Atheists Shut Their Minds Down to Reality!

[Parture]

A possible scenario would be that the followers believed Jesus’ message but realized that with him dead no one else would. So they invented miracles to give his message a better sales pitch.

Yet that is plain old fashioned lying, and people don't willingly die for what they know is a lie, so that caputs that theory of yours. Still coming up empty handed are you?

Be honest, that isn’t actually why they died now is it. Judas killed himself out of guilt over his betrayal. We have no idea how John, Bartholomew and Simon died. The eight who died Martyrs did so over the message of Jesus not because of a specific claim they saw Jesus alive.

We have 11 sources for how the disciples died (except for John, though John was imprisoned for many years on the island of Patmos). The earliest sources that could comment on their deaths speak of their martyrdom such as Clement of Rome who mentions Peter's and Paul's martyrdom. Stephen goes through a long discourse and the resurrection before he was put to death. And James, brother of John, was also martyred. Precedent was set. Paul almost died 7 times in the Scriptures. Jesus said they would be killed as he was killed. If you were a disciple, that was your chance to get out then, but they could not because they saw Jesus alive from the dead and knew only God could do this. The very message of Jesus was His resurrection and this is how the churches were built on their original eyewitness testimony. Without the resurrection you got no Church.

Those who died did so to promote the message of Jesus not because of a specific claim that they saw Jesus alive. You’re just making that up. They didn’t die for a lie but that doesn’t mean they didn’t also lie. If they were willing to die for Jesus’ message why wouldn’t they be willing to lie for it.

While it is true those who came after may been martyred for the testimony of Jesus and his resurrection, the original disciples didn't die for that message only that originated with them, but the eyewitness testimony for they are the ones who had seen Him and such a claim resides back upon them. There were not some other 12 disciples before the 12 disciples.

Whatever you think they may have lied about doesn't change the fact they willingly died for having seen Jesus alive from the dead.

If they were willing to die for Jesus' message which was resurrection, why would they be willing to die for it if it was a lie they never saw Jesus resurrected, after all nobody in history has ever allowed themselves to be put to death for what they knew was a lie. Think about that. Human nature is protect your life even if that means lying.

[Parture]

Realize you are a failure when you said "Faith is not valid evidence for the existence of a god [or atheism]," since faith of Christians is proven whereas your faith is unproven. As the Bible says, "Prove all things". Amen.