I've always believed Jesus and his followers were all normal people that created a cult to try and gain power over others. Had his followers write passages and compiled the Bible. Would make sense why some would want him gone, but instead of for some sort of holy reason, it was because his cult was dangerous.
And most of the apostles as well as jesus suffered horrific torture because they wanted to control people? How can you control people if you are dead?
How do you know they suffered horrific torture?
When studying a timeline and occurrences from ~2000 years ago, everything's murky. There's so much subjectivity that people can morph things into however they want to believe they were.
There are multiple sources of non-Christian historical scholars and archaeologists who have stated that the historicity of the biblical record, especially as it relates to the Gospels and New Testament, is pretty legit. There are very few credible scholars who doubt that, in the early 30's AD, there was an itinerant preacher named Jesus of Nazareth whose followers thought that he performed miracles. Almost nobody credible disagrees that said itinerant preacher was sentenced to crucifixion by a joint Roman/Judaic trial. And many of the stories (myths?) about his followers are in multiple books of high historical regard. Now, whether he was the Son of God, rose bodily into Heaven after his death and entombment and gave the Holy Spirit to all believers? People will debate that until the Last Days. But whether the apostles actually lived, and suffered torture (in their words) "for the sake of the Gospel"? Yeah, that's pretty well documented.
I'm not offended by this, because I've been where you've been, but you haven't been where I've been.
And I'd say that irreligion is much easier to inherit and propogate than a belief system. If your parents aren't every-Sabbath-attending members of a solid, biblical-foundational local church whose preaching both edifies and points out your need for a Savior, then you're much more likely to either a) be irreligious yourself or b) come across the Holy Spirit at a time when one of those pesky cult recruiters comes along and see the light.
Hostory book bro. Try reading one. Even Josephus who absolutely despised Jesus wrote about his death. Little did he know he was confirming biblical accounts, not refuting them.
Read foxes book of martyrs. Modern day martyrs exist too. How do people sing hymns in complete peace while being burned alive or boiled in oil? Because paul and jesus were like yo, lets control people bro. You know paul was in prison when he penned philippians? And he said he couldnt be happier because he was able to tell prisoners and prison guards about jesus.
