Quote:
People don't willingly die en mass for lies.
Sure they do. They just don't know it's a lie.
March 17, 2000, between 780 and 1000 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God died in a probable mass suicide in Uganda. The group had splintered from Roman Catholicism to emphasize apocalypticism and alleged Marian apparitions. They also deemed the wider world to be corrupt, seeing themselves as a Noah's Ark of purity. Along these ends members severely restricted their speech to avoid saying anything dishonest or sinful. Curiously, the group had a feast that involved large quantities of Coca-Cola and beef before dying.
Heaven's Gate
On March 26, 1997, 39 followers of the Heaven's Gate cult died in a mass suicide near San Diego, California. In the beliefs of the cult, this was not an act of self-extermination; they believed that they were merely "exiting their human vehicles" so that their souls could go on a journey aboard a spaceship they believed to be following comet Hale-Bopp. Some male members of the cult underwent voluntary castration in preparation for the genderless life they believed awaited them after the suicide. The victims were self-drugged and then suffocated by other members in a series of suicides over a period of three days. Thirty-nine died, most were in their 40's and came from a wide range of backgrounds.
March 23, 1997 -- The charred bodies of three women and two men were found inside a house in Saint Casimir, Quebec. All were members of the Solar Temple, an international sect that believes ritualized suicide leads to rebirth on a planet called Sirius.
December 1995 -- Sixteen Solar Temple members were found dead in a burned house outside Grenoble, in the French Alps.
October 1994 -- The burned bodies of 48 Solar Temple members were discovered in a farmhouse and three chalets in Switzerland. At the same time, five bodies, including that of an infant, were found in a chalet north of Montreal.
April 19, 1993 -- At least 70 Branch Davidian cult members died after fire and a shootout with police and federal agents ended a 51-day siege of the compound near Waco, Texas. The sect's leader, David Koresh, who had preached a messianic gospel of sex, freedom and revolution and told followers he was Jesus Christ, died of a gunshot wound to the head sometime during the blaze.
October 1993 -- Fifty-three hill Vietnamese tribe villagers committed mass suicide with flintlock guns and other primitive weapons in the belief they would go straight to heaven. Officials said they were the victims of a scam by a man who received cash donations for promising a speedy road to paradise.
December 1991 -- Mexican minister Ramon Morales Almazan and 29 followers suffocated after he told them to keep praying and ignore toxic fumes filling their church.
December 13, 1990 -- Twelve people died in a religious ritual in Tijuana, Mexico, apparently after drinking fruit punch tainted by industrial alcohol.
November 18, 1978 -- The Rev. Jim Jones led more than 900 followers to their deaths at Jonestown, Guyana, by drinking a cyanide-laced grape punch. Cult members who refused to swallow the liquid were shot.
from CNN and around the web
Also:
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/apologetics.html#q1
All the apostles died for their beliefs. Why would anyone risk his life for a belief they know to be a lie?
There are three assumptions embedded in this question: all of them demonstrably false.
The first assumption is that we know all the apostles died martyrs' deaths. This is simply not the case. With the exception of the death of James the son of Zebedee (Acts 12:2) and Judas (Matthew 27:9, Acts 1:18), no other apostolic deaths is recounted in the New Testament. The traditional material relating to the life of the apostles are simply unreliable. Apart from the (probably) historical tradition that Peter died in Rome, we do not know how the rest of the apostles met their end -whether it was through martyrdom, disease, accident or old age.
The second assumption is that what the apostles believed about Jesus is the same essentially as what can be found in the New Testament. It must be remembered that since the stories in the gospels were not written by the apostles or any of their close associates [see Q9 above] - it is unlikely that what is described therein as the teachings of Jesus actually were what the Jewish preacher taught.
We do know that the teachings in the New Testament tend (although not always!) to be in line with what was taught by the self-proclaimed apostle Paul. Yet we have strong evidence that Paul's teachings were opposed by the apostles who knew Jesus, that he had a falling out with them at Antioch and that his last trip to Jerusalem to reconcile himself with them very probably ended in failure.
All available evidence points to the conclusion James, the brother of Jesus, became the leader of the apostles and the Jerusalem church after Jesus died. James was a devout Jew. Like James, the original apostles and the Jerusalem church remained firmly within the fold of Judaism. The group fled to Pella in the Transjordan before the outbreak of the Jewish war. Their later descendents consisted of groups known as Jewish Christians (i.e. the Nazarenes and Ebionites), who had no belief in the virgin birth and disavowed the divinity of Jesus - considering him a great prophet in the mold of Moses.
Thus even if it can be shown that some of the apostles died martyrs' deaths, it is unlikely in the extreme that they died for the same beliefs or dogmas of modern fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity.
The third assumption is that people will not die for false beliefs or beliefs they know to be false. This is clearly a false assumption. All religions have their martyrs. Even some non-religious political systems - such as communism - have found people willing too die for them. The current trend among Islamic militants of suicide bombing is just another sad example of people only to willing to end their lives for their [unexamined] beliefs. The last decade of the twentieth century have given us plenty of other examples. David Koresh led his Branch Davidians to fiery deaths in their final apocalyptic battle with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Luc Jouret and his followers of the Solar Temple group committed suicide in Switzerland and Canada in 1994. Marshall Herff Applewhite and his followers, members of the Heaven's Gate community, willingly committed suicide believing that they were to be picked up by aliens.
In other words being willing to die for one's beliefs has always been the hallmark of fanatics and true believers. The willingness of these believers to die martyr's deaths provides no assurance whatsoever that what they believe is true.
