Asking the right questions and listening to my inner voice helped get me out of that religion.
So, the fact that you stopped believing through a similar process that started you believing makes you more certain that the process yields correct answers. You don't find the similarity betweek the JWs' claim that everyother religion is the product of stupidity or personal corruption and your current claim that every religion is the product of stupidity or personal corruption to present a reason for a certain level of circumspection when it comes to your opinions?
So the 'wood of the cross' is the salvation of the world- how and to whom is this score settled. Who needed to see blood spilled.
Perhaps in addition to listening to your inner voice, you could have spent a little time investigating the best explanations for how it is that the death and resurrection of Christ brings salvation. And by, "best," I mean something other than the opinion of the pastor at the local Bible church. Nothing against them, but they are really optimized for telling rich suburbanites that God thinks they are really cool and, if they would just be a little nicer, everything would be groovy.
No, you're to bright for that -- note: not sarcasm--or for anyone who would try to throw some sort of JW-Lite version of "God wanted to settle a bet with Satan." But I honestly don't think you've made any effort past the megachurch to grasp what it is that Christians are saying. At least, Christians who have really thought about this sort of thing.
I dont claim to have the last word on it, designs. But it seems to be that violence and blood sacrifice is how we tolerate living together. Civilization is really focused on finding ways to keep us from tearing ourselves apart and the way we do that -- for the last few hundred thousand years -- is by sacrifice. Scapegoats. Everybody everywhere has always done sacrifices, very often of people, until very recently. But whenever you find something that everybody does everywhere always, there is usually a deeply-felt reason for it.
So, "Who needed to see blood spilled?" We did, deisgns. We always have needed it. Jesus on the cross breaks all the altars, shows us that scapegoats are not guilty -- though we cannot hear it. We are a species that will kill God Himself if we have the chance. That knowledge completes the original sin, and so makes it possible to live like we are called to live.
On the cross is the salvation of the whole world.
