So the basic premise of the Christian religion, faith, world-view (you name it) is this: we are inherently "fallen" by nature, thanks to "original sin" of our first parents (the mythical Adam and Eve of the Garden of Eden), and there is nothing we can do to fix our predicament. BUT God nonetheless loves us anyway, and that's why He sent Jesus to endure the justice due for us to be reconciled with Him. THEREFORE, the natural response - and the only acceptable response - is to live from a place of gratitude and follow Jesus, professing Him as our Lord and Savior.
I like the idea of living from a place of gratitude. I like the idea of recognizing our own helplessness in a lot of life's circumstances. I like the idea of God's mercy and forgiveness. But I simply do not accept the original premise of original sin. I do not believe that we come out of the womb already damned because of our sinful nature.
Even Adam and Eve, when God originally created them, must have had some sort of inclination towards turning away from God, this potential had to have been in them or else they never would've acted on it. God put that possibility into the very DNA of human beings! "To err is human" is not a bug; it's a feature! We learn from our mistakes. We take risks, pick ourselves up and try again. We accept dissapointment. We acknowledge our own need for mercy and therefore extend that mercy to others who need it. Or at least, that's the idea. There is nothing shameful about our tendency to stray from time to time! To deny this is to walk down the path of scrupulosity, which I know all too well from first hand experience, and which has the potential of turning into a psychiatric disorder! (Moral OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder)
Why would God create the first humans in such a way so as to "test" them out, seeing if they love Him, and then when they make the first big mistake by doubting Him (a process of individuation for any adolescent, by the way, so a natural part of growing up), He banishes them from His presence? And then to save face, He incarnates as Jesus in order to make things right, instead of just forgiving them on the spot, or even after kicking them out admitting that was excessively harsh, and let's debrief and see where we went wrong and how to avoid it in the future?
That very first move by God to kick Adam and Eve out of Eden is where the entire Christian premise falls apart for me. I cannot feel shame for my human nature and maintain a healthy psyche, and so I cannot get overly emotional about Jesus's "sacrifice on the cross" because I don't believe that's what it was. His crucifixion was indeed an act of love in that He had the chance to go back on His teaching but He did not. He refused to compromise, knowing full well that it could/would cost Him His life. But He believed that the message He had was important enough to die for, to suffer for. That is still valuable, and that is still a reason to follow Jesus.
It is not, however, a reason to worship Him or confuse the Messanger with God. Nor is it a reason to turn to one of the other monotheistic religions that either ignore Jesus or recognize Him as only a prophet, because no organized religion has been able to stay fully true to Jesus's message, without adding to it the traditions of men, something Jesus actually spoke out against!
Jesus's words alone have the power to transform lives, without all the extra beliefs ABOUT Him. Yes, He said "you believe in God, believe in Me also" (John 14:1). But first of all, notice He differentiates between "God" and "me" here. Second of all, believing "in" Him doesn't mean believing specific things "about" Him. When I believe in someone, that means I trust them. And here Jesus is asking us to trust Him. What does it mean to "believe in God"? Maybe He means the same kind of belief for both Himself and God? But again, He doesn't say "believe that God and I are the same thing" or that "I am God, too". If you believe "in" God, you 1) believe God exists, and 2) trust God. There's nothing else to believe. Everything else we are taught about Jesus has been added by His followers.
And so, back to my original point - if the first premise of Christianity is that we are in need of a savior, I counter that in one of two ways. One - that may be true, but who is to say that this savior is the person of Jesus on the cross? It may actually be Jesus, but the manner in which He saves is through His teaching, and our free will is to obey Him, not to "believe stuff about Him". Or, two - we don't actually need a savior. What we need is a dose of reality, which includes humility - a recognition that we are not God, that we make mistakes, that we need mercy, that we ought to extend mercy to others, that in spite of being imperfect God expects us to try our best anyway, that we have a lot to learn, etc. Our salvation is not a one-and-done event done vicariously on our behalf, but rather a lifetime of forming the habit of turning to God - the literal antedote to what Adam and Eve did when they turned away from God.
We prove our love to God - the original purpose of free will that allowed Adam and Eve to sin - by choosing God over and over and over, by turning to Him in prayer, meditation, mindfulness, contemplation, through acts of service and patient endurance, through small or great sacrifices, and especially through mercy. The one alternative to the idea of Jesus-as-Savior-on-the-Cross is God-as-merciful-right-off-the-bat. That's supposed to be our take-away from that story - what we wish God had done for us - shown mercy - is what we are called to do.
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