what Satan’s government would be like with out the love and grace of God, and proving that God’s utmost concern is for His creation. And only those who are truly are seeking to know the truth will be able to see that God loves us.

  2. Blood covenants are an ancient form of “I’ve got your back” basically. Some cultures still have something that basically resembles these things, but most societies would call them “contracts” now. Any agreement that is not of mutual consent is not a valid covenant or contract in modern legal viewpoints

    Religious blood covenants aren’t really covenants at all. Some god being in a faith system says here is what you have to do, and if you do it you get X reward. That’s more like blackmail than an agreement.

    Atheists could care less about these religious forms of coercion, and feel no obligation to honor something that they had no voice in setting up. It’s the “no taxation without representation” stance in relation to the petty and jealous demands of the gods of yore.

    1. The covenant that God made with man, was in every way beneficial to man. God had nothing to loose but His creation, man. Man could in no way go any further down than where he was. By following the mandates of the covenant man gained everything. Because of having been sold out by our Forefathers, man was headed over the falls with no way out. God, our Creator, stepped in and became our Savior. Even though He was not the one who fell, He came through in our stead. And, and this is what is so amazing about the deal, He basically did it all for free. Don’t you get it, all God asked is that we accept Him, to do His part. That was all. He gained nothing extra, because we had been already His. But He gave all. His life.
      No, my friend, this covenant you don’t want to miss out on.

      1. Which covenant are you referring to? There are several in the Bible.

        In the mean time, how does a perfect, divine being get into a situation where it has “nothing to lose” in the first place? How does something perfect even create imperfect beings? Humans are not capable of doing anything except what we are designed to do. Clearly we were designed to sin, else we wouldn’t be able to. Why would a god creature that loves us design us with such flaws…that’s a perverted sense of love if you ask me.

        The whole reason the Bible god had to have itself killed was to make up for the goof it made in Eden. And then even though it goofed, it went ahead and put original sin on everyone that followed, even though no one has a say in being born, tainting all of us because of what someone ate off a tree. So this god being created a bunch of creatures that would need to be saved. Talk about job security, eh?

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