Questioning the Basis of Christianity

[Airbrush]

Since I was raised by devout Christian parents and attended Christian grammar and high school, I feel I can be critical of my own religious experience.  I have an observation about the basis of Christianity, and maybe a look at religion in general.  I took my religion seriously throughout grammar school, but by high school I was becoming skeptical.  Why did God or Jesus never talk to me in my dreams?  I had many extraordinary, even surreal dreams but never, never, not once did Jesus telling me to go to mass, or God tell me what the true religion is.  

I think this is the basic story, the basis of Christianity.  Correct me where I go wrong:

Adam and Eve committed a grave offense against God the father by eating an apple that He told them NOT to eat.  Sounds like something kids will do if you tell them not to.  What person is NOT going to eat something delicious that they are told NOT to eat?  That is like saying "please eat this!"

This disobedience was so terrible to God that he decided to not let ANY people into heaven for the next 2,000 years or so, until Christ was born to die for Adam & Eve’s sin.  Also, women will have pain giving birth to children ever after.

God was totally pissed-off at people for 2,000 years.  He decided sometime during those 2,000 years what to do about his sinful people, who he really loved.  In fact he loved us so much that he would torture and kill for us.  They always say “God so loved the world that He sent His only son to die for our sins.”  But they don't tell you He did that to please Himself!

God decided to impregnate Mary by means of the Holy Spirit to give birth to His one and only son.  The plan was his son will be tortured to death for the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, and thus please himself enough so he would open the gates of heaven for all people who will follow the example of Christ.

This means God was a very irritable guy who couldn’t stand people not obeying him.  He was a tyrant, a dictator.

The Original Sin of disobedience was so terrible, in God’s mind, that no people should be allowed into heaven.  That is not until somebody is tortured to death for Adam & Eve’s disobedience.  But that somebody has to be special, he must be a God who became man.  This Father could only be satisfied by the torture and death of HIS OWN SON.  This is ghastly on the face of it.

Where did I go wrong?  Or did the Father go wrong?

Don't get me wrong.  There is nothing wrong with being Christlike, which is rather pleasant to most people.  Who doesn't like a peacemaker, someone who is loving, humble, virtuous, and cares a great deal about the least of his brethren?  Earth needs more and more love, as Alton Ellis said:

Edited June 23, 2020 by Airbrush

[Sensei]

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Why did God or Jesus never talk to me in my dreams?

Because online forum is a better place?  e.g. like this..

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

I had many extraordinary, even surreal dreams but never, never, not once did Jesus telling me to go to mass, or God tell me what the true religion is.  

..people dream at night about stuff they usually made at day and/or wanted to do..

e.g. if you will spend the all day/week/month long (literally) on playing game e.g. Scrabble, during sleep you will have dreams/nightmares about "what the best word can be made with supplied letters"..

..if you will spend the all day on playing Chess, during sleep you will have dreams/nightmares about "what the best move can be done on chessboard with supplied figures"..

 ..professional football players dream about "how they helped/failed team to win the match"..

..gold miners dream about finding the last final the biggest gold nugget which will make them rich..

etc. etc.

Priests, nuns, devoted prayers, regardless of religion, spending the all day long (literally) on praying, will have religious dreams at night..

Priests, regardless of religion, who are doing it for money, will have dreams about people giving money and how they will spend donation..

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

I think this is the basic story, the basis of Christianity.  

..I think it is more about origin of dreams/nightmares..

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Adam and Eve committed a grave offense against God the father by eating an apple that He told them NOT to eat.  Sounds like something kids will do if you tell them not to.  What person is NOT going to eat something delicious that they are told NOT to eat?  That is like saying "please eat this!"

You are taking it too literally..

Africa used to be a better place for living for humans in the past. Sahara used to be covered by plants. Change of climate thousands years ago destroyed a nice place for living to a hell on the Earth. People had to migrate to find a new habitable area. Remembrance of escaping from Africa gave the myth of being expelled from paradise. The rest of your post is just a continuation of this myth, and actions and reactions of humans to solve not existing in the reality problem of "being expelled from paradise"..

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Where did I go wrong? 

..except everywhere?

BTW, it is Old Testament. Common for Jews, Mulims and Christians.

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Earth needs more and more love,

This is absolutely true.. Work in progress..

 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Sensei

[dimreepr]

9 hours ago, Airbrush said:

God was totally pissed-off at people for 2,000 years.  He decided sometime during those 2,000 years what to do about his sinful people, who he really loved.  In fact he loved us so much that he would torture and kill for us.  They always say “God so loved the world that He sent His only son to die for our sins.”  But they don't tell you He did that to please Himself!

God really buggers up the metaphors, and confuses the parables, when the context is (2,000/4,000 year's) out of date. 

“God so loved the world that He sent His only son to die for our sins.” Think about it in terms of a metaphor/analogy, Imagine if Jesus' message is that we're all the son of god and we all sin. And that, maybe, his death was a catalyst for change; instead of seeking revenge for every slight, however egregious, we forgive everyone (even ourselves) and try being nice to everyone (even ourselves); we don't need god for that...

[Prometheus]

9 hours ago, Airbrush said:

I think this is the basic story, the basis of Christianity.  Correct me where I go wrong:

The mistake, for the religious or non-religious alike, i think is to take the stories literally. Taken as frameworks they make more sense.

The forbidden fruit ( Milton's Paradise Lost solidified it as the Apple) symbolises knowledge, particularly of good and evil. The first thing Adam and Eve notice after eating it is their nakedness - they can now discriminate between themselves and a potentially hostile world and so seek to place barriers between it and themselves. The most interesting aspect of this story is that this coming of knowledge is cast as a bad thing. (Also interesting to note is the role of the serpent - later interpreted as Satan - in bringing about insight in humans. There is a theory that snakes provided the selective pressure that developed the human visual system to such a high degree. Perhaps a hint of how ancient these myths reach back).

Compare this to the Greek myth of how humans acquired divine knowledge. Prometheus, the bringer of light (incidentally the same meaning as the name Lucifer), gifts the divine fire it to mankind (again, that theme of light, fire is also probably one of mankinds oldest technologies, both bringer of life and death), so incurring Zeus's wrath and much liver pecking. However, the key difference is that this acquisition of divine knowledge is seen as a good thing, not something to be punished. Herakles, one of the greatest Greek heroes, repays Prometheus by rescuing him from Zeus's punishment. However, humans don't get off so lightly, with Zeus tricking Epimetheus and Pandora (the first woman, so equivalent to Eve in that respect) into opening her jar (or box), thus unleashing all the torments man experiences (hope being a silver lining or the final torment that makes you endure all others depending on your disposition).

Both stories cast our acquisition of divine knowledge as the source of our suffering (indeed humans do seem able to suffer in a unique way compared to other animals). However, the Greco-Roman lineage sees that burden of knowledge as our bridge to divinity (through adversity to the stars), the Judeo-Christian lineage sees knowledge as what separates us from divinity - and our ignorance as a return to the divine (man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith).

[dimreepr]

11 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

(indeed humans do seem able to suffer in a unique way compared to other animals).

I'm not so sure, many animals face the fear that their hard work will be undermined, by those nasty thieving fish/birds/squirrel's etc...

 

If we see them doing it we can exact our revenge (chase them off, and hopefully bite the buggers), otherwise our choices are, keep working and hope for the best, or stop working and stand guard over an inadequate supply.

[John Cuthber]

12 hours ago, Airbrush said:

  What person is NOT going to eat something delicious that they are told NOT to eat?  That is like saying "please eat this!"

The Serpent pretty much did say "please eat this".

Don't forget that God put the serpent into the garden.
Nobody seems to know what He did that.

[Phi for All]

8 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Don't forget that God put the serpent into the garden.
Nobody seems to know what He did that.

I think it's because God needed a scapegoatsnake. He realized he'd lied to A&E when he said they'd die if they ate the apple, so he puts the serpent into the garden to tell them it's OK to eat the apple. God gets to curse the snake with a forked tongue and make it crawl on its lying belly, and boots the ungrateful tenants who now want clothes as well as a garden. And nobody remembers who lied first.

[Airbrush]

On 6/23/2020 at 6:28 AM, Prometheus said:

The mistake, for the religious or non-religious alike, i think is to take the stories literally. Taken as frameworks they make more sense.....

Then would you please do me a favor and forget about the literal, and convert the following statement into a sensible framework?  Thank you.

God the father was so upset by A&E's sin of disobedience, that He barred all people from heaven, until His own son would be born and die a hideous death to please Himself.  This is comparable to the Mayan, Aztec, and Incan belief in blood lust of their gods, who craved human sacrifice.

Edited June 26, 2020 by Airbrush

[zapatos]

39 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

God the father was so upset by A&E's sin of disobedience, that He barred all people from heaven, until His own son would be born and die a hideous death to please Himself. 

I don't remember this from the Bible. It sounds more like you are asking us to interpret your interpretation of a metaphor. Where is that going to lead us?

[joigus]

I think religion is very much like a skin tumor. It's there for a reason different entirely from what humans need or wish. You get it or not more or less likely depending on your exposure to "the light" as much as on how strong your defense system is, and it can become just a quirk or turn into melanoma. But, as any other self-maintaining, replicating process in Nature, it couldn't care less about what you really want or need. It grows because it can.

If you're lucky enough to weed it out, you can concentrate on the much more interesting problem of where it comes from and why it sticks in so many minds (some of them, curiously enough, anything but stupid,) or why it took the form it did in the particular part of the world where you were raised.

Why the Bible took the form it did, I think can be understood largely in terms of history and archaeology.

[dimreepr]

14 hours ago, joigus said:

I think religion is very much like a skin tumor. It's there for a reason different entirely from what humans need or wish. You get it or not more or less likely depending on your exposure to "the light" as much as on how strong your defense system is, and it can become just a quirk or turn into melanoma. But, as any other self-maintaining, replicating process in Nature, it couldn't care less about what you really want or need. It grows because it can.

If you're lucky enough to weed it out, you can concentrate on the much more interesting problem of where it comes from and why it sticks in so many minds (some of them, curiously enough, anything but stupid,) or why it took the form it did in the particular part of the world where you were raised.

I understand the analogy, especially as time allows the tumor to spiral out of control. But, forgive me, it seems a little arogant. I prefer to think of it in terms of a cure, like a perscription/course of antibiotics that we fail to finish. 

14 hours ago, joigus said:

Why the Bible took the form it did, I think can be understood largely in terms of history and archaeology.

Until we need it again, "look on ye mighty and despair". It could be argued that mindfulness is an emerging modern variation.

God is just a distraction, since we've filled the gaps.

 

[joigus]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I understand the analogy, especially as time allows the tumor to spiral out of control. But, forgive me, it seems a little arogant. I prefer to think of it in terms of a cure, like a perscription/course of antibiotics that we fail to finish. 

If you allow me a to maintain my analogy a little longer; if the tumor is not malignant, it may just result in giving you an awesome tattoo that distinguishes you from the boring un-tattooed atheists. You are not enslaved and you keep your cool religious gear. What's not to like?

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Until we need it again, "look on ye mighty and despair". It could be argued that mindfulness is an emerging modern variation.

God is just a distraction, since we've filled the gaps.

I don't see mindfulness or the like as a variation; rather, as a much healthier substitute. But that's just how I view it.

Edited June 27, 2020 by joigus
minor correction

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

If you allow me a to maintain my analogy a little longer; if the tumor is not malignant, it may just result in giving you an awesome tattoo that distinguishes you from the boring un-tattooed atheists. You are not enslaved and you keep you cool religious gear. What's not to like?

I like that +1, (Edit)  but if the tumor is not malignant, why do we need to care, or cure?

1 hour ago, joigus said:

I don't see mindfulness or the like as a variation; rather, as a much healthier substitute. But that's just how I view it.

Give it time... Ozymandias. 😉

 

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by dimreepr

[Airbrush]

18 hours ago, zapatos said:

I don't remember this from the Bible. It sounds more like you are asking us to interpret your interpretation of a metaphor. Where is that going to lead us?

Don't you remember this?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life." 

Aramaic Bible in Plain English: "For God loved the world in this way: so much that he would give up his Son, The Only One, so that everyone who trusts in him shall not be lost, but he shall have eternal life."

https://biblehub.com/john/3-16.htm

 

[zapatos]

2 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

Don't you remember this?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life." 

Aramaic Bible in Plain English: "For God loved the world in this way: so much that he would give up his Son, The Only One, so that everyone who trusts in him shall not be lost, but he shall have eternal life."

https://biblehub.com/john/3-16.htm

 

I do. I just don't remember this part...

Quote

...until His own son would be born and die a hideous death to please Himself. 

 

[Strange]

20 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life."

I've never quite understood this. How does killing someone show to others that they will have everlasting life? It sounds more like proof you will die. Possibly horribly. It sounds like a really stupid thing to do. I'm really not sure that God thought this one through. One the other hand, it seems to have worked for a lot of people, so what do I know.

[dimreepr]

17 minutes ago, Strange said:

How does killing someone show to others that they will have everlasting life? It sounds more like proof you will die. Possibly horribly. 

That's tomorrow, today is when I'm alive and that's the only chance I've got, to live...

Edited June 27, 2020 by dimreepr

[Prometheus]

12 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Then would you please do me a favor and forget about the literal, and convert the following statement into a sensible framework?  Thank you.

God the father was so upset by A&E's sin of disobedience, that He barred all people from heaven, until His own son would be born and die a hideous death to please Himself.  This is comparable to the Mayan, Aztec, and Incan belief in blood lust of their gods, who craved human sacrifice.

I've already given an account of the Genesis myth. The Jesus myth is from several centuries later. If you see how terrible and inconsistent the Star Wars prequels/sequels were compared to the original 50 years later then i can well understand why the Biblical mash-up so poor.

A generous reading of the Jesus myth is that human sacrifice is no longer needed, because god has sacrificed himself/his only son for us. I'm not going to defend Christianity too much though, i think it was a regressive step even 2000 years ago when compared to the Greco-Roman traditions to the west and Vedic traditions to the east,. In the bible sacrifice comes up many times (Abel and Cain, Jacob and Jesus). Each instance demands that the best of humanity is demanded. But in the Greek myth Prometheus urges mankind to keep the best for themselves, tricking Zeus to take a lesser sacrifice. The Greek myths challenge mankind to aspire to godhood  - which is the greatest sin, Lucifer's sin of Hubris, in the Christian tradition.

My interpretation is that the blossoming of man is regarded as terrible in Christianity (although i don't think that's true of the Jewish myths), but as glorious in the Greco-Roman tradition.

 

11 hours ago, joigus said:

I think religion is very much like a skin tumor...

Why the Bible took the form it did, I think can be understood largely in terms of history and archaeology.

If we think in evolutionary terms, meme theory, then religion must have served quite a strong survival function. If it was so malignant, it developed so early in mankind it would have been like getting a childhood cancer - not something you survive in the natural world. I think a more accurate analogy would be to compare it to something like the appendix: something that helped us survive in the past, which became thought to be useless in modern times, but has been found to still serve a function for some people.

Religion can can understood in terms of psychology and sociology too. The Greeks said that you can know a people by the idols they revere. Religions have their idols, as does the secular world. 

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Prometheus said:

If we think in evolutionary terms, meme theory, then religion must have served quite a strong survival function. If it was so malignant, it developed so early in mankind it would have been like getting a childhood cancer - not something you survive in the natural world. I think a more accurate analogy would be to compare it to something like the appendix: something that helped us survive in the past, which became thought to be useless in modern times, but has been found to still serve a function for some people.

Ok. It seems we disagree about this, even if only mildly. The arguments I've heard or read that have convinced me that some rituals and religious practices may have played a positive part in the remote past are those that contend that some kind of centralized authority, plus a set of rules to decide what to do could have been an efficient way for a group of people in which disagreement can easily emerge, to take a decision and stick to it.

But things that stay with us don't have to be good. Parasitic entities have their own evolutionary "agenda." They grow and prosper among us. The only mistake they must avoid making is being so damaging to their host that they manage to extinguish it.  Examples of it from biology are the common cold or the measles. Examples from the world of memes are faith-based religions and the Flat Earth Society.

[Casio]

On 6/23/2020 at 3:36 PM, John Cuthber said:

The Serpent pretty much did say "please eat this".

Don't forget that God put the serpent into the garden.
Nobody seems to know what He did that.

From what I understand God put the serpent into the garden to watch over Adam and Eve. Although they were perfect that does not mean they knew or understood everything, they had not had the time to gain long term experience, which is not much different to us now. We all fall foul of some people who take advantage of us and we get what I call the short straw, which hopefully we learn by our mistakes not to get it again. It is said that Eve was deceived by the serpent who presented himself as a snake. Some talk about the apple, but I think it is more to do with understanding desire, the knowing and wanting something, so maybe it was more likely the serpent said something to Eve that caused her to take the bate. Presenting this bate (whatever it was) to her husband Adam caused him to agree with her which is where the problem with God arrived. God knew something was wrong at that time because Adam and Eve were said to be hiding in the trees, because they had become aware they were naked. Do children growing up not go through this very same experience, I think we all go through it.

The problem I have here is that we all die because through Adam sin past to all men, however conversations I've had over time people tell me that Eve was deceived. Maybe that could be true, however if I tricked you into something that would put your life in danger of dying, would that be your fault? If Eve was not to blame or partially to blame, she would still be here today, but she is not. It is also said that a balance had to be created to allow imperfect humans to co exist, so Jesus was sent to earth as a human sacrifice for all those who exercise faith in him. Where is Jesus our mediator today? He died over two thousand years ago, he made a name for himself but where is the real evidence that God or Jesus are real?

It is said that the bible is a book of knowledge that tells us about diseases and how to live etc, but take covid-19 now, did God instruct worshipers to stop socializing? No that was carried out by our governments, who took advice from scientists. Where is Gods involvement in the current world pandemic? Many and many questions but no evidence of a real world invisible God or Jesus. 

[dimreepr]

11 hours ago, Casio said:

God knew something was wrong at that time because Adam and Eve were said to be hiding in the trees, because they had become aware they were naked.

And yet the serpent didn't care about the dress code.

If we accept the NT is an explanation of the OT, then the sermon on the mount comes into play; the birds in the field didn't care about the dress code either.

It seems to me that the message here is, because of our knowledge we spend to much of today, worrying about tomorrow. 

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/recognizing-happiness/

[joigus]

On 6/23/2020 at 4:09 AM, Airbrush said:

Adam and Eve committed a grave offense against God the father by eating an apple that He told them NOT to eat.  Sounds like something kids will do if you tell them not to.  What person is NOT going to eat something delicious that they are told NOT to eat?  That is like saying "please eat this!"

There are things the Bible doesn't say and almost everybody believes it does.

There was no apple. It could have been a quince, or maybe a fig, as there were no apples back then in the Middle East. The Bible doesn't say it was an apple, actually. The Bible doesn't say Jonah was eaten by a whale either. The Bible doesn't say there was an angel at the Garden of Eden, but a cherub, which was a mythical animal represented very frequently in the gardens of palaces throughout the Middle East.

The Hebrew Bible doesn't say that Mary was a virgin, but a "young woman."

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There are things the Bible says and few people know it does.

The Bible talks about a pantheon of gods that are subservient to Yahweh. And names God both as Yahweh and El. Is it the same god? I'm not sure.

Asherah, the wife of Yahweh, is also mentioned, but the interpretation was presumably changed, as it's mentioned as a synonym for "a stick" in very obscure passages, when she is known to have been a goddess, as archaeology has shown. The stick was one of the symbols of the goddess.

Back to Adam and Eve:

There's at least one thing the Bible says twice in different (incompatible) ways:

Ezechiel 28. Two prophecies, one of them against the king of Tyre. There you can see that the king of Tyre is expelled from the Garden of Eden, on account of his sins. The cherub also appears. Very similar legend; two different narrative uses.

Who was expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve or the king of Tyre? I'm not so sure. The authors of the Bible seem not to be either.

Some scholars believe the Oracles against the king in Ezechiel 28 predate the Adam and Eve story in Genesis.

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There are things the Bible says that are taken from somewhere else:

The Bible takes the story of Noah from The Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim , and adapts it to its own narrative needs.

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There are blatantly obvious things the Bible is silent about:

Omri, big king of Samaria, was a very relevant character of the Assyrian domination period, but the Bible only mentions him in passing, as a baddie. The Bible also plays down the role of many other kings, like Manasseh, although he made Israel into an important olive oil factory and brought a period of peace, contrary to what Hezekiah, his father, did.

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And lastly, there are many things the Bible says that cannot be true.

Josuah didn't conquer Jericho, as Kathleen Kenyon has proved. Jericho was uninhabited at the time. Plus the Egyptians were in control of Canaan and had the country strongly policed from Beit She'an. I don't believe God gave the law of gravity a suspension for some hours for the benefit of his people to the detriment of the Canaanites either. Plus the Canaanites and the Israelites were the same people: No difference in material culture or belief system, as Israel Finkelstein has shown.

Abraham could not have possibly used camels. Camels were domesticated about 1000 years later.

[Prometheus]

16 hours ago, joigus said:

Ok. It seems we disagree about this, even if only mildly. The arguments I've heard or read that have convinced me that some rituals and religious practices may have played a positive part in the remote past are those that contend that some kind of centralized authority, plus a set of rules to decide what to do could have been an efficient way for a group of people in which disagreement can easily emerge, to take a decision and stick to it.

But things that stay with us don't have to be good. Parasitic entities have their own evolutionary "agenda." They grow and prosper among us. The only mistake they must avoid making is being so damaging to their host that they manage to extinguish it.  Examples of it from biology are the common cold or the measles. Examples from the world of memes are faith-based religions and the Flat Earth Society.

Genes also have their own evolutionary agenda - was that not Dawkin's great contribution to evolutionary theory, that the unit of replication is the gene not the organism?Wouldn't memes be the same? Therefore i don't think it's useful to think of some memes, like religious ones, as particularly self-serving - they all are.

But we can think of memes that better serve the organism, in this case the cultures they exist in. Perhaps some religions are more suited to secular societies than others. But then evolution is a blind process and what constitutes better? By some metrics religious countries do very well.

My guess is that the changes to the memetic landscape that social media brings, and the click-bait maximising algorithms that appeal to our reptilian instincts which drive it, will change the selective pressures towards favouring extremist religious interpretations. But then i favour the Greco-Roman tradition and they're known Cynics.

[joigus]

35 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

Therefore i don't think it's useful to think of some memes, like religious ones, as particularly self-serving - they all are.

Yes, but some are detrimental for the individual, while leaving the reproductive success of the species alone (those are the parasites that thrive); and others aren't.

37 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

My guess is that the changes to the memetic landscape that social media brings, and the click-bait maximising algorithms that appeal to our reptilian instincts which drive it, will change the selective pressures towards favouring extremist religious interpretations. But then i favour the Greco-Roman tradition and they're known Cynics.

It is entirely possible. I just hope you're wrong, although it seems to be a well-informed guess. 😬

[Sensei]

On 6/27/2020 at 5:44 PM, Strange said:

I've never quite understood this. How does killing someone show to others that they will have everlasting life? It sounds more like proof you will die. Possibly horribly. It sounds like a really stupid thing to do. I'm really not sure that God thought this one through. One the other hand, it seems to have worked for a lot of people, so what do I know.

Actually it is very simple. Religions evolve. Acquires some parts from older religions, merges or splits, rejecting part of older religion.

It helps to get new followers, converting believers of older religion to newer religion, if you combine part of older religion. After centuries, millennia, without traces of written word, you cannot distinguish what is merged and its origin, as the all written materials never really existed, were destroyed accidentally, or destroyed on purpose, to removed traces of older religion, or are hidden in the ruins of ancient buildings buried under the desert sand..

Remembering what I just said, analyze what religions were in ancient times on lands which are now known as Middle East. In some of them there were rituals of bloody sacrifices of people on the altar, tortured and/or killed, in the name of a god, to please him/her/it, appease to stop sending plagues, Earth Quakes, thunders, flooding, etc. etc.

Look at story currently known as Binding of Isaac. In Isaac's time, Jews believed in completely different religions than 2000 years ago, and different than now. It is story showing transition of religion from older one, in which people were killing other people on altars, to religion in which it is forbidden. Instead of humans, they continued to give just animals and plants as sacrifice. In Christianity it was taken even further and the slaughter of animals on altars was also stopped (due to what you just said, it was "The Last Bloody Sacrifice"). It has been replaced by less violent, less cruel, more civilized, religious rituals.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Sensei