The price of attonement???

[Paraselene]

What was the true price of attonement?

This is something I have found of great interest in regards to your question:

The doctrine of atonement begins with the idea of sin and ‘sin’ – a purely religious term bearing little relationship to moral values or social responsibility – is tied to the folk myth of Adam and Eve and the ‘fall of man’. Augustine (354-430) taught that after ‘the fall’ man was totally depraved and only through the Church could humans acquire a measure of merit. By devotion, observance of duty and penance it was considered possible to acquire a super abundance of merit and it was this concept which led to much abuse and ultimately sparked the Reformation.

The idea of transmitted merit was tied to the concept of transmitted guilt but both sides are equally unethical. However, the proposition was further enlarged to impute that through the death of Jesus humans were not only considered to be righteous but were actually righteous. It is being realised today that such conceptions are ethically unjustifiable and psychologically impossible. The goodness of human beings may influence and benefit others and their example may stimulate the moral perception of those whom they contact but this does not constitute transference of merit.

A major obstacle for theologians is the fact that, though they accept the impossibility of the transfer of guilt from the transgressor to the innocent, they still are obliged to maintain that Jesus endured the full penalty of the individual and collective sin of humankind even though a major element of that penalty is considered to be the consciousness of guilt. The guiltless cannot be conscious of guilt and Jesus is always projected as perfect. It is axiomatic that a perfect being cannot be conscious of imperfection.

What is the condition that makes the atoning death necessary? Theologically humankind is regarded as having rebelled against the authority of Yahweh and therefore come under ‘the wrath of God’ who is morally bound to inflict punishment.

Why must an omnipotent being be offended by another person exercising their free will? Why must the punishment be death? Why must the penalty be handed down generation after generation? If someone creates something, by what strange reason does he then have the audacity to be angry and condemn the imperfections of his own creation? Is not anger a sign of imperfection in the creator?

How is it possible for a human to commit an offence against a spirit? Surely the idea is ridiculous.

What sort of a deity could gain satisfaction from the death of Jesus? The answer is surely that it is the type of god depicted in the Old Testament, a deity worthy of contempt and rejection by moral humankind.

There are people who argue that suffering has a moral value and carries within it the potential for good but it is difficult to see how physical or mental suffering and death can, of itself, bring benefit, yet this is an aspect of atonement which is strongly propagated by Christians. Pain as such has no power of atonement – it cannot obliterate guilt. To demand that someone has to suffer to expiate a transgression is not our concept of justice or ethics.

If the Atonement doctrine had any validity surely the feast of the Atonement in October would have been much more appropriate for the death of Jesus than the feast of the Passover in April!

I shared the tidbits I thought were particularly important. If you want to read more, follow the link:

http://atheistfoundation.org.au/article/...atonement/