Jesus & Horus. Coincidence?

Quote: Nareed

I haven't read the Jesus myths (I'm already an atheist). But from what I've heard, it seems when Jesus and his followers were threatened, he plain folded and allowed his enemies to kill him. .

How would Jesus be a hero in anybody's eyes,
he let himself be murdered, didn't put up a fight.
Same for the so called 'martyrs', dying for a religious
cause is just silly. Dying on purpose for something
you can't prove exists seems the ultimate in folly.

Quote: Face

or the trials, tribulations, and personal struggles a mother penguin goes through.

Not sure if it is true for all penquins but at least one penguin species abandones the young on the ice. The mothers in mass all leave the young in a group at the rookery, jump in the ocean and leave. The young hang around in a group for a week or two until they are fully feathered and then head to the ocean which they have never been in before. Eventually after standing at the edge for some time they all jump in for the first time with no mothers around.

Of course the mother who is miles away by this time might be texting them to make sure they are okay.

Quote: Evenbob

How would Jesus be a hero in anybody's eyes, he let himself be murdered, didn't put up a fight. Same for the so called 'martyrs', dying for a religious
cause is just silly. Dying on purpose for something you can't prove exists seems the ultimate in folly.

Now you are really taking a general attack at some of the most admired people in human history. Maximilian Kolbe martyred himself for another man who he didn't know. Gandhi taught that people could accomplish more from being martyred than by fighting. How many people were burned to death when a simple renunciation could have saved their live.

Martyr's are not front and center in USA history, but they are a big part of world thought.

Quote: Pacomartin

Gandhi taught that people could accomplish more from being martyred than by fighting.

Gandhi used the media of his day to expose the brutality and cruelty of the British authorities in India. This worked because the British had just finished fighting the ultimate brutal regime, and were entering a conflict with another. Absent that, the British people and rulers would have found a way to rationalize continued oppression in the subcontinent, and all of Gandhi's martyred followers would have accomplished nothing but their own deaths.

Nareed you are grossly underestimating the power of martyrdom and sacrifice. The blood of the martyrs forces people to see the humanity of the oppressed and at the same time breaks the brainwashing and rationalizations of the persecutors. Oppressors begin to see with their heart again and see human beings, brothers and sisters, in front of them and not something evil or inhuman. Heroic martyrs can bring about drastic and lasting changes in ways that wars and violence will never be able to do.

Quote: FrGamble

The blood of the martyrs forces people to see the humanity of the oppressed and at the same time breaks the brainwashing and rationalizations of the persecutors.

Ask your god how well that worked for six millions of his "chosen" people in the1940s.

For once, though, I get where you're coming from. After all, the first people persecuted by the Christian church were Christians who chose life over martyrdom during the last round of persecution in the Roman Empire.

Is there any greater scar on human history than the Holocaust? The martyrdom of millions of people have so transformed our world that they continue in their death to protect countless innocent potential victims and the memory of these victims continues to inspire the work of many to make sure nothing like that could ever happen again. Be very careful that you don't think their deaths were worthless or in vain, our God certainly does not.

Quote: FrGamble

The martyrdom of millions of people have so transformed our world that they continue in their death to protect countless innocent potential victims and the memory of these victims continues to inspire the work of many to make sure nothing like that could ever happen again.

Remember Rwanda?

It can happen again. It has happened again. And no amount of martyrs will change that.

Quote: FrGamble

The martyrdom of millions of people have so transformed our world that they continue in their death to protect countless innocent potential victims and the memory of these victims continues to inspire the work of many to make sure nothing like that could ever happen again.

Is it really appropriate to be calling the victim's of the Holocaust "martyrs"? Martyrdom, at least as I know it, is a voluntary personal sacrifice, such as the burning Buddhist monks. The Jews, gypsies, Poles, communists, the mentally retarded, and the gays were not martyrs. They were murdered. As were the Hutu and Tutsi that Nareed mentioned. They did not have a choice to be these things, nor were they given an option to repent or die. They simply were these things, so they were exterminated.

Quote: FrGamble

Is there any greater scar on human history than the Holocaust? The martyrdom of millions of people.

The definition of martyr is:

noun
1.
a person who willingly suffers death rather than renounce his or her religion.
2.
a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause

The Holocaust was a hate crime, it didn't make
martyrs of those who died. They weren't asked
to renounce anything. Not a single one of them
wanted to be there, let alone die there. They were
killed because they were in the way of Nazi world
domination. Every time you kill someone because
they have a different belief or principal or cause
than you, that doesn't make them martyrs. If it
did, the word would have no real meaning at all.