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Deaths of Saints and Martyrs

Lives and Deaths of Heroes

No More Heroes

Comments

A martyr to me is someone who stands up for their faith, and beliefes, and is persucuted. Note I also believe that they uphold these beliefes non violently. So to me a martyr is like Ghandi, MLK, That El salvadorian Bishop whos death by the El Salvadorian goverment men spaked off the civil war. To mee the Palistinan Suicide Bombers are desperate peolpe who are, mislead.

The whole concept of martyrdom is sick. The idea that death makes things better, while of course it is typically Christian it is not by any stretch of the imagination civilized.

People who stand up for what they believe in are people who stand up for what they believe in. Being murder victims does not change anything for the better. If a cause is just you should stand up for it. If somebody kills you they kill you, they haven't proved you right they have just proved themselves to be killers. The people who died in the last days of the Branch Davidian sect were not proved right by dying, were they? Timothy McVeigh was not made into a martyr and proved to be right by being executed was he? What makes Jesus any different?

It seems to me that your definition of a martyr is “somebody who stands up for what both he and I believe in and dies through the actions of others”. While people who are killed while standing up for ideas you do not believe in are, well, people you don't know enough about to comment on. And people who die by their own actions for ideas you do not share are suicidal maniacal cowards, or something of the sort.

The world has no place for more martyrs. Nothing is proved or improved by death.

Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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