“your satire is erroneous as a matter of objective fact, not as any matter of faith, but in equating a human-sacrificing religion with one that has no provisions for such sacrifices.”
You avoided my response on sacrifice as a principal canon of Christianity, eg. “Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.”
Isn’t it a central canon of Christianity that Christ sacrificed his human self on the Cross to bear all our sins? Wasn’t this the ultimate human sacrifice that implicitly obviates all further human sacrifice?
you said: “But then, don’t you really think that all religions are equally bad, or almost so?”
Not at all. Actually I believe that religion fills an important need in humans when they consider their position in the immensity of the universe and look over into the abyss. As such, most relgions are good rather than bad.
“And don’t you really think that all religions are only a matter of faith, and that faith is irrational?”
Considering the above, I think its very rational to have religions although the forms that relgion sometimes takes to fulfill human need are irrational. Those irrational forms and rituals require faith above all, but I don’t fault those who profess them.
I just don’t want them to require me to profess them as well.
“You avoided my response on sacrifice as a principal canon of Christianity, eg. “Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.”
I didn’t avoid it. It just never occurred to me that you were actually advancing such an, umm, theologically unsophisticated argument.
“Wasn’t this the ultimate human sacrifice that implicitly obviates all further human sacrifice?”
Saints preserve us. If it was a “human sacrifice,” then Jesus was a madman and all of Christianity is false.
The whole point is that God Himself, one Person of the Trinity, chose to become both fully man and fully God, and to repair the breach man had created between himself and God. Killing Jesus the man was insignificant. It is the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God that matters.
“Actually I believe that religion fills an important need in humans when they consider their position in the immensity of the universe and look over into the abyss. As such, most relgions are good rather than bad.”
I see.
“And don’t you really think that all religions are only a matter of faith, and that faith is irrational?”
“Considering the above, I think its very rational to have religions although the forms that relgion sometimes takes to fulfill human need are irrational. Those irrational forms and rituals require faith above all, but I don’t fault those who profess them.”
So, do you reject the notion that God actually communicates with people, and that some religions are actually based on the content of those communications?
“I just don’t want them to require me to profess them as well.”
Luckily, you live in a country established by God as a Christian country, and Christianity regards forced conversions as an oxymoron.