- Moderator
- #91
Online
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.