Why is killing an innocent man necessary to redeem our sinful nature?

[kaziglu bey]

You all know the story. Humans are doomed to a lifetime of temptation and wickedness due to the sins of Adam and Eve. A long time later, God decides to give us a way to atone for this. An apparently innocent man must be tortured to death, and then resurrected three days later, and if we choose to believe in this, we can be forgiven our sins and have eternal life.

Why is it necessary for an innocent man to die to accomplish the end of living eternally without punishment? How is another evil act supposed to redeem us for the evil acts of other people? Why is it that God only ever seems capable of doing things that are evil in order to stop/prevent/punish/redeem evil? In the OT, we see God killing lots of people, pretty much all of the time. The OT could in fact be subtitled "A collection of the murders perpetrated by the jealous, vengeful God Yahweh". He even kills people for complaining about God killing so many people. How is this a solution, and what problem is it supposed to solve?

The implications of following this type of standard are disturbing. Suppose a neighbor's dog poops on your lawn. You have several options available to you.
1) Ask your neighbor to clean up after his dog.
2) Clean up the mess yourself and ask your neighbor not to let his dog poop on your lawn again.
3) Build a fence to separate your property from your neighbor's so that their dog doesn't poop on your lawn.
4) Pick up the poop and put it on your neighbor's lawn so that it is not your problem anymore.
5) Shoot the dog, disembowel it, throw the mangled remains through your neighbors window, stuff the dog poop in your neighbor's mouth,  strangle him with his dog's intestines, and burn his house down.

If a regular person chose option 5, they would be considered a sadistic psychopath. If God were to chose this option (which seems to mirror his only approach to things), it would be considered not only a good thing, but necessary, because God did it. You can't question God. If he does it, it is good. If you think that it is overkill, he'll kill you too.

How is this a rational, justifiable, or sane way to deal with the problem?

Why is it OK for God to do more evil in order to cleanse us of evil? I always thought that "two wrongs don't make a right", but it seems to be the only way God can make things right. Given that an all-knowing, all-powerful God would have more than just five options, why does he always go with the worst one? And why does God demand that we go along with the evil act of killing an innocent man too, in order to make things right? How is this in any way good? By what means does acquiescing to evil absolve us of evil?

[ParkingPlaces]

The sh*t is deep with this one. Not with you, kaziglu.  But with the story of JC and his merry band of men. And this semi-sacrifice that didn't make the 5:00 news for fifty or sixty years.

Having just read an article about the burial of Genghis Khan, whose funeral was attended by 2,000 people, who were then slaughtered by 800 of Khans' soldiers so they couldn't tell anyone where the Khan was buried, and then those 800 soldiers were slaughtered by other soldiers to seal the deal, it is pretty obvious that there have been humans willing to sacrifice innocents for a long, long time.

Note that it was humans who did the decision making, and humans who did the dying. We're really good at that. So good that sometimes we toss sacrifice stories into our lore to make a point or to scare the listener into submission. And that is just what the Jesus story is. An effort to both scare and control. The story seeks to create those who will submit to the tale in the name of the dead guy, both to control those willing to believe and to justify destroying those who are not willing.

If you're gonna go on a rampage, a good backstory goes a long ways towards justifying your slaughters. And/or defining your enemies. Every aspect of the biblical story of sin and redemption is so clearly human in origin that I'm surprised some people today aren't suing god for copyright infringement. But since the people most likely to do that are the priest class who use the lessons to further their own cause, they know a good thing when they see it and hence ignore such details.

Omnipotent dudes don't need worshipping. Omnipotent dudes don't need to rely on faith. Onmipotent dudes have no reason to have shortcoming that match exactly the shortcoming of the silly dust-bunnies they created. But humans, well, that's another story. Humans need stuff like this. Humans need it big-time Both as leaders and followers. The justification for their special group has to have plots and deviousness and intrigue and death, because humans demand those qualities in their power-trippers. And in their meek.

There are humans who would disembowel the dog and use the guts to strangle the owner. And some of them are in a position of power, not only politically, but also religiously. And said humans will hide their own inhumanity by redefining it as the most humane thing on the planet. And Mr. and Mrs. Gullibility will follow our of fear or awe or both and go into full sin-damning mode and start knocking on doors. And pretty soon the whole planet starts to suck. All because of a story. A frickin' silly story.

It is not okay for a god to do this. But humans? That's another matter. Some are able to say that it is okay, and if they have a big enough sword, it is sort of hard to argue with them.

The bible is not a story of morality. It is a list of human flaws. It might even be a useful list. Except it has followers instead of readers, and they too often use it as a tool instead of as a source. So we're f**ked.