Muslims have twisted a word that previously was respectable, and turned into something vile and filthy.
The word martyr comes from a Greek word meaning “witness”. The Early Church adopted the word to describe those Christians who died as a result of “witnessing” for Christ. These were people who were evangelizing, or just refusing to bow down before the Roman emperor or his gods. They were given a mock trial and promptly killed in a number of ways if they didn’t recant.
The Roman Catholic Church also increased the number of martyrs in the 1500s and onward by murdering thousands of Protestants all over Europe. The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was one of the worst and most infamous of these slaughters.
There continue to be many martyrs today that die under Communist regimes, and other repressive governments. Islam has been a major source of severe persecution in recent decades, with the butchering of converts and missionaries. The Hindus in India torched several church buildings in that country over the June-July weekend, as well as killing or maiming pastors and congregants.
You can see the history of this word and the people that have been killed for their faith, but the Muslims have perverted the word and applied it to their horrible activities. The way Muslims become martyrs is by strapping themselves up with a bomb and committing suicide, while killing countless other people who they view as infidels who have no right to live. There are other ways, such as dying in a jihad, while fanatically shooting an AK-47 at soldiers while being protected behind a wall of women and children. The Islamic clerics and imams assure them that by doing this they will gain salvation.
This behavior is not martyrdom; it is suicide by fanatical people who have been deceived by their local mosque. Christianity does not tell its followers to commit suicide; it does not tell people that dying in a holy war can save them. (The Roman Catholic Church promised this in the Crusades to willing knights, but that was because the old pope needed the money and prestige. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that dying in war can save you.) Christianity tells its followers to evangelize, to live their lives in the service of Christ, to follow the Bible, and to worship God and Him alone. For these reasons persecutors throughout the ages have murdered Christians.
Islam has polluted a term to describe valiant Christians, and warped it to describe fanatical Muslims.
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