The author predictably quotes Romans 6:23 and says that "The Wages of Sin is Death" he then goes on to say that there was no other way to get rid of sin. Well this opens a whole can of questions! Jehovah murders his people by the thousands in the Old Testament yet he can't abide sinners? ROTFL I can forgive people, why can't Jehovah? Am I stronger than Jehovah? Did Jehovah make rules that he would have to follow? Why would a perfect being need rules? Why would he make rules that limit his own powers? Why didn't he just make a rule that "The Wages of Sin is a Good Apology!" Is he not strong enough? Is he following someone else's rules? Did he really, with foreknowledge, make this law knowing that it would harm him and his favorite creation until he would have to go to earth and then allow himself to be tortured to death so that he, himself can be satisfied with his own sacrifice? Would that maybe make sense on Bizzaro world?
Now let's pretend I'm acting like Jehovah and my dog has taken a whiz on the carpet:
"Sparkle, you bad Boston - because you have disobeyed me I will toss you outside FOREVER!" My dog looks at me plaintively. "I'm sorry but I cannot abide disobedience so you must go from my site FOREVER! Not only YOU but ALL your puppies and your puppies' puppies"
I kick my treasured dog outside lamenting that I don't have the power to just forgive her and let her back in. I then walk to a mirror...
"YOU! I love my dog so in order to help her, I will send me out into the backyard and then have me tortured to death so that I can therefore be appeased by my own death so that I can forgive the dog I love."
My wife looks at me... "What are you a frikkin idiot! Just spank her and let her in!"
Kind of makes no sense at all when you actually think about it, huh? So where does all this propitiatory stuff come from?
In our ancient past, before science, we would blame all the bad stuff that happened to us on angry gods. Plagues, earthquakes, famines, animal attacks etc. would all simply be anger from some fickle, local god. Well how do you make things right with a god? The same way you make things right with an angry human - you give him a present! Since gods live in the sky we would burn the present so the god would enjoy it - Jehovah often comments that he likes the scent of the offerings.
Okay that makes sense in a primitive, caveman logic sort of way. Well if offering sheep gets you a good harvest - how about a human? How about a first born? You can see how it doesn't take long to get from this mindset to the sacrifice of a godling. However, adding divinity to Jesus and then placing him on the same level as Jehovah suddenly makes it all too confusing and self-contradicting to lend itself to anything roughly sensible. Again - here's my interactive logic chart on "The Propitiatory Sacrifice" - give me another logic branch or tell me why I'm wrong in any of my logic branches.
Interactive Propitiatory Sacrifice