I didn’t watch the video because I found the comparison to Christianity to be absurd. But I should have anyway since you had it in your post; apologies. I watched it now, and find it to be more absurd.
One - they were all together in one house, and so there was peer pressure to conform as well. as control. How were the apostles keeping anyone under their control? How are Christians today being kept under control? As you said, plenty of people leave it and do all the time.
Two - The Heaven’s Gate people killed themselves. Nothing in the Bible tells you to go kill yourself or that you should go harm people today. Instead, other people wanted Christians under their control throughout history and persecuted them when they didn’t listen regarding pagan worship or when they wanted to spread a message.
My point was that if people don’t have a really good reason to believe something, when other people threaten them, they usually back down. Yes, the group itself can put some peer pressure on each other, but Christians willingly shared stories of their leaders being threatened. They were as proud when they didn’t have success in being persuasive as when they did, see Acts. Stephen’s martyrdom is obviously held out as an example of goodness, but then if everyone’s running around finding someone to stone them, it’s sort of weird the religion kept spreading. Persecution of Christians in the New Testament - Wikipedia
A better example would be if you found me a cult that celebrated being persecuted by people outside of the cult and then continued to grow for several centuries without centralized power.
Most conservative Christian scholars, perhaps. The views of others seem to be that Matthew reflects a change in attitude, due to the destruction of the Temple, with the movement becoming increasingly Gentile, and starting to split off into its own religion. “40 years later” is your figure, I would probably have said 50-60 years for Matthew, Luke & John.
An endless conservative Christian scholars versus liberal Christian and secular scholars debate would seem to be fruitless however. My points above survive even if we assume ‘20 years later’. Can you remember the details of many executions 20 years ago? And you would have had the benefit of a more reliable news media than existed two millennia ago.
Are you seriously suggesting that there are no Catholic bishops who have studies the Gospels in their original language?
Seriously?
I am quite aware that there are multiple hypotheses regarding the authorship of the Gospels.
That’s because there is insufficient evidence to determine this with any reasonable degree of certainty.
This makes your position untenable.
Good questions. We have no idea of the actual nature of the relationships between them, do we?
Irrelevant. Do you doubt that the Heaven’s Gate members were sincere in their beliefs? Sincere enough to kill themselves for them? Were their beliefs correct?
That they killed themselves for something that was false shows that people will kill themselves for something that is false.
So you cannot argue that no one would allow themselves to die for something that is not true.
Please try understand the logic of my argument, because so far it is clear you do not.
So do you seriously think it is only Christians who would rather die than renounce their faith?
You really badly need to learn about beliefs outside of your narrow field of experience.
And yet many early Christians actively sought out martyrdom. I haven’t read the source document, but I believe that Tertullian praised a large group of Christians from Carthage for turning themselves into the Roman authorities, demanding to be martyred. This doesn’t really seem to be substantively different from the Heaven’s Gate scenario.
And I have a hard time believing that @thoughtful is not aware of the many, many times that Christians have persecuted and slaughtered people because of their faith.
Where does the Bible tell one to do so? If not, and they did so, it was not because of their faith but in spite of it. Such people would have to be called hypocrites.
Remember you were responding to this below. The church grew for 3 centuries without political and military power after all their founders died without political and military power. I asked you to find me a comparable example of a religion and you gave me Islam which had political and military power within its founder’s lifetime and after.
Give me the historical examples where Christians told people they must accept Christianity or be killed.
Again, being willing to die for something doesn’t mean it’s true. I’ve said over and over we’re talking about the apostles’ motivation. If they did not really see the risen Jesus how did all of them stand firm under pressure in different places around the world? Surely one of them would have realized this isn’t worth it and questioned what he believed.
You can do your own research on this. I’m not going to run down every rabbit hole you dig up to get away from the main point of discussion.
Your argument is that the Disciples would only die for their belief that Jesus was resurrected if it that belief was true.
It has been demonstrated that people will die for beliefs that are not true. Are you still denying this point? If so, how can you argue against facts that have been demonstrated in your own lifetime?
There’s a difference between standing firm under pressure for something you made up and something you believe. I didn’t make up Christianity. I believe what the Bible says.
In your scenario if I’m getting it right, the apostles and earliest Christians made it up, gathered hearsay, continued to stand firm under pressure, and grew the religion around the Roman world without power, without money, without fame, and we don’t have any stories any of the apostles saying - “guys this is dumb” after people started getting killed for what they believed.
If this is what you think happened (correct me if I’m wrong) and you think this is a reasonable explanation, fine.
I don’t see this as a reasonably possible scenario. That’s why I shared the video of skepticism.
Biblically, God commanded Jews to kill their enemies, but when Jesus came He commanded Christians to love their enemies. So, there is a clear difference between Jews of the old testament and Christians following God’s commands. Any Christian that perverts the Word to think that he must kill doesn’t understand the Word and is likely not a saved Christian.
There are lots of “Christians” that don’t get it…just like there are lots of atheists that actually believe there is a God but prefer to take a contrary stance (I was one)…people deceive themselves often. People misinterpret the bible, people think they are something they are not, it is human nature…Nazi’s used scripture to justify genocide. Does my saying that was wrong offend you in some way? It shouldn’t, it’s sad and ugly and I agree with you that those folks are nuts.
Actual, you know, substantive evidence for this claim? After all, it goes against the actual definition of “atheist”.
The fact that you claim that you were one seems to more imply that you didn’t understand the meaning of atheist, and were simply a mixed up theist, than that there are atheists who believe in God.