The whole idea of atonement and the necessity of belief brings to mind an article by Robert M. Price - "Damnable Syllogism". Some pertinent excerpts""You see, Christianity did not bring into the world an answer to an ancient longing, a long-delayed salve for a festering wound. No, it created the problem to be able to peddle the solution. You only think you have the problem the Christian gospel will solve if you already accept the Christian bill of goods. Karl Barth put it euphemistically by saying that we are so blinded by sin that we do not even know the right question to ask till we hear the answer. But I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer was more to the point when he said Christianity survives by circling like a vulture, trying to make the healthy believe they're sick so they will buy the patent medicine we have to sell. Like asbestos in your basement: the stuff's only toxic once the environmental experts get there to remove it and start stirring up the dust of death.The atonement doctrine may well have emerged (as Sam K. Williams argues in Jesus' Death as Saving Event) as a piece of Hellenistic Jewish missionary theology. Gentile "God-fearers" admired Jewish theology and ethics, but they remained hangers-on at the margins of the synagogue, not full, circumcised proselytes, because they did not relish embracing the whole mass of Jewish dietary and ceremonial customs. Some of them began to join communities of Jews who expected the return of Jesus as the Messiah, and a new problem arose. Jews looked to the Jerusalem temple sacrifices to atone for their sins. Gentiles were beyond the pale, unclean before God, outside the Levitical system of sacrificial atonement. How could God accept them as full members of the household of faith? In other words, how could they now receive full admission to the synagogues of Jews who revered Jesus? We can see the controversy over this point in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians: do Gentile believers in Jesus have to become full proselytes to Judaism and keep the Torah regulations? Many Jewish Jesus sectarians assumed so. Remember, they weren't trying to start a new Jesus religion. That came later."
