It's hard to rationalize Christianity because it makes no sense. Why did Jesus or anyone else, god or human, have to suffer and die? Human sacrifice? Really? If this did happen, as Christians say it did and for the reasons they say it did, there needs to be some better reasoning, some rational explanation for why it was necessary. Why would a god need to rely on such a disgusting and primitive act to forgive us and save us from his judgment?
Most societies on Earth realized centuries ago that ritual human sacrifice is as barbaric as it is unproductive. Tossing virgins into a volcano or carving out some guy’s heart atop a temple once might have seemed like sensible investments for better times ahead, but eventually it dawned on most that such practices were cruel, stupid, and unnecessary. As an act of punishment and/or religious rite, it is beneath us. We are better than that. So why would God need such an act to offer humankind an escape clause?
Why would God have to do anything to provide us with a route to salvation and heaven? Couldn’t he simply have skipped the whole slow, agonizing death of Jesus and just forgiven us? Is he bound by some laws that even he must follow? What is going on?
Most societies on Earth realized centuries ago that ritual human sacrifice is as barbaric as it is unproductive. Tossing virgins into a volcano or carving out some guy’s heart atop a temple once might have seemed like sensible investments for better times ahead, but eventually it dawned on most that such practices were cruel, stupid, and unnecessary. As an act of punishment and/or religious rite, it is beneath us. We are better than that. So why would God need such an act to offer humankind an escape clause?
Why would God have to do anything to provide us with a route to salvation and heaven? Couldn’t he simply have skipped the whole slow, agonizing death of Jesus and just forgiven us? Is he bound by some laws that even he must follow? What is going on?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
