Buying Gods

"...the Church taught that God did not bargain. The pagans of Ys bought off their Taranis, Lir, lustful Belisama with sacrifices; but only offerings made with a contrite heart were acceptable to the Lord God of Israel."
-Poul and Karen Anderson, The King of Ys: Dahut, Chapter II, section 2, p. 46.

But a blood sacrifice is central to Christian belief. Maybe religions divide into four stages:

(i) blood sacrifices, (a) human or (b) animal;
(ii) other offerings of food etc;
(iii) the spiritualized, sacramentalized sacrifice of Christianity;
(iv) purely spiritual practice, (a) prayer or (b) meditation.

I am (iv) (b).

Christianity historicizes myths of sacrifice and resurrection because it stands at the crossroads between the cyclical, seasonal time of agricultural societies and the linear, historical time of urban civilizations. It is intermediate between blood sacrifice and spiritual religion.