Do Christians worship a suicide victim?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Some things I've often wondered about Christ's death:

1. Why was the sacrifice of God incarnate even necessary? God could simply have said, 'Ok, humans, here's the deal - love me big bunches and you'll get to go to heaven. Don't love me and you get punished.'

2. Why all the tedious mucking about with the Passion? If it was necessary for Jesus to die, couldn't he have simply thrown himself under an oxcart or something?

3. Since Jesus was (according to the fable) 'God made flesh', he was immortal, so his 'self-sacrifice' would have been about as troubling as a hangnail.

4. How exactly did Jesus' brutal murder make eternal life possible? In the context of an omnimax Being, couldn't eternal life have been an option without snuffing Jesus?

5. Jesus knew who and what he was - his words and actions clearly demonstrate it. He also knew what was being demanded of him. So why did he wail and moan about being 'forsaken'?

6. Wouldn't the Passion have made a better film if, on the Via Dolorosa, Jesus had manifested a Thompson submachine gun and sprayed his tormentors, shouting, 'You'll never take me alive, coppers!', a la Jimmy Cagney?

7. Continuing the Cagney motif, how cool would it have been if, from the cross, Jesus had shouted, 'Top o' the world, Ma!'?

This is how my mind works when the wife's out of house and there's nothing good on telly.

Boru