Vorkosigan

What inspired them to endure was their assumption of a new social identity. The beliefs are not really relevant, as people have died for all sorts of social identities.

Vorkosigan

mata leao

and some of them died(chose martyrdom) because they had actually seen Jesus' miracles, including his resurrection from the dead.

Jobar

O_F, as Sven says, buckshot is a regular poster in E/C. He a Young-Earth Creationist Christian. I trust that you wish to enlighten him from this erroneous belief.

If you do, I want the popcorn concession.

Asha'man

Really? Exactly which ones? And how do you know this?

After they were dead, did they explain their reasoning to you? :rolling:

joedad

And his walking through stone walls, feeding thousands from a basket of food, changing the weather, and then flying away into the sky. Perfectly credible stories.

NOGO

Are you saying that any beliefs which produce martyrs must be true?

John A. Broussard

Yes, that's exactly what he's saying.

Those 19 Muslims who crashed the 9/11 planes knew for sure that they were going to have 72 virgins apiece waiting for them in the next life.

Martyrs never die because of false beliefs.

John A. Broussard

Believing in such fables is known as the White Queen phenomenon. She was able to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Valentine Pontifex

The early Moslims also survived severe persecution. Persecution from an extremely powerful, far more numerous and wealth, foes who were determined to wipe the small Moslim community out. No independent observer would have given them any chance of winning. And yet they utterly won in a few years. And the Islamic religion spread far faster than any in history. Nothing else even comes close. And contrary to popular belief, conversion was not required. Indeed next to the standards of the time, early Islam was extraordinarily tolerant.

Indeed survival against all odds and persecution is a very common theme for early history of religions that are common today.