Sort of having it both ways.
I disagree. I think your perception is a matter of your personal interpretation. It is not possible to compensate for all of our failings. For that, we have God's mercy. But we must certainly try. Yom Kippur, the Atonement day for my Jewish brothers and sisters, is the holiest day in the Jewish liturgical calendar. It is also a day of reconciliation with God, and not just fellow individuals.
Yom Kippur atones only for sins between man and G-d, not for sins against another person.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/holiday4.html
In the Catholic liturgy, we recite:
I confess to almighty God,
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do;
and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord, our God.
When I listen to TV evangelists talk about love, forgiveness and mercy it is a mixed bag and a muddled one at that
American TV evangelists are hardly the first and last word of Christian thought--and hardly sophisticated to boot. Not that a high degree of sophistication is needed to present the Christian message, however.
When Catholicism is comprehensible it is mainly (correct me if I'm wrong) through the Aristotelian efforts of Acquinas and Augustine applying
Christianity can be explained in many ways. Both Augustine and Aquinas made admirable efforts in that direction. Both are Doctors of the Church. And by the way, Augustine was not Aristotelian in his approach but Neoplatonic, although Aquinas was Aristotelian.
Greek logic to the illogic of the sow's ear of Christian bastardization of Judaism.
Judaism is also highly Hellenized. Both, in their modern format, are the result of a synthesis of Middle Eastern religion, with Greek philosophy.
BTS