One of the core tenets and talking points of (most of) Christianity is that Jesus became a human and was punished on your behalf, for your sins. That he carried the burden, he received the punishment so that you could be saved. That instead of you being punished for your sins, he took it on himself instead, to save you from eternal damnation, the consequence of sin.
This is often depicted as a form of "sacrificing oneself to save others", like if Jesus did the ultimate sacrifice to give humanity the opportunity to be saved from certain damnation. The ultimate form of altruism, the ultimate form of self-sacrifice in order to help others.
However, this entire idea is not just a completely perverse form of "justice", it's outright asinine.
When we get down to it, as many of these Christian apologists and preachers explain it, it's like a weird form of "karma": It's as if every crime, every evil deed, has to be "counter-balanced" with a corresponding punishment.
Because you have sinned, there has to be some punishment. Apparently it's just how it is. Apparently it's just not possible to forgive and forget your sins, your evil deeds: They must be compensated with punishment.
Ok, fine: Every crime, every evil deed, requires a punishment. Perhaps a bit harsh (because the punishment is not proportional to the severity of the crime), but it makes sense. But that's not the egregious part about it. Apparently, it doesn't matter who that punishment is done to, as long as there is some punishment. Apparently it doesn't matter if the punishment is done to a completely innocent third-party who was in no way involved in your crimes: As long as someone is punished for your crimes, that's enough.
They literally talk as if crimes go to one container, and the punishments for those crimes go to another, and the delicate balance between the two has to always be maintained. And punishments don't need to be just and fair: As long as the punishment is done, doesn't matter who it's done to, that counts.
Thus, innocent people being punished for the crimes of the guilty brings balance to the system and absolves the guilty.
Rather obviously this is a completely perverted form of justice. But worse than that, it indeed seems to allude to some form of "karma", where evil deeds accumulate and "punishment" must be done to counter-balance them. Which makes no sense.
And the funny thing is that this is, from a logical point of view, completely unnecessary: The belief that "if you truly repent for your sins, truly feel regret for them, and you truly make a complete 180 and decide on not doing anything like that anymore, God will forgive you and absolve you from your crimes" would be enough and completely logical. The part where God's Son needs to come to Earth as a human and be punished for your crimes in order to make this deal possible could be completely skipped and removed from the formula, and it would only make the entire thing more logical, not less. Sure, there might still be some discussion to be had about what kind of justice system this is, but at least the most egregious part of it would have been removed, ie. the part where there just has to be a punishment and, most egregiously, an innocent person can be punished on your behalf.
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