We worship a crucified and risen savior. We don crucifixes. WE say he endured the pain it takes to forgive our sins. Would Jesus Christ be as divine, if he was tortured in another fashion? Would Jesus Christ even be divine, if he was not tortured? Does the torture of Jesus Christ, make torture divine? Does torture make other men divine? Should we worship the torture that made Jesus worthy to forgive our sins?
I'm not a Christian, but Jesus being tortured is not what makes him divine is their eyes. The belief that he is the literal son of God is what makes him divine.
Or, for that matter, if he had been killed by stoning by judgement of the Sanhedrin? There is a report there of a Yeshu or some such found guilty and apparently sentenced to death by stoning, though no son of a Joseph and with only five disciples, but Christians love to claim that that is evidence for their Jesus. The cross had religious significance before Jesus Christ came along (figuratively speaking), though... And, isn't it interesting that Christians still use a fish to symbolise their magic man also? I wonder where that came from?
It probably helped that he was also a sacrificial lamb fulfilling the ritual of Yom Kippur in a new way, or at least new to Judaism, where an innocent goat was put to death while another, the scapegoat, was loaded with all of the sins of man and set loose into the wilderness (Jesus Barabbas). - - - Updated - - -
And since Trump says he prefers his heroes not be captured and tortured, doesn't that make Jesus NOT a hero?
This is something about Christianity that bugs me, that whole scapegoating thing. What could be more immoral than someone else dying for your sins?
Yes, the idea of atonement.. As alluded to earlier, it seems to stem from animal sacrifice, but I don't know how early man would have gotten it into his head that animals could atone for his imagined sins. I expect there are even earlier ideas that morphed and fed into that, but those ideas could well be lost to the long passage of the millennia now. I suppose it would have to be a matter for serious research, like, in a library - - - Updated - - - Pilatus was included in the gospel narrative, as were certain other historical figures, but clearly those events never happened.
At higher levels, experts agree it is nonsensical. That is why they refer to it all as a paradox. That makes it outside of logic.