Would All These People Have Died If They Had Believed Jesus Was Just Another Magician Of That Day?
That all these men were tortured horribly and gave their lives for a magic trick? Would anyone do this for David Blaine?
Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethopia, killed by a sword wound.
Mark died in Alexandria, Egypt, dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.
Luke was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.
John was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos where he wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation. The Apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as a bishop in modern Turkey. He died an old man, the only Apostle to die peacefully.
Peter,was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross, according to Church tradition, because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die the same way that Jesus Christ had died.
James the Just, the leader of the Church in Jerusalem and brother of Jesus, was thrown down more than a hundred feet from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller’s club. This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.
James the Greater, a son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the Church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman soldier who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.
Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael, was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed about our Lord in present day Turkey. He was whipped to death for his preaching in Armenia.
Thomas was speared and died on one of his missionary trips to establish the Church in India.
Jude, another brother of Jesus, was killed with arrows after refusing to deny his faith in Christ.
Matthias, the Apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and beheaded.
Barnabas, one of the group of seventy disciples, was stoned to death at Salonica.
Paul was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67. Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment which allowed him to write his many epistles to the Churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, from a large portion of the New Testament.
How does an Atheist explain this?
Such conviction it really happened based on a book that was not written until hundreds of years after the stories were set!!
The Roman Emperor Constantine produced the bible and he was a pagan not god!!! He also organized Christianity into the Holly Roman Catholic Church!! Not in Israel or any of the countries of supposed origin but entirely Italian!!
Not one word of it is contemporary with the period and was not written until many years after the period the story is set in!!
What a wonder full disinformation and deception campaign he waged against his Christian enemies – so good in fact that Christians are still following the deception to this day!!!
And what about people needing to be saved from death?
Three million die every year from starvation, drought and the diseases it causes. 200,000 die from natural disasters!! Therefore more people are killed by your god every second than you claim he has saved!!
Muslims kill themselves for their religion. Buddhist have died for their religion. Nazis and communist have died for their beliefs. Proves nothing.
All I have to say is THANK YOU Jesus and Praise The Lord.
Your question is amazing and one of the best I’ve seen all day. Star for you.
Why do Muslims strap themselves to bombs and blow themselves for Mohammed. Or cultists drink the cool-aid? Or Shinto honor suicides? Because of STUPID PEOPLE FALLING FOR TOO-GOOD TO BE TRUE LIES!
And what about martyrs from other religions? Just because they believe strongly in something, doesn’t make it true
Explain what? what’s your point?
You’re saying that because they all died for what they believed in God is real?
What about terrorists? they die for Allah, does that mean Allah is real?
an aetheist may say that this is a perfect example of religeons disregard for human life, Af-ghanistan is a religeous conflict, or fueled one one side by religeon, i was lead to believe religeon was supposed to preach against evil however i think that the holy men and women of the world should stand back and realise thier own hypocrisy.
I explain it by expressing my utmost sympathy for those poor rancid souls.
Here’s an interesting aside: Jesus got up at the dinner table and said “Except ye eat my flesh.” It was his way of calling them maggots, but they didn’t get it.
Then, with a wink and a nod, Jesus turned and said “Now whistle us a tune St. Matthew.”
What a bunch of abject idiots.
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I think Jesus may have genuinely felt that he was God, but so have many other people. If his followers “believed” that Jesus was God, it does not necessarily reflect any truth that Jesus is God, but it simply says that they passionately believed that Jesus, as he claimed, was God.
Whether or not someone is willing to die for their cause does not automatically reflect the truth of their claims.
Jesus was considered a magician by ancient Christians – in fact there are paintings and sculptures of Jesus waving a magic wand.
Many historians speculate Jesus was crucified because he was practicing magic – something that was illegal in those times.