My Answer to the Atheist's View of Understanding Why God Told Abraham to Offer Isaac
For the atheist the story is sick and prove that God is not loving for asking Abraham to offer Isaac. One of them may say, "I hate to think God would glory in the fact that Abraham was willing to offer Isaac." but that is not the whole story. What they fail to do is to take the story in context. They may hate to deny it but they may have acknowledged Sarah got pregnant by supernatural means, since scientifically she is already past her prime and she knew it. Going back to Isaac, remember he was called the "only son" or better interpreted as "only son of promise".
We take a look God commands us not to love our relatives more than Him. Certainly we are commanded to honor our parents and provide for our children BUT we are also commanded to love God. That is, if parents tell the children to do something wrong, the child must politely disobey and accept punishment due as a Christian who suffers for righteousness' sake. If the child wants to do or does something contrary to God's Word, the parent must spank the child no matter how much it hurts the parent to do so. The same goes with Isaac.
As one must realize, Isaac was to become a type of Christ in carrying the wood to Mt. Moriah, later Christ carried the crossbeam to Calvary. Remember when Isaac was about to be offered, God stopped Abraham immediately. The Angel of the LORD who is the pre-incarnate Christ stopped Him. A ram was provided which was this- Isaac could not be accepted as a sacrifice to God because he is a sinner, instead the ram caught by the thorns too Isaac's place! Why couldn't the atheist take the fact that God was more than good enough to actually allow Abraham to keep Isaac after that or that God offered a ram to take Isaac's place? Obviously the atheist is in conflict with God. They know God exists but they pretend like He does not while later revealing their hatred for God.
Hebrews 11:9 also shows us why Abraham was willing to do so. He had enough faith in God to know that God was only testing Him, that God was willing to raise Isaac from the dead. A human sacrifice however was not acceptable so a ram was provided. And Abraham knew that God will provide a ram. The ram took Isaac's place.