For some reason, Christians think it is a good thing to regard Jesus as a scapegoat, onto whom they can place all of their sins and then forget about them as if they never happened. Let me explain why this is a very wrong idea.
First, a bit of background on the scapegoat idea. You can find this in Leviticus 16, as part of the rituals for the Day of Atonement, which was intended to cleanse both individuals and the nation of all of the previous year's sins. After putting on some magic linen garments and killing a bull and a goat for sin offerings, the priest would put his hands on the head of a live goat, and confess the sins of all the people. Like magic, all the sins they committed would go into the goat, and then the goat would be released into the wilderness to die, taking the nation's sins along with it. Now everyone could enter the new year with a clean, shiny, sin-free slate!
What is sin, exactly? Well, Christians define it as anything that God doesn't like. But this is pretty vague--God has been said to dislike almost everything under the sun--and really, when it comes down to it, sin is just failure: moral, personal, social, ethical. Your faults, imperfections, bad behavior, poor attitude, hurtful words, bad habits that you can't seem to overcome, breaking the law, whatever negative things impact your life and the lives of others around you can be lumped together under the label of "sin."
Once this is made clear, it becomes pretty obvious that no amount of wishing and praying and let's-pretend will ever enable you transfer your sins into an innocent animal. The whole idea of a scapegoat becomes ludicrous. Only YOU can get rid of your sins; they are personal battles that you, alone, must fight and win (or lose). What does a goat have to do with this? How could it possibly take away one sin from one human being, let alone an entire nation?
Well, it is the same way when you substitute a human, a god, or a half-god savior for the goat. That person cannot take away your personal faults and failures, not even if he willingly dies a painful death and claims he is doing it for you. Life doesn't work that way. Becoming a member of a certain religion, or accepting the teachings of a certain holy book, or believing in a certain god...none of these things will make all your bad qualities go away. If there is something about yourself that you don't like, you have to put some effort into changing whatever it is you are doing wrong. You can't expect someone else to take the blame for your failures. That's just wrong.
And even if you do improve yourself and begin to be a nicer person, the bad stuff you did in the past will still be a part of your past. That's right, all those sins don't disappear. You might have to work hard to make up for some of the crap you did, if it was really bad. You might have to ask forgiveness from some people.
Asking forgiveness from God is easy, because you're not talking to him face-to-face, or hearing his voice, or seeing his expression of mistrust and hurt. The guy is imaginary, so naturally you won't feel any particular hardship saying, "God, forgive me," in the darkness of your bedroom before you go to sleep. What's truly hard is asking forgiveness from the people you have hurt, while they are standing before you. Since you will spend your whole life interacting with people, and none at all interacting with God, it is much more important to stay in their good graces than it is his.
But Christians have this wrong, too. They think God's opinions and feelings are more important than those of the human beings with whom they spend every day of their lives. They may think it is very nice that someone died for their sins, but what does that mean in any practical sense? How do you die "for" someone else's faults? How does the death of a goat, a bull, a human, or even a god, make anyone a better person? How does it take away their moral shortcomings? How does it erase their crimes? How does it help them overcome bad habits or be more aware of their negative behavior?
When it is analyzed in this manner, the whole scapegoat mentality--so admired by Christians the world over-- is revealed as completely warped and impossible. Instead of blaming some innocent person for your problems, and expecting him to take them away simply because he died a long, long time ago, take responsibility for them. It's the right thing to do.
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