OK, a former christian will give it a go. Remember the trinity? The early church fathers came up with this idea to help solve a number of problems. If Jesus was a seperate person within the one godhead, then christians can still worship one god while worshipping Jesus also. The Father(God) can send the Son(who is also God) to die for our sins, and as I have posted before, this to me is nothing more than child-sacrifice.
Why is it the ultimate gift as you say? Well, if Jesus is God,as the argument goes, then sin which can't be atoned for by human effort(according to protestant christian theology), can be atoned by the death of an eternal person. This all assumes the idea that sin needs to be atoned for anyway. It also assumes that God demands justice for everything he consideres sinful. Christians use a # of Bible verses to back up the idea that we humans are sinful in the sight of God, and therefor we need salvation. One verse that I used to try to convince others that God demands justice for sin was, Ephesians 2:8; "For the wages(payment) of sin is death(our spiritual death;eternity in hell), but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus...". So, as the religion preaches, if one believes that Jesus died for their sins, then one gets to go to heaven. Christians call this the 'ultimate gift' because Jesus death on the cross is believed to be the ultimate act of love from God. Hope this helped.
[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 01-03-2004]