So how would you describe Christian soteriology? What difference does it make whether you accept that Jesus and God (and the Holy Spirit) are all the same being or not? The result is the same. Even that was just decided by Constantine at Nicea. The leaders of the church got together, gave their arguments and voted. Then all the votes and arguments were burnt and Constantine announced what would be doctrine henceforth.

You’ve criticized Dawkins’ logic and understanding of the concept, but haven’t said what you think the correct understanding should be.

One question on Dawkins logic. The concept here (as he well knows) isn’t subject a (God) using subject B (his son) as a scapegoat. The concept here is subject a (God) taking the punishment himself. You cannot attack Christian soteriology on ground of God being an immoral torturer of the innocent, by means of disregarding all its theology. Dawkins is not a fool and he has taken time to study what Christian’s believe. This is “straw man” logic, and totally unworthy of him as an academic thinker – much more akin to a bigot who is prepared to twist/distort an argument to make his point.

Fortunately, not trying to make art. Could be avoided completely if only you’d stop pretending the subjective is objective.

@K: Everyone has the right to be droll (which is not to say they have the gift).

We’ve never hesitated to acknowledge your right to be wrong. As “faith does not provide any answers”, we in fact celebrate that right here all the time.

Everybody has the right to be wrong.* Yet almost nobody acts accordingly, as if that were true — not the religious nor the irreligious; not the enlightened nor the benighted; not the modern nor the old-fashioned; not “real atheists” nor fakes; not intellectuals nor illiterates; not illiberal campus radicals, and certainly not the vast preponderance of humanity. If you want to lament that lamentable reality, I’ll join you. But it’s human nature, not an attribute of any particular group.

Yet as stated above, so long as you keep seeing after the truth, God accompanies you whether or not you choose to acknowledge Him. (I’ll leave it to you to sort out the “real atheists” from the fakes. I don’t pretend to understand the mindset.)

(*Yes, of course, our rights are God-given. Just being honest, not provocative.)

And zero points for the straw man too.

That’s exactly the problem. Before the Enlightenment, not many believed people did have a right to believe what they wanted to believe (which, of course, isn’t God-given, though I assume you were saying that to get a rise). It’s the religious who insist people have to believe in a god or the God. Many even insist that atheists are lying when they say they don’t believe. Some regimes still kill those who admit to not believing, or believing in the wrong god. Some Christian rulers used to do that, and others still do it both for not believing in a religion or not believing some other state-imposed orthodoxy.

And before you bring up regimes like communist Russia, their atheism wasn’t real atheism. They tried to replace unquestioning belief in a god with unquestioning belief in the state or the leader of the state. That’s not what we got from the Enlightenment, which doesn’t, of course, preclude religion.

Just offering an observation. Not denying anyone’s God-given right to believe what they want.

It’s a sad philosophy indeed that leads one to deny even another’s journey.