Jesus Christ dying for our sins is objectionable

In a formal debate, the burden of proof falls on Pro. Because of this, rather than assert a formal argument, I shall simply respond to (and hopefully debunk) Pro's contentions. He may then choose to either attempt to reinforce his original contention by undermining my rebuttal, or launch a new contention. In order to secure victory, he must successfully show reasonable proof that I cannot bring reasonable doubt to. This is the nature of formal debate. There are several flaws in Pro's argument. As pro stated, it is not realistic to launch into a formal explanation of attonement theory. However, it is important to understand that there are multiple views on that attonement. Pro has explained only one of these theories, and has explained it somewhat incorrectly. I do not want to equivocate about terms, so I will make a slight correction. Pro used the word debt, as if our sin was somehow a borrowed thing. .. perhaps goodness. We then try to repay the debt. However, this is inaccurate. Hell is not a fine the sinner pays for their wrong doing. It is a place that people go who are in rebellion to God, and biblically was created as a place to send the fallen angels who rebelled against God. It is probably better to view it as a prison where people are punished for their crimes. This view is called Penal Substitution/Satisfaction and is the leading and historically orthodox view of the Attonement The next is called Propitiationary Satisfacction. This view asserts that God is angry with sin, and his wrath must be appeased for our sin. This is done through the sacrifice of lambs in the Old Testament, and through the eternal sacrifice of Christ in the new testament. There is another view called Chritus Victor, in which Christ did battle with Satan over the souls of humanity and the world, and secured victory through his work on the Cross. In order to validate the resolution, Pro would need to prove not only that Penal Substitution was objectionable, but also the way the attonement functioned/functions. To respond to his contention directly, our justice system does allow for people to go unpunished. In the American Justice system, it is the executive branch that is responsible or carrying out the punishment of persons who are deemed guilty of a Crime. The ultimate authority for that punishment is the executive person of the government body in which the Crime is committed (Governor for States, President for Federal). If that executive body sees fit to pardon a person, for whatever reason, they have the ability to do so. While this is uncommon, it happens. For example, a pair of twin sisters who committed murder together were just excused. The reason was that one sister agreed to give a kidney to the other. Finally, in Penal Substitution theory, it is not simply Christ agreeing to pay for our sins. .. metaphysically Christ BECOMES us and pays our sin, and then imputes his righteousness onto us. Imputing his righteousness in effect takes the sinful life we live and replaces it with the sinless life he lived. It is not simply that our sin is paid for, our sin is removed from existence, metaphysically it is as though we never sinned. A more fair comparison to our justice system would be if a person comitted a crime, and then the judge went back in time and prevented them from comitting the crime and comitted it himself instead. This analogy (like all analogies) breaks down, but is a more accurate picture than the one painted by Pro's simplistic attonement explanation. Thank you for reading, I look forward to Pro's next round.