Summations Only

deleted: forgot I'd left this thread.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

deleted: forgot again.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It should, if you have any sense of human psychology. And I'm not talking about suicide missions that are basically homicidal and are over and done with in a flash, I'm talking about being willing to die horrendous torturous deaths at the hands of others, which is what Christians down through the centuries have endured. No, you do not die that way just out of a superficial belief -- you KNOW it's the truth.

Of course my point was the opposite, it IS evidence that it's the truth that so many would be willing to die that way, and many took it that way historically as a matter of fact: That so many were persuaded to that degree of willingness to suffer for it convinced others it must be true. Perhaps nothing would persuade you, of course.

deleted original message. I wish arguing these things changed anybody's mind but it doesn't so I'm stopping.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

There simply are NOT "so many people willing to die for so many truths." Muslims will blow themselves up in the service of killing others, but they aren't dying for their beliefs at the hands of others, they are doing all the murdering. And who else is there who is "dying for truth" except the Christians all over the world that the Muslims are murdering? And the fifty million the RCC murdered during the Inquisition? They also murdered 17 million others, Jews, Muslims, witches etc., so there are some others who died instead of give up their belief but the Christians far outnumber those.

I don't know, can you compare dying for your country to dying for a belief system?

But that's the point: dying for your country is really easier than dying for an unproveable God, that's why I say there's no comparison.

I'm looking forward to meeting at least fifty million of such stupid people some day.

I don't know, perhaps you can enlighten me?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.