Let me ask you a related question - can a Father not be merciful if he only adopts some rebellious children rather than all of the children of the world?
I would say yes. So yes, I do include it.
and for @Faizal_Ali given Christians can answer Jewish objections and we use their scripturesā¦ The Validity of Christian Religious Experiences
ā¦I thought Iād come up with a better alternate story than the ones I think you guys have. See if you like this one:
Paul, Peter, and John were Jewish scholars. They saw these passages in Isaiah and decided to start a new Messiah cult for Gentiles based on them. They based some of the stories on a local prophet, and had a general consensus on which ones fit their backstory. Paul was successful at winning over some Gentiles and wrote his letters to them. Meanwhile Peter and John convinced some other guys to help preach (since we know the church fathers knew them - though I donāt know to what extent they mentioned their experiences with these men, maybe it wasnāt that many). Once they had all their men, they made up the backstory of Jesus calling them, and Jesus rising from the dead. They pretended that they had once been fishermen and Paul had persecuted Jews, as humility was more believable than being Jewish scholars. The stories of Jesus told formed into the four gospels. They convinced Gentiles they should believe in this Messiah cult because they felt guilty for things they had done. The gag worked, as millions and millions of Gentiles stupidly believed it, ironically fulfilling Paul and Peterās distortion of Jewish scriptures that the Messiah would be a light to the Gentiles to the ends of the earth. The gag works because Christians still believe they should preach everywhere.
I think it works pretty well as an alternate story.
Not bad, but pretty complicated.
I prefer explanations based on how we know people behave, rather than complex conspiracy theories.
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I donāt consider it merciful if a father drowns his kids in the bathtub because they didnāt clean up their room. But thatās just me.
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Not just the kids but the kidsā pet dogs, pet cats, pet gerbils, pet parakeets, pet mice. Death for all across the board.
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Iām trying to help you out with how they added in all the Jewish textual stuff considering they made up stories as they went along. 
That wouldnāt be merciful, no.
However, the analogy ends at a certain point, because God created fathers and children.
Also He is good, and if you want a good God then he needs to have perfect justice.
So, your thesis is that the a group of people wrote the Gospel of John, claimed it was written by a disciple Jesus loved and then outed themselves by using āweā in the very next sentence?
The traditional apologetic argument is different than how you state it here. The argument is that the disciples would not have died for an idea they had made up, aka. something they knew was a lie
Do we have any non-Christian sources verifying that any of the disciples actually died for this idea? Or that they were in serious danger?
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No, my thesis is that the person or persons who wrote the gospel of John, who were not themselves eyewitnesses to the events recorded and whose identity we do not know, based it on something written down by āthe disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them downā, whose identity we do not know.
They didnāt āoutā themselves, since there was no attempt at concealment.
I notice that you have completely failed to answer the question.
What is your thesis? Who do you think wrote that āWe ā¦ā? Why arenāt you even attempting to answer the question?
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What about a postscript after the the end of the Gospel?
Thatās not an answer.
Who is suggesting they made up stories?
But since I am not suggesting that they knew it was a lie, that is irrelevant to the present discussion.
We have ample evidence that people who are fervent members of a religion or cult will die for something that is easily apparent to others is not true.
We have no evidence of people coming back to life after they are dead.
The more likely explanation for why the disciples died for their beliefs is obvious.
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I have really no idea how you explain how Christianity started then. Can you explain who you think Jesus was, if he actually lived, who the apostles actually were or if they lived, how the gospels came about, etc.
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How do you explain the origin of Islam?
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In a similar manner to how the Heavenās Gate cult began. They did not consciously make up their beliefs, otherwise they would not have killed themselves in accordance with those beliefs.
I donāt pretend to fully understand how such things happen, and how people come to believe such absurdities with no good evidence. But that it happens is an indisputable fact.
When faced with the alternatives of something being a) simply an example of something that we know for a fact happens, or b) something that has never, ever happened to our knowledge, and which would be considered a miracle if it ever did happen, a rational person goes with option (a). There are a lot of irrational people around, however.
Iāve already answered those questions. Iām losing patience with having to repeat myself.
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Mohammed heard lots of stories from Jews and Christians. He liked parts of them, but not others. He began receiving verses from the Quran. Most people didnāt care. He kept receiving more verses (stuff he made up, some he borrowed from Christianity). Eventually he got a few followers who liked it. They got expelled from their city. Eventually he had enough followers to form a military. They went and fought people. He kept receiving more verses meanwhile. The verses justified military campaigns so some of the basics of the Abrahamic God plus endorsement of military might, made for a powerful religion.
Youāre ruling out the possibility of knowing there is a God through a miracle.
OK. I will go back through this thread and read all of your answers later.