Ancient religions, including the period before the national religion of Israel became “monotheistic,” were very transactional. You make a sacrifice of a goat, you get rain. You spit on a temple, you get struck blind. You sit there peacefully herding goats, you get raped. The gods represented the view of the world and nature, which was often capricious and cruel.
Judaism, as it developed slowly into its more modern form, continued the transactional relationship but made it more formalized and more highly regulated by the priestly class. The difference in the teachings attributed to the early Christian belief system (I’m not going to get into whether there was a historical Jesus or what the relationship there might have been) was that they advocated for a less transactional relationship and went for a more emotional one. Of course, that’s problematic for organized religion, which relies on ceremonies and regulated behaviors, and you can see it as a constant tension running through history between different sects.
But dividing points of view/stories like this between transactional and “unconditional” can help to conceptualize some of these kinds of things, in my opinion.
One surprising thing about groups that strengthen themselves with overt in-groups and out-groups is the more work (within limits) it takes to stay as part of the in-group the more strongly people attach to the group
So you really do need those rituals and ceremonies and especially sacrifices
“Luckily” the churches have all worked this out and it’s rare to see mistakes like making the religion too easy
Ancient religions, including the period before the national religion of Israel became “monotheistic,” were very transactional. You make a sacrifice of a goat, you get rain. You spit on a temple, you get struck blind. You sit there peacefully herding goats, you get raped. The gods represented the view of the world and nature, which was often capricious and cruel.
Judaism, as it developed slowly into its more modern form, continued the transactional relationship but made it more formalized and more highly regulated by the priestly class. The difference in the teachings attributed to the early Christian belief system (I’m not going to get into whether there was a historical Jesus or what the relationship there might have been) was that they advocated for a less transactional relationship and went for a more emotional one. Of course, that’s problematic for organized religion, which relies on ceremonies and regulated behaviors, and you can see it as a constant tension running through history between different sects.
But dividing points of view/stories like this between transactional and “unconditional” can help to conceptualize some of these kinds of things, in my opinion.
One surprising thing about groups that strengthen themselves with overt in-groups and out-groups is the more work (within limits) it takes to stay as part of the in-group the more strongly people attach to the group
So you really do need those rituals and ceremonies and especially sacrifices
“Luckily” the churches have all worked this out and it’s rare to see mistakes like making the religion too easy