I think you forgot that it was God, in his fleshful form or earthly form, who died on the cross.
You forgot the part about the sacrified lambs..
You may put it in these manipulative words but it was because it was the only way for it to be done, an untimate sacrifice. It was actually a "gift" of love and eternal life.
I don't understand why the only way to go to heaven is to accept a sacrifice that has been done two milleniums before, so that god may forgive us sins that we have never done personally; and anyway, this is in itself manipulative: if there hadn't been the sacrifice, good people would go to heaven and bad people would go to hell. Now only those who accept a barbaric sacrifice will go to heaven. Yay for free will.
Oh, and if sacrifice is the only thing god comes up with, he is really uncreative for an omnipotent being that wants to differ from gods like Moloch-Baal and the like.
Who says you have to accept the sacrifice, even an extreme atheist who killed someone and commited adultery could go to heaven just by repenting his sins. The role of the sacrifice was to make the pathway to heaven more accessible for people, even horrible people.
I think you forgot that it was God, in his fleshful form or earthly form, who died on the cross.
Really doesn't matter given the duel nature of the situation, even if was just direct self mutilation it's still done to satisfy vengeance.
You may put it in these manipulative words but it was because it was the only way for it to be done, an untimate sacrifice. It was actually a "gift" of love and eternal life.
It's not manipulative at all. If we were to remove god from this equation in any other context this act would be regarded at cruel and barbaric. But since it's god doing it, somehow it suddenly becomes and act of love a mercy? I don't buy it. I also don't buy that the only way God (a suppose omnipotent being) could say "I forgive you" was to have something killed first. Even I as a lowly human am capable of forgiveness without bloodshed. So why isn't God?
Why is it important for the Christianity that Jesus was crucified?
Because if they changed it now, they'd have to replace all those statue thingies and stuff depicting Jesus on the cross. DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE THAT WOULD BE?!
But really, I think that the whole sacrifice thingie has such a central role in the Christian religion that the removal or alteration of it would cause people to doubt Christianity and the Bible even more. Everything else in the Bible was a lie, they're clinging on to the few "truths" they have.
The Crucifix (Cross) was a Roman torture/execution (combined) device. It was usually used on the treasonous. However, many of the Pagan Romans hated the idea of a single god. This was changed when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire. To the Romans, it was effective and brutal, like many of their other technologies. To the Chrisitans, it is a symbol of Jesus's death for the supposed "sins" of all of mankind. It represents, to be blunt, everything the Christians stand for: love, respect, kindness, etc.
Going further assuming Jesus existed him being buried in a tomb is highly unlikely. One of the major things that made crucifixion such a supreme penalty is that the people were not buried after the fact. There were exceptions to this non burial rule though. One exception would be if the Jews didn't see Jesus as breaking divine law, but under Jewish law he was guilty of blasphemy. So he doesn't qualify there. Another exception would be for holy days. It's unlikely the Romans would have considered the Jewish passover as counting. Though it is possible they could have counted it out of respect for the local holiday. In this case any use of a tomb would have only be temporary. This would mean Jesus's body would likely have been moved as soon as possible to it's final resting place. But there is a problem, if this was the case where he was placed and moved it would have been documented.
The Romans used the foreign gods as tools to control the people in a capture country by basically saying we shall build temples for your gods and welcome you into the roman empire in exchange for a little tribute and since most invaders convert you to their religion this was seen as in a way fair and help stop rebellions.
