In Reply to: Re@ answers to, can anyone relate? posted by Fred on April 02, 2004 at 06:56:54:
About the sacrificing thing, I had the same question. When I studied a little tiny bit about other religions, the idea came to me that the whole sacrificing thing sounded similar to pagain rituals, and what the witches and satanists get accused of, and even in the old Testament the older religions were condemned and ridiculed because of the sacrifice issue. Human sacrifice creeps out in the original Jewish religion with Abraham, when God asks him to sacrifice Isaac. Of course, in the Bible, God stops him in time, but in Abraham's heart the deed was already done. And then of course Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, and a true human sacrifice at that. And of course there was the regular sacrifice of blood in the form of animals. I personally don't see how this differs so very much from other religious rituals of the same nature. And burning of incense at the altar of God in their temples. Frankly some of the elements found in the OT remind me of any other religion and its rituals. But then with the NT it seems God took a whole new perspective on how He wanted to be worshipped and what is required of you as His worshipper. In a way it's like a new cult, it brings in a new twist on an old religion, and as it develops, as happened with Christianity, Buddhism, every "new" religion at the time, it slowly becomes established and the followers become so many in quantity that they are no longer questioned or held in contempt, then the cycle begins again, as the people "seek a new thing".
I haven't given this whole idea much thought, and perhaps there are writings out there which explore this whole issue, but you have to look at it from a non-Christian perspective or else you wouldn't be able to see it very objectively. I think it would be hard for a Christian to put his religion on the level of others that he abhors, and see the similarities found in them.