"John the 12th survived being boiled
in oil and was exiled to patmos because they thought he could
not be killed."
Do you have "their" word for that? Why didn't they
try hacking his head off with a sword, axe or big knife? I've
never known that method of killing to fail, at least not on
anything smarter than a chicken. What you are quoting is a legend
or myth that even the Catholic church these days doesn't like
to baldly state as history. They (the Romans) knew he could
be killed but they knew that this would be futile, sending him
to Patmos to do hard labour was a much better move, why kill
a troublemaker and make a martyr and a cause when you can make
him a slave, put him out of sight and make him do something
for the good of the Empire? It's what Machiavelli would do.
Making martyrs is a very silly way to behave, smart torturers
do their work in private, no witnesses on the side of the torturee,
even second rate torturers like Lynndie England know the rules.
"If you concocted a story--would
you be willing to be torchered (sic) and die for it?"
Like Joseph Smith was? He wasn't tortured but he was murdered,
and it was his newly invented religion that made him a target
of the mob, which for Mormons is good enough to declare him
a martyr.
Lots of people have died for their own lies, of course many
more have died for the lies of others, especially religious
lies. Dying isn't a test of anything. Palestinians and Iraqis
are doing it all the time, just look at the TV.
Besides, just because you make something up it doesn't follow
that you believe it was a lie and you are sorry to have said
it. The most successful liars are those who sincerely believe
they are telling the truth. People can also get trapped in lies.
It happened to me once "you really are in pain, aren't
you? You're not just saying that to get out of school?" I
had my healthy appendix taken out. Since then I've had a lot
of respect for the truth.
There have been many martyrdoms for many religions. Many of
those martyrdoms are just deaths or murders with good public
relations. Sikhs and Muslims seem to be just as prone to it
as Christians. In Sri Lanka the Hindu Tamil Tigers practice
suicide bombings and other forms of martyrdom. Buddhist monks
often burn themselves to death as a political protest, indeed
people kill themselves in gruesome ways without any strong belief
system at all. Are all these acts proof that the believers believed
in the right thing? No. Do you think that those prepared to
kill themselves in buses in Tel Aviv show that Islam is superior
to Judaism or do you think it simply shows that the Palestinians
are desperate? Does it prove anything at all? Many acquaintances
of the 9-11 hijackers didn't think they were particularly devout
Muslims. Were the kamikazes martyrs or dupes? Communists and
Nazis have killed themselves or died for their causes. There
have even been martyrs for environmentalism.
Christianity began with Paul/Saul of Tarsus. We do not have
a definitive and reliable account of his death. He might have
disappeared from history and died in obscurity, he might have
been executed as a common criminal or just another atheist like
all the so called Christian martyrs at the time of Nero. Yes,
the Christians were not killed for believing in the true god
that the Romans were afraid of and secretly knew was real, they
were killed for not believing in the Roman gods, for not worshipping
the Emperor as a god.
I challenge you to show me the evidence. Don't point me at
a book that rehashes all the same old lame and many times refuted “evidence
for Jesus”. Show me contemporary accounts written by ANYBODY
AT ALL about Jesus written before Jesus was claimed to have
died. Show me accounts of Jesus written by non-Christian Jews
who were themselves alive in 32 AD. They need not be eye witnesses,
I'd be fairly satisfied with people who were simply alive at
the right time. There are none. This challenge has been issued
dozens of times and is never answered.
I have not seen a single person I know to be an atheist with
a clear and rational set of beliefs convert to Christianity.
Show me the books or articles written by "Josh McDowell
- convinced atheist".
He says he used to be an atheist.
I could say I used to be a Satan worshiper. Where is the evidence?
Claiming one used to be an atheist and now embrace the religion
embraced by the largest book buying market in human history
just when you want to start selling books strikes me as a little
bloody convenient.
Lots of people go through a phase in their life in which they
stop being interested in religion and probably don't believe
in any gods. This is not the same thing as being "a true
atheist" in the same way that going to church sometimes
and vaguely believing in God is not the same thing as being "a
true Christian". I have not seen any evidence of Josh McDowell,
C.S. Lewis or any of the other lauded "ex-atheists" actually
being atheists. Isn't it strange that people who write about
their "new" Christianity ad nauseum didn't write a
word about their atheism? It seems very much more likely that
these people were far more apathetic and agnostic than they
were atheist, that they had an absence of a positive religious
belief rather than a strong belief that the stories of gods
were all wrong.
There are probably a hundred apathetic and disenchanted atheists
to every convinced atheist. Those people who work out a solidly
atheist worldview do not succumb to the lures of religions.
The Bible and the "Scriptures" are just old books,
myths from a tribe that I bet isn't even your tribe. American
Christians are a laughing stock for anybody with a rational
education.
"If I am wrong I haven't lost anything!!!
But, If you are wrong!!!!"
What? Your ever loving god will see I regret not believing
in him? What a wonderfully grown up and admirable jealous psychopathic
bastard* he is(n't).
"you have a lot at stake."
What if the real god is Allah or Zeus or Odin? You have just
as much to lose as anybody in the "believe in the right
god or you're screwed" game. There are thousands of gods
you deny and actively despise. In contrast I treat them all
as equals. If the universe is run by a jealous and spiteful
god who tortures people for all eternity for believing the wrong
thing you could be just as much a victim as the rest of our
species. And if there isn't a god, there isn't any afterlife
you have wasted your life pursuing a worthless prize. There
are millions of possible alternative scenarios here other than
the simple crude dichotomy you suggest.
Here are just a few:-
There could be a real god who you have heard about and dismissed
as a myth who takes it out on anybody with a clear belief
in a false god.
There could be a real god who hates gullible people who believe
in gods without evidence.
There could be a real god who doesn't care what you do as
long as you have fun.
There could be a real god who doesn't care what you do who
tortures everybody after they are dead regardless of how they
lived their life because he can.
There could be a real god who hates being worshipped and
punishes anybody who attempts to worship.
There could be a real god who wants to be worshipped but
who can't communicate with any prophets and takes out his
frustration on either everybody or just those who seem particularly
smug about worshipping the wrong god via false prophets.
There could be a real god who tortures people entirely at
random regardless of how they have lived their lives.
There could be a real god who tortures people at random regardless
of how they have lived their lives but makes a special point
of picking on people with certain religions, especially yours.
Every god that has ever been postulated could be real and
you meet the god you believe in.
Every god that has ever been postulated could be real but
everybody meets a god they don't believe in.
A random number of postulated gods are real.
Gods are real but the afterlife is a time share.
Life is a great big test and when you die the gods will all
piss themselves laughing at your gullibility.
God could be real, he could be planning to save the world
and all who believe in him but Christianity could be a diabolical
snare.
The god you meet after death could be a racist and really
pissed off that you are worshipping a Jewish god.
The universe could be run by a tribal jealous god who chose
another tribe, perhaps a tribe that your ancestors exterminated.
There could be a real god but no afterlife and no prizes
for believing the right things, or the wrong things.
Or one of the worst possibilities, Christianity is correct
and you do spend an eternity with nothing to do except worship
God. Heaven and Earth pass away and you live for ever bored
beyond belief with no prospect of relief with nothing to live
for, no challenges or needs, and no prospect of release even
through dying.
So what if you are wrong? It all depends how you are wrong,
doesn't it? Once you postulate the possibility of gods and eternal
torment nobody can have peace of mind except through bloody-minded
faith, which might be the worst strategy to actually avoid a
bad fate. Only those people who are up to their necks in a single
religion which dominates their culture can view the possibilities
as being "either my irrational beliefs are right or nobody's
irrational beliefs are right".
This is another of the classic arguments for Christianity which
have been done to death in debate over the years, it is best
known as Pascal's Wager.
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/pascal.html
http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/pascal.htm
http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/classic.htm#pascalswager
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
* Was Mary married to the Holy Spirit? I think not. |