(April 25, 2015 at 10:12 pm)Aractus Wrote: ^ I don't know where you come up with these wacky ideas. Paul was martyred for his beliefs, and as far as we can tell he was executed in the 60's in the first century. That's consistent with the internal evidence in his epistles, with the accounts given in Acts, with the written recollections by early 2nd century church figures, and by the fact that his presence in Christianity ends at the end of Acts which itself terminates in the mid-60's. There are no further letters from him, and there are no further mentions of him alive.
What kind of a con man is willing to suffer persecution and die for their con??
I suppose you have never heard about muslim suicide bombers? People absolutely love dying for a cause. It really doesn't matter what the cause is because someone will gladly die for it. And if the dying involves some really nasty method they become even more eager to die for their cause because it demonstrates their high degree of faith in it. Early Christians gladly went to horrible deaths because they were fed the line that if they died for their faith that they would go to heaven. The sad fact is that they died for nothing and didn't even get decent burials.
