Tomorrow is Good Friday, so Christians the world over are getting ready to celebrate their re-salvation. It’s the commemoration of the death of Christ, the single most important event in a Christian’s life.

You see, apparently we were all born with sin; due to the original sin committed by our ancestors Adam and Eve. You might think at this point we’ve evolved to the point where we should be indistinguishable from that pair, if they ever did exist- to still be carrying their sin around our neck. But that’s just the way of the ever merciful but notoriously unforgiving Christian God.

So to forgive everyone, and remove that noose Adam’s original sin placed on everyone’s neck, God had to make the ultimate gesture.

So God sent Jesus Christ (God the Son)- who’s a part of God but also a distinct being- to die and redeem all of mankind. God put the stain of sin on man in the first place, but there had to be an elaborate, very gory public death to serve as atonement.

The problem, the sacrifice didn’t really sting, did it? By nature a sacrifice has to have real consequences, that’s why it’s called a sacrifice. In the Bible, God himself requested some really terrible sacrifices. Abraham was stopped at the last moment from killing his son, but the emotional scars from such an ordeal wouldn’t heal so easily. David and Batsheba’s first kid had to die, as did Jephthah’s daughter: that’s how you atone.

What did God really lose? He says he sent his kid to die and atone, but after some 30 years he was back in heaven and all was back to the status quo. As a friend so relentlessly reminded me during a religious argument a few weeks ago, time is infinite in the spiritual realm; so that whole ordeal must have just been a blink of an eye to God and his trinity cohorts.

If I was being sent on a mission that was to end in my death, but with a 100% certainty that I would come back to life and continue enjoying life as is; I would certainly jump on that. Members of the best military institutions, the best spies- nobody on this planet has that much certainty of coming back when venturing into dangerous territory; yet people risk their life all the time for God and country and no one bats an eyelid.

Sorry God, but you expect so much from your people you really shouldn’t be doing half measures. You’re all powerful but decided that the atonement needed a 30 year operation that ended with a death, a resurrection, and a return to the status quo. I think on those terms anyone of us could do it.

Yeah so I don’t think Christ dying is all of that. Maybe because God was redeeming man’s sin and not his, he decided to use this method of sacrificing but not really sacrificing.

Also those poor Jews. They were just fulfilling their part in God’s plan, like Judas; but would get to suffer for it nonetheless. Don’t seem particularly fair to me.

In summary- sacrifice with no consequence isn’t much of a sacrifice. I could do it, you could do it, everyone else could do it.

That’s my take anyway; I’m sure there are some spiritual nuances I’m missing- like Christ’s pure blood or that spirit beings can’t die. Well then, maybe another plan would have been better; maybe one that doesn’t involve torturing and killing.

Shouldn’t be so hard for an omnipotent God.