Convert to Islam, or die.

Seeing as I am a fan of living and the capability to make decisions, I would opt for appeasing these religious extremists. I mean, they're giving me a very simple decision. Life or death? I'll take life.

If you don't have anything to believe in, you're maintaining the only thing you have. We're all dishonest at times, so why the hell not be dishonest in a situation where your life is on the line? Tell a lie, GTFO, and then resume your normal life! For me, a lie doesn't really dig away at me, unless I know that it will have a largely negative impact on others. In this case, the truth will more than likely never be found out by these jerks, so it couldn't hurt them. In addition, since I don't give a shit about said party, they deserve the additional spite that would occur on the (unlikely) discovery of truth.

The journalists definitely made the right decision, and even if they had certain religious backgrounds, I don't think a choice like that would be hard. They didn't want to be martyred. Unless somehow their announcement of their faith through death was broadcasted and notable to the public, people would just see it as another "ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS KILLED MORE JOURNALISTS TODAY". Then this discussion wouldn't exist. This is an uninformed statement that has no sources, but there's a possibility that other kidnapped journalists could have went down a similar path, and accepted their brutal death, but their decision to do so would be unknown to the general public.

Anyway, the questions posed have an easy answer that I would say a majority of people would follow.

How ya doing, buddy?