Still a Christian - ask me questions/tell me about yourselves

[Pat Mustard]

"Why oh why would they die for a lie"

Who knows, but people clearly do.  It doesn't help that the NT is fiction,..but it doesn't matter either, with regards to answering -that- tired old chestnut.

It’s not like religions are political entities whose causes are greatly helped by martyrdom....

So much so that christan churches have gone so far as to invent and propgate fictional stories of martyrdom, for example stories of mass persecution and murder by the Roman empire, most of which are fakes (Diocletian did persecute, but aside from a few isolated cases that's it. More christians were persecuted after Rome was christianised than bbefore).