“Everyone who sins must render to God the honor he has taken away, and this is the satisfaction that every sinner must make to God. But this is something which no sinner can give; and unless it is given, he cannot be saved.”
St. Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man, Book I, Chapter 21)
In the Celtic pantheon we have Crom Cruach – An Irish fertility god sometimes called the "lord of the mound" who demanded child sacrifices.
Another Celtic deity, The Morrígan was a war goddess (or triple goddess) who thrived on bloodshed, manipulating battles and dooming warriors.
In the Egyptian pantheon there was Set ( or Seth), known for treachery and brutal cunning. Set was the God of chaos, desert, storms, and violence. Set murdered his brother Osiris, dismembering him.
In the ancient Babylonian (Mesopotamian) religion, Tiamat was a primordial chaos dragon. In the Enuma Elish, she unleashed monsters against the younger gods before being slain by Marduk.
Then there was Nergal – God of war, plague, and pestilence — associated with mass death, war cruelty, and famine.
Even in Western pre-Christian religions which we normally associate with sophisticated philosophical civilizations like the ancient Greeks, the Gods were not Gods of compassion and forgiveness. Ares, the Hellenic God of war symbolized bloodlust and slaughter, delighting in carnage.
Cronus (Kronos) – Titan father of Zeus. prevented his children from overthrowing him, by swallowing each one at birth.
There was also Eris – Goddess of strife. Her cruelty or perhaps carelesness sparked wars, including the Trojan War (via the golden apple of discord).
The Romans had also their share of harsh, at times brutal deities: Mars (early Roman form of Ares) – Originally a fertility god, but later strongly tied to brutal warfare and conquest.
Saturn ( the Roman equivalent to Chronos) also devoured his children, representing time as an implacable and unstoppable force.
Christ, like Buddha in the East, seemed to bring a religion of compassion and forgiveness. Of forgiving your enemies seventy times seven, of turning the cheek, helping the poor and vulnerable, feeding the hungry, sheltering the dispossessed.
I say "seemed" because when I considered myself a candid follower of Christ, that was the Christ I thought I was following. It was an impossible task because although there is much good within us human beings, there's also a deep seated egoism that has been implanted in our humanity as part of our self preservation instincts. Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity hinged on what he saw as a reversal of the natural laws governing life on this planet. For Nietzsche, Christianity was a religion of resentment, a slave morality that favours the weak above the strong. This is a deeply flawed argument in my opinion and although Nietzsche despised antisemitism and totalitarianism, it is not difficult to see how the Nazis would misinterpret and use his philosophical ideas to further their own flawed theories of racial purity and white supremacy.
I believe that compassion is one of the most important aspects of our humanity, even if it's practised far less than it should. Compassion is understanding, a willingness to build bridges and help others. It's one of the building blocks of civilization.
But I prefer the Buddhist approach to compassion: in Buddhism, compassion (karuṇā) is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. It’s paired with mettā (loving-kindness). This is aimed at all sentient, living beings without exception. Christianity, on the other hand, sees compassion as personal, relational love, modeled on God’s mercy and Christ’s sacrifice.
And Christ's sacrifice and the way this is interpreted by most Christian denominations is, in my humble opinion the main problem with Christianity, beyond belief in the other science defying dogmas of Christian faith. Why would God murder an innocent to clear a cosmic debt? This is what Nietzsche referred to as the "morality of guilt and debt" that has fostered humanity’s self hatred and self loathing, for "we murdered the Son of God".
It all falls apart in the most important aspects of Christian theology: God demands blood before granting forgiveness. And God is always watching and demanding repayment of this cosmic debt. And he does so on a daily basis.
Perhaps the ancient pagan Gods, flawed and brutal as they were, are more honest in this sense.
God, the Christian God, as a creation of human beings, throghout history has been a feudal lord demanding satisfaction, a protestant Judge-God punishing sin harshly and today, in far right circles, a God who has totally forgotten the message of love and forgiveness of the New Testament. A God of war, a promoter of otherness, who is exclusive and harsh. A God who brings not a sword, but automatic weapons. A God who sees unbelievers as lost. A God who is a cosmic debt collector.
The first debt he claimed via annihilation. The second debt was paid in blood.
The solution comes in the form of Gnosticism. In Christian Gnosticism, atonement is understood not as the payment of a debt through Christ’s sacrifice, but as liberation from ignorance and a return to divine unity. Humanity’s deepest problem is not guilt but forgetfulness of its true origin in the divine fullness (Pleroma), having become trapped in matter and deceived by the Archons. Christ’s role is that of a revealer and liberator who descends from the higher realms to awaken the divine spark within souls, guiding them back to their source. The cross is seen symbolically as the defeat of ignorance and cosmic powers, rather than a legal substitution. Atonement, then, means at-one-ment: the soul’s restoration to its original wholeness through gnosis, an inner awakening that leads to both mystical union with the divine and ethical transformation. Sacraments such as baptism and Eucharist were reinterpreted by Gnostics as mysteries of enlightenment and inner communion, emphasizing personal spiritual realization over external ritual law.
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