@Lilkanyon,
Okay, let’s assume that Jesus existed and was crucified. What can we learn from this story? To begin with, primitive-minded humans were convinced that they needed to routinely use the blood of animals to magically have the god’s charges of wrongdoing against them dropped. Then Jesus came and said to everyone that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and to do unto them as we would have them do unto us. Good lesson. Simple and to the point.
But the control freaks who enjoyed controlling the superstitious people and profiting from their fears didn’t appreciate the words of anyone who would end their selfish game of control and profit. So they crucified this guy named Jesus. The only good part of that incident is that the people were shown, point blank, that when truth showed its face and struck a chord in their hearts, it was tortured, nailed to a stake, and poked with a spear so that it would die. They got to see the true face of the ones they trusted to speak for the god. One painful step for Jesus, and one giant step for humankind. That was a beginning.
Even so, the masses still couldn’t drop the idea of the value of the blood sacrifice. And so the story of Jesus dying on the stake was eventually incorporated into the sacrifice theme in a way that turned his death into a blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices. Though it was an extension of the blood sacrifice theme, it was still better than nothing. And today, those who still maintain that the mechanism of forgiveness required the shedding of innocent blood must now deal with those of us who rightly ask how a god of love could possibly use the same techniques as the practitioners of voodoo, and what it is about such a character that draws them to it.
When I was a child, I was forced to go to church. The adults there were given free rein when it came to fukcing with my head. In a not so subtle way, they let me know that I was guilty. And as evidence of my guilt, they held up the fact that I have lying in my past. I couldn’t deny it. Then they held up a picture of a guy with a blood-stained face nailed to a cross, and they basically said, “See that? That’s your fault. He’s taking the punishment that you should be taking because even though you’re a no-good sinner, god loves you enough to torture and kill his only begotten son as a way to let you off the hook.” Something told me that if that’s how things worked, I probably shouldn’t question such a god, as that might . . . set him off. I had enough problems without having to deal with the displeasure of an almighty controller who was ready, willing, and able to do such a thing to even his own kid.
