Scapegoat

Religion is best described as a scapegoat. This is what is so attractive about it. It's easy to feel miserable about yourself and to assume you're worthless or that you don't deserve anything. It's easy to assume it's your own fault as well. This is where religion steps in. Religion tells you that it may indeed be your fault (in order to uphold a false humility), but there is something much greater than you that finds you extremely worthwhile. And if you are willing to accept it, all your fault for creating your terrible situation will be shifted to a scapegoat and you'll be rewarded eternally in heaven. Just believe, and you're off the hook, you feel loved, and notably your life improves because of the lifted burden and feeling of freedom. No wonder people enjoy religion.

The concept of a literal scapegoat is quite the ancient one. In fact, the etymology of the word is derived directly from this religious practice of blame-shifting. It was a Jewish tradition to put the blame on a goat and send him off thus relieving the sins of the people. On top of that, of course, there were the sacrifices. Many, many, many, many, many, many sacrifices. An absolute bloodbath. The priests were undoubtably the best butchers on the planet with as much practice as they must have had. The concept behind the sacrifices was that these animals were taking the punishment for the sins of the people. Mere scapegoats. One does wrong, so one butchers a dove. Somehow that is supposed to absolve the person of their sin to a god that demands blood.

If you have not already read The Errant Bible and I Disagree With John, then you might be tempted to say that the Bible upholds this concept and that Jesus taught it. Such arguments, however, don't hold any weight given the premise of those other two articles. While the Bible might clearly state "God said" followed by a multitude of commands to sacrifice, it is also riddled with many locations stating just the opposite--that God never desired such things. These phrases are usually followed-up by explaining that God instead desires a contrite heart and true righteousness. The Bible also quite readily points out that sacrifice was an infiltration of other religions. It says they weren't sacrificing to God, but to foreign Gods. It's easy to assume that what he meant was merely that they sacrificed to Baal as opposed to sacrificing to God, but the fact that it needed saying shows that it was not obvious. They didn't realize they were sacrificing to Baal or to Molech. They thought they were serving God and so the phrases were to clarify that point that it wasn't indeed to God at all but to foreign "gods."

Seeing that all these sacrifices took place and it was long since written, "God said," it was extremely easy to tack on the murder of Jesus as yet another sacrifice. And since we're much more civilized now and we never really liked the concept of sacrifice, it's easy to simply conclude that he also abolished the need for sacrifice all together and that was supposedly why Jesus came. That's the story you will get from the book of John, but the other Gospels say that Jesus came to preach what the true Kingdom of God was and to abolish such concepts as sacrifice--not to fulfill them, but to abolish them. So now, all the sacrificing looks like a great foreshadowing of the final sacrifice of Jeuss, but merely it was a borrowed concept and adapted to fit post-murder. Jesus preached against it the entire time. He quite directly said, "Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice." He was actually quoting the Torah when he said that. Had he not preached against the concept of sacrifice, he probably would not have been murdered. If you preach this message to the church today, you'll find yourself treated exactly as Jesus was. They will call you self-righteous, arrogant, etc, and you most certainly will not be welcome in the church. They love their scapegoat doctrine and the thought that you could ever be "good enough" is completely contrary to their beliefs. The freely admit they are stuck in their sins and they give all the reason to believe them.

Now also consider that this concept of blame-taking would never work in the court of law. If it did, we would all be quite disgusted with the court. An innocent man should not be capable of taking the capital punishment of a murderer to allow him to go free. And this is a court made of mere unrighteous humans. God is said to be much more righteous than humans, and yet we conclude that he would be willing to take this unrighteous route. It simply doesn't work. Evil does not get changed by killing that which is good, but it does indeed go free; free to continue terrorizing and destroying. Evil is defeated when it either becomes good or is itself destroyed. Destroying good will never conquer evil. And so, I conclude that sacrifice was never the original intent and was certainly not what Jesus performed when he died a murderously gruesome death on a cross.