(October 30, 2015 at 10:59 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: Paul was a convert to Christianity, via "vision".After which could perform the same miracles as the remaining 12. His conversion, and subsequent messages were 'proven' to be legit because God worked many miracles through Paul.
Quote: He was their first highly-successful convert to become an evangelist.Again if you ask yourself why, his ablities to work miracles and his ultimate acceptance by the 12 were the reasons for his success.
Quote:The fact that he was convinced by his vision and communication with the early Christians is more than enough reason for him to decide to subject himself to various torments -- the evidence is quite clear that the early Christians considered suffering to be a good thing, a method of following in the footsteps of the man they called the Christ.Suffering or rather knowing how to suffer and not loose one's mind/faith is a good thing, but so is knowing how life in wealth without being consumed by money or greed. Paul in his writting advocated both, and taught how to live both. Balance was always at the center of his teachings even if most people only want to look at the suffering.
Quote:This willingness to suffer for their message is certainly not evidence that any of them were correct, not any more than it is for the early Mormons or any other religious cult, or that their narrative successfully reflects the reality of Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef of Nazareth, when it was written down 20+ years after-the-fact. One decade is more than enough time for a legend to grow to mythical proportions.Willingness to suffer is proof what a person believes. One has to look at the specifics of belief to validate those beliefs. You can't honestly dismiss all who suffer for their beliefs with a broad brush just because one belief is found to be wrong. Their is a vast difference for suffering out of blind faith, and suffering because you personally witnessed something miraclous and will not be moved or influenced in changing your story.
Paul's suffering is a testament to his orgins/conversion to his miracles, to his doctrine. He believe he brought the word of God because he was blessed in such a way that in that time only God could have blessed him. So he stood behind everything he taught with his fullest conviction because everything he witnessed and was able to do in life supported his understanding of who God was and what God wanted from all of us.
