[badkungfu]

> I am reminded of Fulton Sheen's comments on Jesus - a man that claimed to be God is either a liar, a lunatic, or God; to say such a man is a great teacher but not God stretches the limit of rationality.

That always sounded like an unimaginative argument. Another possibility is that his followers exaggerated his words and deeds after his death.

[eneifert]

But his followers were all willing to die because they believed Jesus rose from the dead and they saw it. Seems unreasonable that they would die for something they know is a lie.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_Christian_martyrs

[dragonwriter]

> But his followers were all willing to die because they believed Jesus rose from the dead and they saw it.

There is very little objective reason to believe that to be the case. There are (themselves mostly unsubstantiated) stories that a number of the inner circle of contemporaries, some of whom are also identified as witnesses of the resurrection, died for the faith, which is both considerably less than "all of his followers", and considerably less established as objective historical fact rather than part of the same system of mythology.

It's certainly a fact that a little later, a lot of people who could not have been witnesses to the resurrection at the time it is held to have happened died for the faith (whether willing or not), but they obviously don't support the argument you are making.

You can't rest a claim that one element of myth is objective fact on the argument that other elements of the same myth -- with no more objective support -- seem more likely if the first element is true.

[lucozade]

Who said they died because of their belief in the Resurrection?

I think it is highly likely that His followers believed strongly that He was the Messiah and His message had divine provenance.

It's much less clear which parts of, what became, the accepted view they considered worth dying for.

Maybe they believed in the truth of the Resurrection. Maybe they weren't aware of the claims (ok that's unlikely). Maybe they were aware and decided that it was good for the message (much more believable). Maybe they thought that it wasn't that important to the overall mission either way.

I don't know the answer, of course, but it's perfectly plausible that they didn't believe in the Resurrection and still fulfilled their mission. Plenty of people have died for what they believe is right without needing to have a mentor rise from the dead.

[Retric]

That's only relevant for martyrs who knew him in life, saw him 'die', and come back.

Everyone else died from a story making every single person on that list irrelevant.

ed: There is a very long list of people who where assumed to be dead before 'coming back' so even people who where 'there' don't mean much. It's not like someone was beheaded and the head grew back.

[jospoortvliet]

Lots of Muslims blow themselves up, believing in 77 virgins and stuff like that. Is that proof of those virgins or merely their belief?

I appreciate the list of martyrs but it is hardly unique to Christianity.

[badkungfu]

That doesn't list a lot of people who would have known him. Not hard to imagine people being committed to a cause while the lore is still being built.

[MisterBastahrd]

Lots of people die for lots of different reasons. That they die doesn't validate their beliefs.

[jabv]

I think lucozade's reply (just below yours) gets closer to why Sheen's argument matters at all (admitting that it is more of a, "Hey, have you thought about it this way?" than a serious argument, the latter of which Sheen also focused on) - whether we transfer the content to Jesus' followers or not, we still these condensed narratives containing historical claims as well as general teaching, and the claims are extraordinary, whether we attribute them directly to Jesus or to the followers. If the account in the gospel of Luke regarding the annunciation of Jesus' conception is false, then the rest of Luke's testimony about the words and deeds of Jesus is suspect.

Additionally, the great majority of Jesus' teaching depends on a context that admits unabashedly of a supreme Creator to Whom we owe, well, everything. Thus Jesus' teaching that lusting after a woman internally is tantamount to adultery only makes sense in the given Judeo-Christian context. So, even if we ignore claims of divinity and the origin of those claims, it's difficult to find a coherent moral message absent some claim regarding the existence of an ultimate Creator.

[danielam]

While I agree that it is impossible to take Jesus seriously without also taking seriously his claim to divinity, I do not understand the example you've given concerning adultery. Not everything that Jesus taught was a matter of revelation. Much of it can be arrived at with the use of unaided reason. In this case, adultery and lust are moral concerns that do not require an appeal to Jesus' authority. It is entirely possible for a non-Christian to come to the same conclusion just as it is possible to consider many moral questions without appealing to God. Whether something is good for human beings depends on human nature. God comes in when we wish to account for the existence of human nature (or anything at all) in the first place. Typically, those who base morality on arbitrary divine command hold to a mechanistic metaphysics that permits no other basis for morality.