"What does it matter that the disciples died for their faith? Lots of different people die for their faiths"

I was proposed this at summer camp this past summer.  Especially in the last 10 years it has become well known that people are willing to die for what they believe in.  On average 171,000 Christians are martyred every year, but we also see people from the Muslim world willing to die for their faith.  So how can we Christians claim the validity of Christianity based on the martyrdom of Christians?

We have to look to the disciples themselves who all except John were executed for their faith.  The disciples did not willingly go to their deaths because of what they had come to believe in.  They went to their executions without recanting because of their confidence in what they saw with their own eyes and touched with their own hands.  This is the difference, people today die for what they believe in, the disciples died for what they knew to be true through evidence.

It is possible that a group of people would be willing to die for a lie, a lie that they thought was true.  We can see this through history, cult groups for example.  But how improbable would it be for a group of people to die for a lie that they KNEW was a lie?  They were all given the opportunity to recant, none of them received power or riches from this.  Also they were proclaiming what they saw in the very city that Jesus was killed and resurrected.   As they got ready to drive 6 inch long spikes through Peter's wrists and feet to hang him on an upside down cross I would think that would be the time to say "hey guys, actually its all a lie" or when they picked up stones to stone James, he could of said "OK everyone you win, we made it all up"  but they didn't, they had confidence in the next life because they saw Jesus in his resurrection body therefore they knew they also would be raised from the dead in glory.

Also it amazes me to hear people propose that the disciples somehow cooked up the story.  First, I would suggest to actually read the New Testament.  If men from the 1st century were writing a story, this would not be it at all! Second what sense would it make to cook up a story that would result in them all being thrown into prison, tortured and eventually killed?  No profits, no power, no sex, nothing along the lines of what people make up stories for.  We have nothing in the history or nature of man to compare this to.

I suggest that the best explanation of these events is that they actually did see what they said they did and what they were martyred for