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Who would push an agenda to get themselves and their followers persecuted, thrown in jail, beaten, killed and otherwise ridiculed and punished unless they truely believed what they were preaching?
www.google.com.au/search?q=cult+leaders
Which cult leaders wouldn't?
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Even the suicide bombers of today believe that Allah is going to reward them.
You are saying early christians didn't think they would go to heaven if they believed and were martyred?
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It makes no sense to make up a religion and get killed for it if you know (since you know your a liar) that you are going to hell once you die.
Huh? So you think they would not believe in a god, and yet believe they go to hell?
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They were either liars, lunatics or preaching what they honestly believed.
Who is they? The people taking writing the second/third hand accounts? Teh people who decided and edited what went into the gospels? the people who translated the text?
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Lunatics can't organize movements that grow for 2000 years.
You're right. They don't live anywhere near long enough.
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Right or wrong, inspired or errored, I think we can be pretty sure that Peter, Paul and the gang believed what they were preaching.
Why can you be sure? I know I can't be.
And for that matter, why the in fighting between Peter and Paul then?
There is also a potentially huge difference between what Paul/Peter/Etc preached and what ended up in the bible.
Please note I was commenting (the bit you quoted) on the writers of the gospel, not the 1st generation of christains anyhow.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
- Terry Prachett
