Because there are 2 billion suckers out there who were brain washed into believing they’re going to hell if they don’t believe in Jesus [ quoted from the comment section of this video]
The reason I decided to respond to this is that I've studied brainwashing, so I have a clear idea of what it is. The commenter could not have, and is either lying outright, or doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.
Brainwashing requires strict control of somebody's environment. There can be no freedom of speech to debate these topics. In fact, freedom is entirely removed from that environment. If you don't act according to what the controllers want, then you are punished.
Furthermore, the people who started Christianity were going against a hostile system. If anybody was brainwashed, it was the Romans, and the Christians were fighting it. Nobody forced the Christians into their circle. Indeed, you had to join the Christians with the foreknowledge that you were taking your own life in your hands, for if you were found out, you would be punished. Many times, that punishment would be in the most disagreeable ways imaginable.
Has that changed today? Nope. There are Christians today being slaughtered in Islamic lands for doing nothing but following their religion. They follow it in a very hostile environment, not that much unlike the Romans. That is not brainwashing. Only somebody who wishes to deceive could say otherwise, or somebody who is incredibly brainwashed themselves, and entirely ignorant of this reality.
Update:
A couple things to say here for clarification, if it is needed. First, brainwashing is referred to as equivalent to coercive persuasion, which is the technical term. In order to have coercive persuasion, you need a captive audience. Literally captive, as in prisoner. An example is the Patty Hearst case.
Secondly, coercive persuasion does not mean that an individual is unaware of what he/she is doing. There was a movie in the sixties called Manchurian Candidate that comes to mind. In that movie, the guy who was "brainwashed" had no idea of what he was doing when he came out of the spell.
Also, Patty Hearst's defense was brainwashing, which was rejected by the jury. She knew what she was doing, but she was "persuaded" by the environment in which she was brought into. That's what you get. It is also referred to as Stockholm Syndrome, in which the captive starts to identify with the captors.
The Stockholm Syndrome didn't apply to ancient Christians in Roman Times. If it did, they wouldn't have lasted 2000 years. It doesn't apply now either. Nowhere that I know of captures people and force them to convert to Christianity. But many Christians have been captured and forced to convert or die.
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