Like I said, it pleases you to make false comparisons.

If you were sitting on a jury assessing a case are you going to study the situtation and the timelines and the motives, etc. Or are you going to draw a comparison to an irrelevant case to arrive at the truth?

I'm doing the first. You're doing the second. Because you want to justify your unbelief.

Please refute the point.

Which false comparisons? If I were sitting on a jury, unprejudiced by my own upbringing and religious beliefs, it would take extreme evidence to justify the apostles died for a reason dissimilar from the countless other martyrs throughout history. Please supply that evidence.

You brought up the jury. Let's put your beliefs on trial.

I already refuted it.

You study things on a case by case basis if you want to arrive at the truth. You don't preconceive and draw false analogies before approaching the evidence and accounts of it.

Why do you think they move cases from one jurisdiction to another to try them? They want an unprejudiced jury for a fair hearing is why.

Your comparison to Jonestown shows your prejudiced mindset. You can't assess the Gospels unless you drop the world's baggage.

Splendour, the point of the analogy is about how we determine truth.

Were the Apostles right about Jesus because they willing to die for their faith? You seem to be saying 'yes'.

Were the Jonestown acolytes also right about what they believed because they too were willing to die for their faith? You seem to be saying 'no'.

Now, why were the Apostles correct when they died for their convictions, but the Jonestown acolytes incorrect?

Your response to this analogy is that the Apostles were murdered whereas the Jonestown acolytes committed suicide. That doesn't address the point of the analogy at all. It is an irrelevant difference.
The point of the analogy is that both groups died for their convictions, but you only seem to think that one group is correct.

The implication is that, although you seem to imply that dying for one's beliefs is evidence that one is correct, you don't apply that principle consistently. Your reasons for believing the Apostles seems to be based on something else.

Well you need more info to see my point.

The Apostles were eye witnesses. They saw Jesus before and after the Resurrection in the flesh. God even supplied a skeptic: Thomas.

Take the time to study the number of people who claimed to witness Jesus before and after the Resurrection. It was not a small number. Jesus always attracted multitudes.

Your are missing the point by about 50tillion miles right now splen, either that or you are juts to damn stubborn to admit your wrong, hmm prolly the latter thinking about it.

If you conceded the point just 'one time' I'd believe there is a god!

Hmm...all 900 or so of the Jonestown acolytes were also witnesses to Jim Jones, and believed his claims.

I'm not suggesting that Jesus was anything like Jim Jones. The point is that both the Apostles and the Jonestown acolytes died for people they could see.

As for witnessing the Resurrection; part of the evidence that Jesus was resurrected is that his Apostles were willing to die for him, correct? So isn't it somewhat circular to say that the Apostles were willing to die for Jesus because they had witnessed the Resurrection?

You can compare Jim Jones with Jesus though to determine who's beliefs are right.

That's the purpose of the Gospels. To examine Jesus. His life and his beliefs.

Jesus never encouraged anyone to kill themselves like Jones did.

Did Jones walk what he talked?

Just because a trial happens to be moved doesn't mean formal legal precedent doesn't apply. Appealing to a separate ruling in no way shows prejudice. It shows judicial consistency.

You say the apostles were eye witnesses, but that could never hold up in court. It's all hearsay. And what should I study regarding 'the number of people who claimed to witness Jesus before and after the Resurrection.'? Where are there testimonies? Why does this hold authority? Because someone said so?

I say 1000 people saw me fly over the Grand Canyon yesterday on a bicycle with a propeller. Do you believe me? If not, why? What would it take for you to believe me?

I believe Jesus lived a far more moral life than Jim Jones, but I don't know if that makes his claims, such as that he was the son of God, correct. Also, I suspect many of the Gospel accounts of his supposed miracles are embellished at best.

Jesus may not have encouraged anyone to kill themselves, but did he ever tell the Apostles not to die for him? Or did he encourage people who believed in him to be willing to die for him?

Jones certainly believed in himself enough to take his own life along with all the others.

...

I know I'm just beating my head against the wall, but anyway...

Where are these testimonies? Who are these people? What are their names?

It's hard to understand every point online.

I'm building from the ground up itt.

Imagine you're Casey Anthony on trial. Do you want OJ introduced into it? Should jurors be comparing her with OJ?

Of course not. But people do this every day in their thinking. It's not clear thinking and it's prejudicial.

Splendor's fallacy even has a name: no true Scotsman. Or perhaps, no true martyr. Yes obviously there are situational differences between the apostles and any of the other countless martyrs of religious all over the world, but it has the same underlying theme: it is a ridiculous easy human trait for people to die for their religious belief.

If the gospels were the only example of religious martyrdom that had ever occurred, it might be persuasive. But that it was just a single example among countless is hardly evidence it is anything but the human condition repeating itself.

Calling all people who died for their religious truths a martyr is prejudicial and not clear thinking. But excluding all except Christians as martyrs is. Neat how that works.

Perhaps that is because:

No it's not ridiculously easy for all humans.

Lots of people dodge. Ever heard of a draft dodger?

.

Splendour, you should really try hard to understand this. Like put on your thinking cap, turn off all background noise/distractions and realllly focus. Make sure to read it more than once so you don't miss anything.

lol what?

Let us make this very basic:

Do you affirm or deny that in numerous religions there are numerous examples of martyrdom in the name of that religion.

perhaps i should add as a qualifier something i really didn't realize would need stating: claiming there are numerous examples of martyrdom in human societies is NOT the same as implying all people engage in martyrdom and so an example of someone not engaging in martyrdom is irrelevent

Let's make this very basic. Drop the questioning line as it is now hopelessly on a tangent and this isn't my op. If you can't distinguish between martyrdom and mass suicide that's your problem. I've gone as far as I'm going to go pointing out the difference and faultiness in your analogies.

I only dropped into the thread to direct a post to the OP and not the forum.

I really don't enjoy arguing with atheists these days. I consider it against my beliefs as there are numerous bible passages against striving with people argumentatively.

It is directly related. You said this: " That is ONLY a testament that they witnessed a fact if martyrdom is indicative of people's beliefs being true. The simple question you refused to answer would, if you affirm it, demonstrate that people have and undoubtedly will continue to become martyrs for all kinds of religions (and other types of beliefs). There is nothing special in this regard to the apostles in specific.

I've already explained that it's a case by case situation.

Muddying the waters with other cases does nothing to increase your understanding of the Gospels.

Besides this thread is about Horus versus the Gospels. It has nothing to do with suicides or Islamic fundamentalism.

We're comparing myth with reality.

The Apostles deaths are reality. Nothing mythic about it. Other cases of martyrdom from other religions don't have any bearing on the reality of the Apostles conviction that they saw Jesus in the flesh.

It clearly is in a category of "martyrdom as evidence for veracity". What everybody else here is doing is demonstrating how false and dangerous that category is. You can myopically refuse to consider any other example than the one single one of the gospels, but for us to evaluate how good this evidence actually is one has to look more generally at how likely people are to claim - and die for those claims - various things that are patently untrue.

If, for instance, nobody had ever been a martyr for any cause except this case of the apostles, it would be VERY compelling. The fact that people have been martyrs for just about any belief and cause one can mention makes it far less so. But if you refuse to consider anything outside of your one case, you can't make this judgement.

Analogously, if it was the case that only christians spoke of having religious experiences of a deep personal connection with god that would be pretty compelling to me. However, since innumerable religions experience this it not at all compelling. But surely we could call out somebody who said "stop muddying the waters talking about the religious experiences of other religions, they have nothing to do with christianity!"