"Christians say we need to follow the narrow path of Christ to get saved from eternity in Hell, all because of questionable things humans did in the past, like Eve learning the difference between good and evil. How is this supposed to be a bad thing anyway? Then you have the son of God who was sacrificed to save humanity from certain damnation. Isn't it fucked up that God would require human sacrifice? Christian life is no life, it's a human sacrifice."

The popular representations of these things are frequently misguided. Take another look at each of these items.

The words translated as "Hell" often simply mean "death" in the original, and eternal death is death which one cannot or will not be revived from. If some future generation finds a way to travel back through time, and has the means to revive their ancestors to live with them in the future - do you think they will revive everyone - or only those who can live peacefully with them in their future?

Our sins (better understood as "errors") lead to death - but the gift of God is eternal life. Is anyone so free from making errors that they can live forever without assistance?

The knowledge of good and evil - might be taken to mean consciousness of good and evil, consciousness of life and death. Before consciousness, did death matter? Coming into consciousness was not a bad thing, but it led us to understand death as a bad thing for us. Consciousness made us moral agents.

Was Christ's sacrifice to appease God, or humanity? There is a long history of people wanting scapegoats to blame for their own shortcomings, and frequently innocent people have been sacrificed for the errors of their persecutors. The story of Christ as the scapegoat changed the old narrative, because Christ was portrayed as an innocent scapegoat, and the final scapegoat. Humanity has not yet abandoned the desire to find scapegoats, but the story of Christ set the world on notice that this practice must end. If humanity is on the verge of becoming a hive mind, a being as much greater than a human being as a human being is greater than its component cells, is there any difference between appeasing God and appeasing humanity? Was Christ a necessary "teachable moment" in the development of our species?

With the prospect of nuclear weapons, pollution, biological weapons, and much, much more, perhaps humanity does need to follow a narrow path in order to avoid destruction. Maybe our first step should be to stop searching for scapegoats for our own errors, and working together to overcome those errors for the future.

The Bible tells its readers not to place stumbling blocks in the path of new believers - those who do not yet have a full understanding of their faith. I see some atheists - a minority, usually new to atheism - who want to deride all religionists for their silly beliefs. They remind me of children who try to distance themselves from their younger brother or sister, because they want to emphasize that they are all grown up - even if they are only a year or two older. With a little more growth, they come to realize that they should not be placing stumbling blocks in the path of their younger sibling.