According to Ibrahimic tradition, God communicates to the masses, through prophets and messengers, how we ought to live. If those commands are not followed, we ultimately suffer for it in hell - forever. The opposite is also true. That is, if we follow God’s commands, we achieve paradise. Although, it does make sense that, if we are good, we ought to be rewarded and if we are not, we will suffer. It creates big problems when what we are told is true, is not. Or when what we are told comes from God, does not. How can anyone bond with God based on falsehoods? God is Truth. We bond with God by being truthful. Our religious leaders are supposed to traffic in it but can’t because they don’t know it. Now they will. The bottom line is that we cannot rely on the interpretations of ‘scripture’ provided to us by rabbis, imams, or preachers/priests to get where we need to go spiritually as individuals or a race. Let me explain what I am talking about using the story of Ismael and Isaac. Unbeknownst to most, this story is key to understanding many stories in the Bible, and consequently life.
The story goes that Sarah, Abraham’s wife, could not conceive during her childbearing years, which would leave Abraham without an heir. To remedy this, Sarah told Abraham he could have relations with her maidservant, an Egyptian slave named Hagar, to produce an heir. A son, named Ismael, came from that union. A problem arose when several years later an angel appeared to Sarah and told her, at age ninety, she would conceive a son. Sure enough, Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a boy named Isaac. This created a dilemma concerning who would be Abraham's rightful heir. His firstborn son, Ismael, or Isaac. And, as can be expected, the situation resulted in animosity between the women. According to Sarah, Hagar had come to hate her. Sarah also complained to Abraham that Ismael was constantly tormenting Isaac. Eventually, the animosity Sarah had for Hagar boiled over and the arrangement became untenable. And with Abraham's consent, Hagar and Ismael were cast out into the wilderness to fend for themselves.