Today is Yom Kippur, literally, the Day of Atonement. As religious Jews make their observance, we'll make an observation or two about the linguistic—and religious—place of atonement. (来源：http://www.EnglishCN.com)

Religious atonement refers to the process by which a person removes obstacles to his or her reconciliation with God. Not surprisingly, atonement is a recurring theme in theology. In traditional Judaism, atonement takes the form of expiation for one's sins in order to attain God's forgiveness. In Christianity, atonement takes a variety of paths, but it refers broadly to the reconciliation of God and man through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Christian Scientists have a particular application for atonement: in that religion, it means the exemplification of man's oneness with God.

The word atonement comes from at onement meaning "being set at one" or "reconciliation." The linguistic ancestor of atone was at on, meaning "in harmony." That verb has a number of obsolete or archaic senses, including the intransitive "to enjoy a peaceful harmonious relationship with" and the transitive "to bring from a state of enmity or opposition to a state of friendliness, toleration, or harmony."