Summations Only

The Shia and Sunni Muslims have been killing each other for centuries, giving lie to your claim that Muslms aren't dying for their beliefs.

The relevant question would be to what extent they are choosing to die after being given the choice to join the other side, versus just being slaughtered.

That does not surprise me Faith, but it is still utter stupidity.Dying for some God serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever but dying for a fellow human or the environment or your nation or social justice or equal rights or to save another, such acts could be worthwhile.If someone decides to die rather than diss some God I can see absolutely no way it could ever benefit the God, unless of course the god is some insecure little bling bling pimp daddy who gets pissed when it's dissed.And again, if you had ever read the Bible you would know that Jesus wasn't the kind of person to get bent out of shape just because one of the entourage denied him.

You certainly have a way of turning the sublime into something low.It's about love and loyalty and trust.

HUH?What does dying for some God do?Why do you think a God would be so insecure as to appreciate worshipers dying rather than denying the God?

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

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Robert A. Heinlein

Mary said her soul magnified the Lord, and she rejoiced in God her savior. Not the sort of thing one feels with the sort of god you and jar imagine. Some of us find the God of the Bible to be lovable and adorable. "Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good" is a repeating theme in the OT. I guess you and jar couldn't ever feel this way about Him. Or GDR either for that matter. But some of us sing praises to that God out of genuine love, the way so many of His people did as reported in the OT. Such an odd discrepancy.

Here's how the current discussion began: Faith later said: So according to Faith there are a couple required conditions for one's death to be considered a testimony of truth:

1. The death must be horrendous and torturous. Instant or painless death cannot be considered a testimony of truth.
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2. The death must be at the hands of others, not at one's own hands.

Applying these same conditions to the recent Al-Shabab bus attack in Kenya, the deaths of those murdered (presumably many Christians among them) was not a testimony of truth because death was not horrendous and torturous but instant and painless. I presume that if a Christian had lingered on a few days in a hospital in horrendous and torturous pain that their death would have been considered a testimony of truth.Applying these conditions to the recent Taliban suicide bombing at a volleyball game in Afghanistan, the deaths of those murdered (presumably all Muslims) was not a testimony of truth for those whose death was not horrendous and torturous but instant and painless. Some were horribly injured and died minutes, hours and days later. More will die as time goes by. According to Faith's conditions, those Muslim deaths that were horrendous and torturous would be considered a testimony of truth.Is this analysis correct? I'm just trying to understand the rules right now.There's one important element I don't understand about Faith's rules: they contain no requirement that one be demonstrably willing to die for one's beliefs, which would seem an essential prerequisite for a testimony of truth. There's no evidence in either of these incidents that the victims were willing to die for their beliefs, but they both follow Faith's rules. If one dies involuntarily having never been presented the opportunity to compromise one's religion's beliefs, then how is that a testimony of truth?--Percy

I saw a problem with how I was putting it a while back but never straightened it out. Of course one can die for one's belief even if it's instantaneous slaughter, but I was trying to get that very condition into the picture that would show that the person chose to die for the belief, which seemed to require being given a choice to endure suffering or not. Willingness to endure suffering seems to be more of a testimony to one's making a personal choice to suffer and die. But of course there isn't any way really to pin this down. One can die for one's belief instantaneously too, it's just that it's hard to tell if one would have chosen it or not. What I had in mind originally was the tortures meted out by the Roman church, which followed on being told to recant or you'd get tortured. But the RCC also invaded communities and slaughtered them wholesale too, and I count them as dying for their faith.So, I don't really know where this particular topic is at the moment.

You may have noticed that nobody is contesting that point. What people are contesting is that 1) Christians are the only ones who can make such claims and 2) that the claims are indication of anything other than a sincerely held belief. Of course you had this in mind.But we might also recognize Christians that died or submitted to torture rather than admitting to being witches. Because of course, there weren't any witches. This is an extremely weak argument. Even when people are facing an impending quick death, they often get sometime to think about it and they may even have the chance to back out of the situation.

But Protestants also tortured folk who would not recant and join the Puritan chapter of Club Christian and even went so far as to repeal the limited Freedom of Religion laws that were in place.

I would like to have a way to know if Muslims for instance would really choose to die for their belief if given the choice of recanting or suffering on the rack or that sort of thing. It's possible many would of course, 72 virgins managing to be enough of an enticement, but it's hard for me to see what could be that compelling in their religion that they'd be willing to die for it in such a passive way.

In fact, her rules deny groups that no one could question are willing to die for their belief. She does this by insisting on proxy's like 'willingness to endure slow deaths' rather than accepting direct evidence of sincerity.It's just self serving cherry picking in an attempt to reserve a special place for Christians. And it does not even work, because examples of Muslim's dying at the hands of others for their faith are pretty easy to find.

You're going to have to supply evidence of what you are talking about.

Surely that's a true statement. But it is more a statement about your own shortcomings than about the sincerity of any Muslim.Virgins are over rated. I suspect that most female Muslim's aren't really that enticed by such.