Christians claim that Jesus raised from the dead after 3 days.
3 days? What a coincidence. How many messiahs and religious figures raised from the dead after 3 days?
This myth was invented because of the Sun.
The Sun stays stationary between 21th and 24th December (for 3 days, the Winter Solstice) and then on 25th December “raises from the dead” and days start to increase in length again. It's because of this that it's a holiday for many pagans.
And it is also the reason why was picked by the church as the Jesus's "birthday".
They claim the resurrection has to be true, because the apostles wouldn’t risk their life for a lie.
Yet, there is no clear support for any organized and hard prosecution. Christians don’t claim that the Roman authorities killed anyone after the death of Jesus. The bible says that only Jesus was arrested.
Romans couldn’t care less for the Christians. No apostle claimed to be the king of the Jews.
According to Acts 18:12-17, the Roman proconsul Gallop dismissed a case against Paul.
Even if we believe the New Testament, there are just a few references to mild/mob prosecution and to the killing of Stephen.
And the apostles had good reasons to lie about the resurrection of Jesus (No way I’m going back to be a fisher again). They already had many followers or the Jewish religious authorities wouldn’t see them as a threat.
There were no more killings until more than 30 years later, under Nero. It’s when Paul and Peter are executed (about 64/68 CE) (he didn’t see that coming: damn, I should have kept being a fisher).
This persecution didn’t last long. There were more than a century of toleration until Marcus Aurelius (161–180).
Christians were much more diligent prosecuting others later, for centuries. "Nobody was expecting the Spanish Inquisition", but...
The Jesus from Nazareth born to the virgin Mary (immaculate conception) who was crucified for your sins and is the one who stands between you and the just hand of the Living God will even offer you mercy on the day you ask for it and that day will come no matter if you believe it or not.
There were no more killings until more than 30 years later, under Nero. It’s when Paul and Peter are executed (about 64/68 CE) (he didn’t see that coming: damn, I should have kept being a fisher).
He did see it coming. Peter was persuaded by the Christian community in Rome to flee the savage persecution unleashed by the mad Emperor, Nero. ‘It would not be good if our leaders were captured,’ they argued. On the road to Naples and the South, the famous Via Appia (same route where the followers of spartacus lined the road hung on crosses), a few miles south of the city Peter met a man. ‘Quo vadis?’ he asked him. ‘I am going to Rome to be crucified,’ was the reply. Peter knew it was the Lord and turned on his heel and walked back to the city to share the fate of his brothers and sisters. They threw his body on the dump and on this dump today stands his church and hell will not prevail against it.
VERY soon they will think it is destroyed but they are in for a surprise once their hour is over. While it is possible that a person could die for a lie, in the case of Christianity, those who believed Jesus had risen from the dead, had credible evidence to support their fervent belief. Christians of that time had something in their possession that others who died for their beliefs did not have; a written record from eyewitnesses who stated they had seen Jesus crucified and then alive three days later.
This record also contained the testimony of the most astute Pharisee in Israel, Saul of Tarsus, who stated in 14 letters that He had seen the resurrected Jesus with his own eyes: “Am I not as free as anyone else? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus our Lord with my own eyes?” ~1 Corinthians 9:1.
The Christians of that time knew well that Saul had persecuted Christians and sought their death. Immediately after Saul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, he became a completely different man. Now known as Paul, he became the chief architect of the true facts of Jesus’ resurrection and the certain truth that He is the true Messiah. It was these written records that caused the early believers in Jesus to not deny His resurrection and make them willing to die with confidence that Jesus had risen from the dead.
We see evidence of these facts in that when the Romans gave Christians the opportunity to deny Jesus, and worship their Roman gods, they refused. Christians were so certain that Jesus had risen, they were willing to die because they believe He would also raise them.
It is certain that Roman leaders did not believe in the resurrection, but they certainly accepted that Christians believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. It is this record that remains in the Roman Senate today that is compelling evidence of Jesus’ resurrection.
These facts were established by the writings of Roman Historians, Tacitus and Suetonius, as they described the resurrection as a terrible superstition that would endanger the Roman Empire. It was for this reason that we have an incredible record that Jesus had risen from the dead because history records that over five million Christians went to their death during a 250-year period of history under ten Roman Emperors, rather than recant and deny Jesus’ resurrection had taken place.
The following is the English translation of the text from the image above:
“Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.”
On another note. Can any atheist explain why anything exists? Why isn't there
simply nothing? Why is there not just an empty void of nothing?