The problem with the "would they die for a lie?" question is that it is malformed, intentionally so in my view, in order to force the discussion into a direction it shouldn't, and that a correctly formulated question of this sort wouldn't address the truth of the belief at all.
Why do the believers insist we stick with "lie," as the only other option? It's clearly not; you can believe wholeheartedly in a false claim, and that's just another possible solution that grants every other spurious element of this claim, such as the accuracy of the events depicted on the deaths to begin with. When we get asked about dying for a lie, the conversation is being shaped so that we're considering the apostles as either believers in a true claim, or knowing accomplices in a fraud, for which the rational course of action, all things being equal, would not have been to die for their fraud if it could be safely recanted. Therefore, they must have been in possession of the truth when they died.
But that's not the discussion we should be having.
Even if the apostles died for their faith because they believed it honestly, that says nothing at all about the truth of the propositions in which they believed, only about their conviction that they were true. And we know human subjectivity leads us to entertain false beliefs all the time. If they died for their beliefs, that still doesn't mean the premise that christians begin their false dichotomy with is true. At base this is the same fallacy that presuppositional apologetics is based on, the idea that certainty of belief directly correlates with the truth of that belief, and it just doesn't. If an argument would fit perfectly well into Sye Ten Bruggencate's personal repertoire, it's probably just worth discarding.
Why do the believers insist we stick with "lie," as the only other option? It's clearly not; you can believe wholeheartedly in a false claim, and that's just another possible solution that grants every other spurious element of this claim, such as the accuracy of the events depicted on the deaths to begin with. When we get asked about dying for a lie, the conversation is being shaped so that we're considering the apostles as either believers in a true claim, or knowing accomplices in a fraud, for which the rational course of action, all things being equal, would not have been to die for their fraud if it could be safely recanted. Therefore, they must have been in possession of the truth when they died.
But that's not the discussion we should be having.
Even if the apostles died for their faith because they believed it honestly, that says nothing at all about the truth of the propositions in which they believed, only about their conviction that they were true. And we know human subjectivity leads us to entertain false beliefs all the time. If they died for their beliefs, that still doesn't mean the premise that christians begin their false dichotomy with is true. At base this is the same fallacy that presuppositional apologetics is based on, the idea that certainty of belief directly correlates with the truth of that belief, and it just doesn't. If an argument would fit perfectly well into Sye Ten Bruggencate's personal repertoire, it's probably just worth discarding.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
