A pagan myth savior demi-god is definitely an extraordinary falsity.
First of all pretending like writing a myth is a "conspiracy" is
disingenuous on your part. Just the Hindu religion alone spans far more years, should I name all the other 1000 religions you don't believe in? Why do you think were they were written?
Myths are THE way people pass on wisdom through metaphors, parables, allegory and such.
Like the mythicist Joseph Campbell says, Christianity is a good myth but the mistake is thinking it's literal.
You speak as if the stories of Christianity are not literally true then it's a "conspiracy". Uh, no, it's THE SAME AS ALL RELIGIONS?! No religion is a "conspiracy"? They are parables and allegory.
It accumulates over centuries. This line of argument somehow forgets that other religions (that are NOT TRUE) have also been accumulating scripture for centuries. How much common sense do I have to explain?
Every Hindu thinks all the gods in scripture are actual real deities. Muslims believe an angel actually contacted Muhummad who was an actual prophet. These are not "conspiracies"?
Good lord,,,,, this is a double dose of wrong.
It's well known by actual historians that the Romans did not care about any religious cult that sprung up. There are writings by historians that confirm the Romans knew about Christians and did not care.
As to martyrdom, you are clearly not familiar with actual 1st century Judaism.
There were diverse groups and the Jesus movement fit in fine.:
"Judaism was a Diverse Phenomenon
In Christian circles the Judaism of the time of
Jesus has often been thought of as an outward legalistic religion to which the message of Jesus and the early Christians was a complete antithesis. Such a picture has, however, proved to be a blatant caricature. Today the ministry of Jesus is seen rather as a movement within Judaism rather than as something opposed to it. At the same time people have begun to understand how complex and still developing a phenomenon first-century Judaism was.
At the beginning of the Christian era Judaism was divided into several different
groups, each of which had its own views concerning the true Jewish way of life. On the other hand, certain
basic beliefs were common to them all. These were the
Pharisees, the
Sadducees, the
Essenes, the
Zealots - and the
Jesus Movement. In spite of differences between them the groups were united by certain
basic beliefs."
Judaism in the Time of Jesus
Much of the Jesus Movement was just concepts being pushed by the Hillelites. Rabbi Hillel died in 10CE but was preaching all the same stuff found in the Sermon on the Mount:
Hillel the Elder - Wikipedia
First it WAS a Jewish movement so of course it would be accepted by some Jews? But for one many Jews did reject the movement.
As to the Jews that did follow it - 1/2 of early Christians were some form of Gnostic for almost 400 years? But in the 2nd century it was as high as 50%.
"The Christian heresiologists, most notably
Irenaeus, regarded Gnosticism as a Christian heresy. Modern scholarship notes that early Christianity was very diverse, and Christian orthodoxy only settled in the 4th century, when the Roman Empire declined and Gnosticism lost its influence."
So why would all those Christians believe a form of Christianity that was COMPLETELY FALSE? Gnostic teachings vary radically from what is in the gospels. Yet they still bought into it. Do you think maybe people back then were inclined to believe supernatural stories were definitely true even without direct evidence????
In case you don't get it, if Jews (and Gentiles) were willing to convert to Gnostic teachings and those were false then conversion doesn't demonstrate that a belief is true.
The Egyptians, the Thracians, the Syrians, the Persians and many others already had a dying-rising savior deity and the Jews (some of them) clearly wanted one as well. A Jewish version that was the "true savior god".
Justin Martyr 2nd century apologist said the stories about Jesus were nothing new, they were just the best and true version. In the 2nd century that logic probably made sense. Now we know it's pure BS.
How do we know the Jews wanted a savior deity? After the Persian invasion all the Persian Zororastrian beliefs entered into OT Judaism. Good god vs evil god, world ends in fire, resurrection into heaven after the world ends in fire, afterlife, savior demi-gods who defeat sin and death.
Also I just named 5 CIVILIZATIONS that believed in similar but false savior gods. So under your logic - that belief in a religion somehow means truth - all those religions would be true?
As to the Romans, in 3AD 1/2 of the Roman army was Mithrian. as in they believed in the demi-god Mithras. When Constantine accepted Christianity into Rome in 3AD exactly 5% of Rome was Christian. I can find the stat.
"Christians accounted for approximately 10% of the Roman population by 300, according to some estimates" Wiki, that's the highest I've seen, usually it's 5%. I quoted 5 from a source in an earlier post.
In 380 it became law to be Christian. Do I have to explain why it suddenly grew after that? That was hundreds of years after the time of Jesus. Exactly ZERO big impact had been made. Half of the Roman army worshiped Mithras 200 years later. Your version of history is some weird apologetics version that makes Christianity seem more probable.
There are clear financial and post-civil war unifying Rome reasons why Constantine used the religion. They had churches set up, if you study the period it's very clear that it was reasons other than supernatural awe at miracles.
You can also find a list of miracles from Muhammed. Or Sai Baba who in the early 1900's had literally millions of people witness miracles.
"Sai Baba's disciples and devotees claim that he performed many miracles such as
bilocation,
levitation,
mindreading,
materialisation,
exorcisms, entering a state of
Samādhi at will, lighting lamps with water, removing his limbs or intestines and sticking them back to his body (
khandana yoga), curing the incurably sick, appearing beaten when another was beaten, preventing a mosque from falling down on people, and helping his devotees in other miraculous ways."
of which you don't believe but expect to use 1 gospel (the rest are copies, see Synoptic Problem) and 1 persons letters from 2000 years ago as solid proof of miracles?
I'm not a skeptic really but you simply have to read history. You could easily debunk those questions if you wanted to with a small amount of research.
There is nothing inexplicable about any religion, particularly stories of miracles. Every religion is also unique which has no bearing on it's truth.