Well, Atonement is a bit different in the Jewish religion. Since it will soon be Yom Kipper, it is approriate to consider what attonement means to the Jewish faith.
The Day of Atonement is set aside to ask forgivenes of god for 'sins' against god. For sins against another person, you have to go to the other person for forgiveness. To atone for that, you have to make right the wrongs you did against the other person.
In biblical times, the sacrifice of an animal was reserved for 'uninteninal sin'. There were also sacrifices of cereal, or , repentance and prayer, and the animal sacrifices were the least important of the methods of atonement.
For the blood sacricices, only specific animals were allowed, such as bulls, goats, and doves. I am sure anybody reading it will notice the distinct lack of humans on that list. There also were warning thought the Tanakh when people became too obcessed with blood sacrifice (example psalm 40:7 "Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; but my ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required."
In essense, part of asking for forgivenes is repentance. What are the steps for repentance? They are as follows
* realizing the error of sinning and regretting it;
* quietly confessing it to God;
* accepting upon yourself to try not to do it again;
* trying not to do it again.
Therefore, part of atonement is repentance, and that means an attempt to learn from your past mistakes, and not to do it again.
One point that should be made is that the Jewish religion is for this life, and does not dwell unduely on the next one. Atonement is for this life, not the next one.
From the jewish perspective , the concept of a sacrifice of a human being to forgive someone else of their sins does not make sense. The entire concept of 'salvation' for the afterlife is absent. There also is no concept of original sin. It makes an interesting contrast with the various atonement and salvation concepts in Christianity.
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