Why isn't Judas considered the greatest hero in Christianity? (1 Viewer)

People have willingly died for their ideologies since humans came up with ideologies. It isn't a rare occurrence.

Just a very few: jihadists habitually kill themselves in the name of their god; cults/religions like Heaven's Gate or Jonestown killed themselves over their ideology; Buddhist monks set themselves on fire over their ideology; kamikaze pilots killed themselves over their ideology.

So early Christians willingly dying over their ideology is not an extraordinary occurrence.

The difference is those early Christians didn't take anyone else with them. They died for their faith at the hands of other people. They didn't kill anyone else and refused to do so. They personified the "turn the other cheek" parable. I think that sets it apart from people who kill themselves or others and then call it martyrdom.
 
To me is not poignant, it is masochist, someone showing his love for you by punishing you, and you thinking that punishment is a gift. "Thank you Sir! May I have another?"

Well, I am Catholic :hihi:

although, I actually felt it speak more to the inner existentialist in me. There's suffering that is unavoidable. It is a condition of existence. And many choices we are presented with create some anxiety, some dread - that's not 'punishment' in my mind. I don't think it's a dogmatic necessity.

Rather, I think it's an acknowledgment of what is. What can or will be. No need for the Divine for that.

I've talked before about my disaffection with elements of my faith seeing what happened to my mom. I found that secular philosophy gave me more insight than my Catholicism.

Punishment, suffering isn't the gift. Existence is - but in order to do so, we gotta carve something out for ourselves. And that's not always going to be a primrose path.
 
I'd just like to add, I'm fascinated by how many non-religious people browse these types of threads. Before Saints Report, I would have thought they would avoid these like the plague. My assumptions have changed a lot over the years being here.
Same here. I think non-religious people spend a lot more time talking and thinking about religion than I do. I just know I believe, I don't debate it.
 
I am certainly not well versed in theology like others here
That is a good question and one I have asked myself. The truth is, that if God stopped every bad thing then humanity would be nothing more than pets.
I dunno, if you can't "buy" your way into heaven, then you can't "buy" your way into nothing bad ever happening to you.
 
The difference is those early Christians didn't take anyone else with them. They died for their faith at the hands of other people. They didn't kill anyone else and refused to do so. They personified the "turn the other cheek" parable. I think that sets it apart from people who kill others and then call it martyrdom.

It shows a willingness to die for an ideology. But if the criteria is getting killed for an ideology by someone else, that too is common throughout human history: non-Christians during inquisitions/invasions/conquests, anyone who's been killed/executed fighting a revolution... there really is nothing special about early Christians being executed for their religion.

Speaking of Christians specifically, you don't know if those early Christians were given the chance to recant; you don't know that they didn't retaliate or resist in any way; you don't know if their executions were the result of merely professing an ideology, or because of the perceived threat of that ideology to the ruling party, which are two different things.

I'd just like to add, I'm fascinated by how many non-religious people browse these types of threads. Before Saints Report, I would have thought our non-religious posters would avoid these like the plague. My assumptions have changed a lot over the years being here.
Perhaps that's why we are non-religious.
 
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Well, I am Catholic :hihi:

although, I actually felt it speak more to the inner existentialist in me. There's suffering that is unavoidable. It is a condition of existence. And many choices we are presented with create some anxiety, some dread - that's not 'punishment' in my mind. I don't think it's a dogmatic necessity.

Rather, I think it's an acknowledgment of what is. What can or will be. No need for the Divine for that.

I've talked before about my disaffection with elements of my faith seeing what happened to my mom. I found that secular philosophy gave me more insight than my Catholicism.

Punishment, suffering isn't the gift. Existence is - but in order to do so, we gotta carve something out for ourselves. And that's not always going to be a primrose path.

But isn't that true for anything that exists in nature? Being a tree, a fish, a fly... nature is brutal. "Existence is a gift, by existing you suffer, therefore suffering is a gift"... sounds a very flawed argument to me, especially because I don't think existence is a gift, it just existence.
 
But isn't that true for anything that exists in nature? Being a tree, a fish, a fly... nature is brutal. "Existence is a gift, by existing you suffer, therefore suffering is a gift"... sounds a very flawed argument to me, especially because I don't think existence is a gift, it just existence.

okay, it's flawed

chance is chance, sure. A sperm from millions and millions fertilizing an egg. And I'm here. But there's also fortuitous chance. My existence, in a literal sense, is absolutely chance. In a strictly biological, cardiopulmonary manner I just am.

But I also don't think it just ends there of necessity. So it's something I think I can feel some measure of gratitude for. Were I not to exist, I wouldn't know - obviously - and so you might think that my 'gratitude' in contrast is odd, because there's no real contrary state except not-to-exist

So, I'd frame it another way. Death is not existing, and I can be grateful that I'm not dead - even though there is a lot of chance to that, too.
 
There are many things that unfortunately many people believe, but you can't ascertain that Yahweh didn't know or predestined Judas to betray Jesus from rationalizing a passage in the NT.

The point is, Yahweh sent his son to be sacrificed by humans so he could forgive humans of their sins. Unless you believe Yahweh took a chance and didn't really know what was going to happen, he had to know Jesus was going to be sacrificed. So there is predetermination there.
While I have quibbles with the theology behind your second sentence, I'll set that issue aside.

I don't claim that God predetermines nothing. Just that he doesn't predetermine everything, specifically the eternal fate of human beings.
 
Same here. I think non-religious people spend a lot more time talking and thinking about religion than I do. I just know I believe, I don't debate it.
The only time I think about religion is when I am reading these threads. Maybe someone in their 20s, or someone that likes to argue or someone making money on the subject... but no once your mind is made up and you are tired of arguing. You don't really care about this stuff anymore.
 
It shows a willingness to die for an ideology. But if the criteria is getting killed for an ideology by someone else, that too is common throughout human history: non-Christians during inquisitions/invasions/conquests, anyone who's been killed/executed fighting a revolution... there really is nothing special about early Christians being executed for their religion.

Speaking of Christians specifically, you don't know if those early Christians were given the chance to recant; you don't know that they didn't retaliate or resist in any way; you don't know if their executions were the result of merely professing an ideology, or because of the perceived threat of that ideology to the ruling party, which are two different things.


Perhaps that's why we are non-religious.

Perhaps, but my comment was merely an observation, nothing more meant by it.

While neither of us can say authoritatively what exactly happened, there are plenty of written examples and eyewitness accounts of such happening that it's hard to deny that many of the faithful who were martyred were killed for either not recanting or not renouncing their faith. We can quibble over statistics, but to blanket deny that anyone would ever do that is to ignore multitudes of eyewitness and first hand accounts of people being martyred.

I'm not talking about people fighting a revolution. I'm talking about people who were peaceful and not a threat to anyone being martyred for no other reason than being Christian.

Certainly it's happened to adherents of other religions. I don't deny that. But I think it's a topic worth acknowledging that Christians have faced persecution for 2000 years simply because of their faith.

And sure, a lot that's happened over that period of time has been a mix of politics and religion, but that doesn't invalidate the idea that people have been killed on the basis of faith alone for centuries.
 
Same here. I think non-religious people spend a lot more time talking and thinking about religion than I do. I just know I believe, I don't debate it.

we live in a world that is largely dominated by religious ideology....some good and some bad...i think the dynamic there is pretty interesting

i also think atheists are simply tired of others telling them what they should do based on those ideologies...it's not as simple as just wanting to argue

but i don't really bother with it anymore....mostly because it always ends up in broken record territory on both sides....
 
Certainly it's happened to adherents of other religions. I don't deny that. But I think it's a topic worth acknowledging that Christians have faced persecution for 2000 years simply because of their faith.
very much a quibble
but i would say, yes chrisitanity faced persecution for the 1st 3 centuries
but once constantine is all holy roman empire, it gets pretty sweet for christians in europe and then 'america'
when they evangelize in other cultures and try to 'colonize' other religions, i'm not sure 'persecuted' is the apt term
 
Perhaps, but my comment was merely an observation, nothing more meant by it.

While neither of us can say authoritatively what exactly happened, there are plenty of written examples and eyewitness accounts of such happening that it's hard to deny that many of the faithful who were martyred were killed for either not recanting or not renouncing their faith. We can quibble over statistics, but to blanket deny that anyone would ever do that is to ignore multitudes of eyewitness and first hand accounts of people being martyred.

I'm not talking about people fighting a revolution. I'm talking about people who were peaceful and not a threat to anyone being martyred for no other reason than being Christian.

Certainly it's happened to adherents of other religions. I don't deny that. But I think it's a topic worth acknowledging that Christians have faced persecution for 2000 years simply because of their faith.

And sure, a lot that's happened over that period of time has been a mix of politics and religion, but that doesn't invalidate the idea that people have been killed on the basis of faith alone for centuries.

This is where we start getting in "come on, man" territory.

I am not blanketing denying anything, or talking about statistics. I am saying being killed over ideology is not some special virtue of early Christians.

And here is when we get into "are you forking kidding me?!?" territory.
But I think it's a topic worth acknowledging that Christians have faced persecution for 2000 years simply because of their faith.
... when it is Christians who have been doing the persecuting for the majority of those 2000 years.
 

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