The Historical Jesus

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There we go, it doesn't matter at all.  It's not on the basis of your belief in christ that you think a christian life is a good one.  You'd live the way you live even if there were no christ.   I get that, I'd live the way I live even if there were.  

You can extend that observation to alot of things.  People would die for christ, even if there were no christ.  You probably don't extend this inference to, say, islam.  Why do you think they would "die for a lie"?  

At any rate, the stories of roman persecution are largely fabrication written by later chistians to justify a pogrom that they were engaged in.  In mere reality, rome was a truly multicultural society - and christianity was invited into the fold even as it damned and denigrated the people and culture it sought to replace.  Think about that for a minute.  It wasn't until christians inserted themselves into the squabbles of the roman nobility and who should be king that they managed to get themselves afoul of the competing families.  It all ended well though, as above, when they captured the state through said families they executed any dissenters.  

Odin hung himself on the world tree pierced with a spear in order to gain the secrets of magic - and all of the norse gods die in the end fighting side by side with us.  Sedanta got whacked protecting one damned cow.  Prometheus got the business for helping out out with fire.  Quetzalcoatl threw himself into the sun for us - that's what all the human sacrifice was about, trying to match his sacrifice and keep the world from ending.  Our gods and heroes tend to be helpers.  IDK if a lincoln cult would work...but it would have much better evidence than the jesus cult...and people do believe alot of strange things so why not.  Christianity was a small handful of lonely and imaginative people once, too.

Ultimately, though, none of this matters to the historical jesus, who performed no miracles and did die.  The god in the flesh who rose from the dead isn't history - it's religion.

     The point I was making is that Jesus' crucifixion should've been the end of his ministry. Even the disciples themselves were discouraged by it. They returned to their day jobs because from every angle it appeared as though their messiah was a fraud. That's how most people of that time would've interpreted Jesus' death. Gods don't bleed, how could someone who claimed to be the son of God be overcome by his enemies? If Jesus really was crucified then not only would the disciples have given up on him, so would everyone else. He would've gone down in history as a false messiah.

The reason why Muslims sacrifice their own lives for Allah is because their beliefs are sincere. 

     The fact that most of the early apostles proved that they were willing to die for their faith does add something to the veracity of their claims. Will people die for something that they know to be a lie? Some of these apostles claimed to have traveled with Christ and watched him as he performed miracles. And for some reason all of these witnesses, when isolated, when facing certain death; were still willing to testify to the end that Jesus is the Truth. Even if denying him meant saving their own skin. How many other religions can say that about their earliest proponents?

Of course you are always free to say, "but that doesn't mean that its true." With regards to ancient history you will always have that luxury. All I'm pointing out is that there is plenty of good evidence to support the message of the Gospel.

You claim that Jesus did not rise again, what do you base that on?