The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage.

'I just read a book called Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk. He said something to the effect of: if Jesus had died in prison would we be saved?'Well this is just about the most lame arguement against Jesus i have ever heard,the fact is he did not die in prison,and that all these people are agreeing with you on this site has shocked me,only the other day i was saying people were intelligent(members)however i now retract this statement!have you even got a point? Lol

'This hasn't been an "argument against Jesus'i dont know Crash ,it just seems pointless to me because he did not die in jail,he said he laid down his life at his own will,that he has power to lay it down and power to take it back.why is it Jesus is always used in these arguements anyway,can't someone attack a muslims for a change ,or the guys like the taliban, i mean did Jesus really sound like the bad guy to you?

'Suffice to say Mike asked why no one went after the Taliban. And, well... we did go after them. Rather efficiently, actually.'i was not talking physically Dan,let me clear this up its my fault because i use the word 'attack'too much, however i am always referring to the war of words which i feel are a lot better than the war of force.did Jesus ever say ,go kill and heaven is yours - NO
what i am trying to say is he is not the bad guy but so called followers of him ofcourse,they might be , i have no way of knowing they have ulterior motives , but attacking (words) Jesus wont achieve much.

'If not, is it only the grotesqueness of his death that people are responding to?'no people are not responding to this you are , by asking these types of questions (jail death).
if your wondering what christians respond to ,it is his words of wisdom.His promise of eternal life,his resurrection,his forgiveness,need i go on.

Had Jesus died by some ludicrous, unimpressive means, would Christianity be as widely accepted?------------------irrelevant to me Dan because as i said earlier he did not die in a prison.He lay down his life for us of his own accord , therefore what ifs are meaningless with me.