Those are very weighty "ifs" in your premise.

Accepting them, however, it seems a little unfair that Jesus only had to endure this punishment for about a day and a half, and yet others get an eternity of it.

Mind you, there are sects that believe that Christ is in some sense, right now, in hell undergoing torment on our behalf, at this very moment, and will be until the final judgement. This is not a widespread belief, but it does have some very serious adherents.

Perhaps, but the injustice in this system is in degrees. ETERNAL suffering for everything from genocide to rolling through a stop sign?

It's true that virtue untested is no virtue at all. On the other hand, it's also no real virtue if the only reason you have for doing good is to avoid punishment.

it turns out that we humans have a lot of very rational, unspooky reasons to do good. Encouraging a cooperative, compassionate and safe society improves the quality of our lives, reduces costly social imbalances, discourages crime, reduces fear, allows the species to propagate and even (we hope) extend our knowledge and abilities to aid others, including other species and even the planet. Idealistic as heck, yes, but rational. Lots of people want all of these things, and not because they think they HAVE to want them for fear of angering an invisible being, but because we've all seen the benefits and want our own lives to be happy, safe and comfortable.

Conversely, there's no honor in being good if you are only good because you fear the punishment if you're not. So either you can fool god by being good when you're really not and reap the rewards (in which case god is a bit of a fool) or god can separate the truly good from the not in which case the thread of eternal punishment is unnecessary (and god is just petty). (This is one thing I like from Jehovah's Witness theology: hell is simply eternal death. No painful punishment, just eternal non-existence. There was a very interesting This American Life story a couple years ago about a prominent megachurch evangelical preacher who removed hell from his theology and the rejection he faced for doing so.)

Say "you can do whatever you want without fear of punishment" then see who is good. In this regard, one could argue that me not being a murderer is more impressive than scaeagles not being a murderer. I have no fear of eternal damnation and still don't do it (we both face the same earthly justice system).

Wait, so the only thing we were absolved of through Jesus' suffering was the requirement to burn animals and grain at the altar? Or is there some other suffering that was required before Jesus was born, suffering that Jews had/have to undergo? Or maybe no one was saved before Jesus showed up?

For Jews, the reason we no longer make ritual sacrifice is simply that we don't have the Holy Temple in Jerusalem anymore, and that is the only place to do it.

I knew a girl in high school who once came up to a group of us non-christians in tears, saying "I just fully realized that all of you are not going to make it to the afterlife, it's horrible." She finally realized it didn't make sense to her.

If you really believe that all your heathen friends are going to not get afterlife (or go to hell or whatever you believe, there are so many variations), doesn't that upset you? Doesn't that make you want to save everyone? Doesn't that make you question God? Just being ok with it seems like the most creepy response in my book.

Part of it has to do with the concept of holy places and divine intervention. God may be "everywhere" but he is purposefully there in certain places. In ancient times you removed your shoes at the Holy Temple same way Moses did at the burning bush. When the god concept is one with a mind a decisive actions, you can and will differentiate. The "hand of God" is here, the "absence of God" is there. Yes, God could watch you go to the bathroom, but he does not, and you are not supposed to bring a holy book in there either.

As others have said: Or something.

They stole this from the Jews.

Yes, but you get to eat shrimp and skip company birthday and Christmas parties. So obviously they significantly improved on the idea.

I am assuming that Jesus died for my sins and I am making sure that his death was not in vain

You owe me a box of screen wipes now, you bugger !!! :D

Thanks, but that was actually a joke. Confronted with the dearth of conventional historical evidence proving a primarily mystical event, Christians will often invoke their faith.

I was suggesting that the possibility that the Jews did not commit all the not terribly mystical barbarism attributed to them in the OT would prompt a similar faith-based response. (What do you mean we didn't? Of course, we did.)

Goyim.

Yeah, I kind of figured that out after the fact.

Hey, an entire day on this topic, and the atmo is still pretty sphere. Nice.

Yeah, I kind of figured that out after the fact.

But hey, I'll boldly stand by my easy virtue response anyway.