“Is this sacrifice of the individual for the survival of the population something a loving intelligence would design in?”
Well - according to the Bible, that is exactly what happened in one particular instance!
Not bashing you - just found it striking!
I don’t dispute that the Bible says this is what happened but it kind of undermines the Western notion of the supremacy of inalienable rights of the individual. Maybe sacrificing individual rights for the survival of the greater society (like they do in Eastern cultures) is more in keeping with the Biblical notion.