Why are there no Atheist Martyrs?

"To understand a proverb and figurative speech, the words of the wise and their dark sayings"

~Proverbs 1:6

"They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness"

~Psalms 82:5

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But atheists live in the real world and have no fantasies to defend to the death!

Sadly what you describe are extremists of the past and thank goodness people have far more sense nowadays!

If you think you would lay down your life for your faith you need to seek urgent medical and pastoral help!

I agree with PBUM. If look back at history, there are so many cases of people who opposed some religion and were sentenced to torture and death that if you sum them up they will be much more than any religion's martyrs. It is just that the atheist are not organized in gangs to remember and honor their martyrs.

Those religious martyrs did die for nothing, they just didn't know it, and after they were dead, they didn't have the consciousness to realize it.

People have died in the pursuit of knowledge, trying to invent things or cure diseases. What did these martyr's deaths achieve? How did they help anyone? I'd prefer someone spend his life trying to improve the lives of others.

Edit: @Tina, everyone's afraid of dying. That's why humans create religions. Atheists are braver, I guess, because we don't tell ourselves nice little stories about how we won't be dead after we die.

Aren't atheists afraid of dying. Maybe not all, but a good number say that they do not like the idea of darkness after death. Since that is the case, they would mostly not give themselves up for darkness. It makes sense right? Plus, they don't have a cause.

Is this a serious question?

The fact that there are no god/desses that exist is true whether I say it or not.

But, if a person put a gun to my head and told me to say I believed ;X' or they would blow my brains out, I would say whatever I needed to get out of the situation.

But if I lived during the Medieval century where that belief system ruled everything and would have made my life miserable, IDK how long I could keep up the charade.

Well, for one thing, there's no "faith" to lay down your life for in atheism.

For another, we don't pretend there's a magical paradise in the sky we'll go to when we die, and *especially* if we "lay down our lives for our faith."

And finally, I'd much rather let some other yahoo lay down THEIR life for their irrational belief than me. That's just rational.

Martyrs don't lay down their lives for their faiths. They do it for themselves and for bullshiit. Soldiers and firemen and cops - they lay down their lives for a decent reason. And you know what? They don't usually stop and ask the person who needs rescue, hey what's your religion? first.

No gods means no divine faith means no need to lay down one's life to prove that what they "believe" is right. Life expectancy for those who understand that we create the who what and where we find ourselves every day is much longer than those who seem to need to die to provide proof of their god.

LOL

You sure cherry pick history, don't cha....plenty of atheists have died for merely being atheist....plenty more shoved in residential schools, the last of which closed in Canada in 1996 for being atheist & the wrong ethnicity....LOL

You obviously don't understand the meaning of the word atheist.

One may die for what he/she believes in, but it would be stupid to die for something he/she does not believe in.