If you use the language of sacrifice, as (for example) the letter to the Hebrews does at length, then you're seeing Christ's death in terms drawn from ancient sacrificial practices and in particular Jewish sacrifice. The idea there is that whatever is sacrificed creates a sort of link between you and the deity you're sacrificing it to. So by offering the sacrifice, you become united in some way to the deity. To say that Christ's death is a sacrifice is simply to say that, through his death, people become united to God. It's not saying anything more than that; it's not, for example, saying that a literal sacrifice had to be made in order for literal forgiveness to be bestowed.
Fair enough. Though I can still see some objections to that. First, the story I know doesn't involve humans offering the sacrifice to God in order to be closer to him. What makes Jesus' martyrdom enable uniting with God, that doesn't apply to other martyrs who are 'sacrificed' in a similar way, such as Peter? If the difference is Jesus' divine origin, then how does that work? Who is actually offering the sacrifice? Second, I find the idea of a god that can't be united with without a sacrifice to be objectionable too.
I'm not sure why; it is after all a core Christian doctrine that Jesus was fully human and suffered just as we suffer. Of course some Christians would agree that having miraculous powers would be incompatible with this, but they would say that that just means that he didn't have any.
Possibly this is my own bias based on not believing in any sort of afterlife, eternal soul, etc. But I'd say other martyrs suffered to the point of death for something they believed in, and they hoped their beliefs were correct about what happened afterwards. Whereas Jesus suffered to the point of temporary death for something he knew.
As Atticus said, I've already addressed that a bit. The main point is that that's not supposed to be the point of prayer - it's not meant to be about asking God to fix things for you. Rather, it's supposed to be about aligning your own will to that of God - just as Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane.
Yeah, that makes more sense. But it seems to be just one part of how prayer is used today. The idea of praying for other people seems to be pretty widespread, and contradict that view of what prayer's for.
I don't think there are any Christian groups who don't pray, or who believe in God without feeling the need to worship him; I think it's part of the very concept of God that he should be worshipped. (Although it's not clear precisely why this is the case.)
Which to me, is another major objection. If a god didn't demand worship, I'd find that god much more worthy of respect.
If I look at the hypothetical that I'm wrong, that a monotheistic god exists and will be judging me after I'm dead, my view is that shouldn't change my behaviour at all. If it's a rational, benevolent god, then I should get judged on whether I've lived a good, moral life, and worshipping god or not should be irrelevant. If it's an irrational, non-benevolent god, then worshipping without respecting nor believing isn't going to make any difference to my eternal prospects. It reminds me a bit of Pascal's wager.
The core of Christianity, if it has one, is that salvation comes through Christ. It is not that salvation must be understood in a particular way (e.g. through Jesus being punished in our place). As I said in that previous post, you can find very different and, I would say, far superior understandings of the atonement in the Bible, principally Romans 6-7, where Paul gives an outline of what salvation consists of that doesn't involve anyone getting sacrificed or punished, and where sin is conceived of as an oppressive force that enslaves us, not as some kind of legal ledger of our misdeeds.
Is Jesus a necessary element of salvation coming through Christ though? It seems like it is, but it seems like there's not much consensus on why it is, on why salvation wouldn't be possible without Jesus' time on Earth. It seems like for a lot of groups, the answer is 'we don't know, it just is'.
I don't see why Augustinian original sin is required to make sense of the idea of Christ's sacrifice. The concept of atonement states that we need saving. It doesn't state that we need saving because of what our ancestors did. All that the doctrine of atonement requires is some account of what the problem is that the atonement is supposed to solve. Various such accounts have been proposed. Augustinian original sin is one. An alternative is the view that there is no such thing as original sin, but that we each happen, individually, to have chosen to sin. Another alternative view is that sin isn't about transgressions in the first place, but is some kind of force that oppresses us (as in Romans 6). Another is that sin is basically the dark side of the ego (something that Augustine also says).
But to me, for the first and third alternatives, that's a problem with us as individuals, and something we need to atone for as individuals, it doesn't help me make sense of Jesus' sacrifice. The second alternative is one I haven't read much of, but it is one I construct something logical out of. But I'm not clear on why Jesus' sacrifice would lift that oppressive force enough for us as individuals to choose not to sin, or choose to atone for our own sins. It's certainly not something I was ever presented with in church or school. I may have stayed more interested if it was.
Why would he have to be arbitrary? Maybe he chooses to answer prayers that, if answered, would bring about greater good, and he chooses to ignore prayers that wouldn't. Maybe he chooses to answer prayers that are prayed by particularly good people and ignores those that aren't. There are all sorts of ways that God could select some prayers to answer, and some not to answer, that wouldn't be arbitrary. We might not like them, of course, but that's not the same thing!
I should have said seemingly arbitrary & capricious. Which applies to those alternative explanations as much as it applies to the idea that God actively listens to prayers and chooses which ones to respond to. Your examples of how it might not be arbitrary also applies equally well to those alternative explanations for prayer and to the idea that God actively listens.
