Evolutionary Tree

[Esquilax]

Looks like this thread managed to answer the age old question "why die for a lie?".
-they didn't know any better.

The answer to that question I've never heard given, which I think is pretty good, is "sometimes, they don't exactly have a choice."

That's the thing, particularly about dissidents from orthodoxy during this time period, is that dealing with them by violence was a perfectly valid option, and it doesn't necessarily have to matter to the ones doing the executing whether the victims truly believed or were willing to recant or not. You're killing them because they're troublemakers, you have no need to be forgiving, and no assurance that they'll stop for good if you release them.

And if you're a proponent of the cause for which those people died, what story are you going to tell afterward? "They died begging and pleading, throwing away everything they believed in at the point of a sword," or "they died with their heads held high and their convictions intact"? If you're a true believer, you weren't in their head at the time they died, you have no way of knowing that they weren't simply in sinful, mortal fear and not scrabbling away from the lie about to cost them their lives. Why would you ever assume the latter going forward if you yourself don't think it's a lie, and you're responsible for stewarding the narrative to future generations?