Evolutionist

Ok, I hear this loads, and it seems on the face of it to be bollocks, it's just a matter of constructing reasons why it's bollocks.

Things that come to mind are:

1) It works equally well for any members of a religion who died for their beliefs (though the argument is usually expressed as dying for things you knew to be a lie- thus excluding people who die for beliefs).

2) Not sure how well backed up the evidence is for any of the disciples being martyred- any people know of any information on this?

Basically, I just want to try and find some information to construct a proper refutation/critique of this common argument- and all the webpages I can find are making the claim- not critiquing it.

GakuseiDon

What is your problem with it? It does indeed work as well for any members of other religions, i.e. they wouldn't have died if they thought it was a lie. It seems a fair rule of thumb.

Meatros

Very true, just look at 9/11-they believed.

OTOH, who's to say the disciples thought it was a lie?

Steven Carr

Of course people would die for a lie.

Let us assume that Jesus warned Israel that unless it changed its ways, Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed.

Let us assume that the disicples were loyal followers of Jesus and believed him, and wanted to save their country from destruction, no matter what the personal cost to themselves.

Let us also assume that the disciples were willing to risk anything to get people to listen to the message of Jesus.

Perhaps ,in their anguished desperation to save their beloved countrymen from the destruction Jesus have warned about, they tried to make Jesus more of an authority figure than he really was.

And what better authority figure to make him than God Himself.

Steven Carr

D-Day was very nearly endangered.

The British had double-agents feeding the Germans lies. One was captured, and interrogated.

Happily for democracy, he died maintaining that the lies he was telling were Gospel truth.

azmodan

they would have died for a lie. if the desciples were making stuff up and/or making jesus out to be more than he was, they would have died for that.

wouldnt you think they'd rather die as heroes at the hands of romans as opposed to die as scoundrels at the hands of the disillusioned masses they duped into following them?

ichabod crane

I find it very hard to believe that the disciples, or the followers of any religious or political movement, would die for something that they knew was a lie. I also think people are being overly cynical if they think so.

But the basic problem with the argument is that it doesn't prove that Christianity is true; it only proves that the disciples and early Christians thought it was true. That's not the same thing. Maybe the disciples were just deluded. Maybe in the great emotional stress after the death of their leader they had an estatic vision of Christ which they took to mean that he was resurrected. Whatever. We don't have to ascribe nasty motives to them. They fact that some people believed in something strong enough to die for it, doesn't prove that the thing in question happened or that they were rational to believe it. Otherwise, as someone pointed out, Osama Bin Laden and his suicide bomber cohorts prove Islam is true.

Roland

Of course, if the gospels are works of fiction - which I suspect they are - the whole point becomes a moot one. If that's the case, the Twelve Apostles, Mary Magdalene and the rest are as much made-up characters as Jesus is.

Schparky

Hmmm... do you happen to know whether The Passion of the Christ bore the standard movie disclaimer, i.e.: "no similarity to actual events, persons, or places is implied or should be inferred"?

Because that would be funny.

As far as the issue of whether Jesus actually existed, I wouldn't be surprised if someone with that name (or a similar one) lived in the area at that time. I suspect that the biblical narritive is based on what today we'd call "urban legends" -- some of the stories probably started with a kernel of truth that got exaggerated, especially after his death.

SLD

People die for lies all the time - even for lies they know about. Think of all those murderers executed while claiming their innocence over and over again - despite overwhelming evidence of guilt. Indeed, people would often rather face death rather than admit that they are wrong, or that their world view is a lie. Heck, war itself is based on that premise.

SLD