So after being raised as a christian, attending church and a christian school until the age of 16, being constantly educated by Christians, I don't understand what it's all about?

It's you who doesn't understand what it's all about. Here are some simple, cold hard facts:

Jesus didn't say that there was anything wrong with slavery. He told slaves to submit to their masters. Slavery persisted for over 1800 years in christian countries. People who "followed Jesus" were slavers. It took until 1833 for people to go beyond the teachings of Jesus and abolish slavery on the basis of the suffering being caused.

Vicarious redemption is an archaic, primitive moral system. The idea that one person's suffering atones for another person's sins, and in any way improves the situation, is obviously dumb. It's also obvious where the idea comes from in ancient, uneducated cultures.

"whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" is self explanatory. If something else was meant, then it would have been written differently. But let me guess, we're supposed to interpret it in a way other than it is literally written, to extract the true, nuanced meaning from this piece of ancient text written by a primitive human being with little to no education at a time where being able to count to 20 would qualify you as an intellectual.

It's 2016, we can do so much better than the crude teachings of Jesus.