Philosophical Underpinnings of the Atonement

I feel like this post will be a hefty one, especially after only one post attempting to explain what I am trying to do here. But we all know that one of the best modes of defining what something is, is to see it in its context. This being the case, dear reader, take each post as a contextual piece of a definition. An ever-changing collection of what it means to be me, and to be in my mind... for better or worse...
One of the reasons I have come to love studying the Humanities is that it gives me the chance to see other people's viewpoints in a non-confrontational environment. That is to say, it is non-confrontational if I approach each work as it intends to be approached, and with the intent to learn something about another person and their ideas, taking every text for what is actually there. Granted, it is very difficult to do, and I am sure that I fail in that attempt at every turn. That being said, I recently was assigned to do my first reading of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. In the introduction (written by some well-meaning person, I'm sure) it sounded as though Nietzsche would have liked nothing better than for the whole idea of Christianity to vanish into thin air, or to have never existed all-together. While this may be the case, I was given a quote by him the day after I read some of his works that gave me a new perspective on his thinking.
Now, I am not trying to defend him, or put words in his mouth, or call him a Christian thinker when he did not want to be one, but please read with me the actual text.
The following excerpt is taken from The Gay Science

"This is actually one color of this new feeling: Anyone who manages to experience the history of humanity as a whole as his own history will feel in an enormously generalized way all the grief of an invalid who thinks of health, of an old man who thinks of the dreams of his youth, of a lover deprived of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is perishing, of the hero on the evening after a battle that has decided nothing but brought him wounds and the loss of his friend. But if one endured, if one could endure this immense sum of grief of all kinds while yet being the hero who, as the second day of battle breaks, welcomes the dawn and his fortune, being a person whose horizon encompasses thousands of years past and future, being the heir of all the nobility of all past spirit--an heir with a sense of obligation, the most aristocratic of old nobles and at the same time the first of a new nobility--the like of which no age has yet seen or dreamed of; if one could burden one's soul with all of this--the oldest, the newest, losses, hopes, conquests, and the victories of humanity; if one could finally contain all this in one soul and crowd it into a single feeling--this would surely have to result in a happiness that humanity has not known so far: the happiness of a god full of power and love, full of tears and laughter, a happiness that, like the sun in the evening, continually bestows its inexhaustible riches, pouring them into the sea, feeling richest, as the sun does, only when even the poorest fisherman is still rowing with golden oars! This godlike feeling would then be called--humaneness." (268-69)

I realized after reading this quote that Nietzsche probably had less of a problem with the basic, fundamental ideas of Christianity (which, perhaps, he did not understand on a profound level) and struggled more to grapple with the ways in which Christianity had exuded its power over the human race, and shaped the ideas that had led to wars and conflicts and hatred amongst the peoples of the world. Taking into account all of history and much of what goes on in the present-day world, it is really no surprise that people have rejected Christianity and have thought of it as a failed ideal. Reading this quote strengthened my testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ for the simple fact that even while rejecting the ideas of Christianity, a great thinker's mind still brought him to the same conclusion that pure Christian intent has brought many another man. The only way to reach perfection, a pinnacle of humanness (insert charity?) is to feel and understand deeply every experience and emotion that has ever passed through the human mind.
If I had not known who this quote was by before I read it, and had to guess at its author, I would have said C.S. Lewis wrote it in speaking of the Atonement. To say that it made me think would be a gross understatement. I have only begun to delve into the ramifications of this idea. It will undoubtedly prove to be a lifelong journey.