Was Prophet Mohammed a caravan thieve?

[R00tKiT]

Or, at least, they have what islam decides is a good enough chain of narrators.

Sally heard it from bill who got it from steve who spoke to jon that heard from jenny who knew thomas edison... that he hated peas!  Great point about hadith and magic book though...both were constructed using that same reliable™ process.

And what possible process can they have? How can history be preserved if not by having a similar reliable process... Another reason why it's reliable is the huge amount of hadiths, stories, recitations of the Qur'an they rejected, and some of them recently, based on the same mechanisms.

And it's a whole field of study and lots of hadith terminology you have there, I am just trying to simplify things.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Try any basic intro to the historic development of religious movements.

Then ignore them due to presuppositional dogma

[The Grand Nudger]

Or, at least, they have what islam decides is a good enough chain of narrators.

Sally heard it from bill who got it from steve who spoke to jon that heard from jenny who knew thomas edison... that he hated peas!  Great point about hadith and magic book though...both were constructed using that same reliable™ process.

And what possible process can they have? How can history be preserved if not by having a similar reliable process... Another reason why it's reliable is the huge amount of hadiths, stories, recitations of the Qur'an they rejected, and some of them recently, based on the same mechanisms.

And it's a whole field of study and lots of hadith terminology you have there, I am just trying to simplify things.

Studying the historic development of religions. We're so lucky as to have seen them born in the age of cameras and audio recordings, even. 

The sheer volume of work produced by an author or a group of ideologically aligned authors is no indication that any of it is true, or reliable.  

That's a non sequitur.

Beneath it all, magic book (any magic book..and this goes beyond magic books to most ideology) isn't about what happened or what is, but about how it's authors wished for things to be. The story in question, for example..is written from a point of ideological assent to the actions of a warlord. It offers pretense, but we'd have to be very credulous to believe that what a warlord's pr shills wrote was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (as told by steve who heard it from jan who..).

Even if we assume as much, for reasons of pure lulz - magic book still describes big mo as a caravan raider. People who don't subscribe to the ideological ticks of a 7th century warlord aren't even going to care whether things happened as described. It's completely irrelevant to their rejection of your magic book as a source of truth or virtue. If big mo did what magic book said, I'm not interested..if big mo didn't do what magic book said, and for whatever reason magic book just describes him that way, in error...I'm still not interested.

The issue isn't whether or not big mo really believed that angels were talking to him, it's that what those angels said...allegedly the contents of your magic book, is filth.

[R00tKiT]

The sheer volume of work produced by an author or a group of ideologically aligned authors is no indication that any of it is true, or reliable.  

I don't recall mentioning the volume of work as proof of reliability, but the percentage of hadiths rejected (much more than 50%, that is). There are ideologically aligned scholars and fervent defenders of Islam whose reported hadiths were rejected. Lots of Muslim men fabricated -with good intention- wonderful sayings and attributed them to Muhammad, they didn't pass muster.
I am going to take a very popular popular saying -"Paradise is under the feet of mothers", this saying was pinned against the walls of my primary school, all over the place, and below it, the Prophet's name as the reference. Some years later I came to discover the hadith is not valid, it's a fabrication.

So, there is motivation for an Islamic scholar to dishonestly link the saying to Muhammad - it's better if his prophet regards motherhood that highly. Still, you can find scholars dismissing its validity on the web, just by copy pasting the saying on a search engine.

Beneath it all, magic book (any magic book..and this goes beyond magic books to most ideology) isn't about what happened or what is, but about how it's authors wished for things to be.  The story in question, for example..is written from a point of ideological assent to the actions of a warlord.  It offers pretense, but we'd have to be very credulous to believe that what a warlord's pr shills wrote was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (as told by steve who heard it from jan who..). 

Actually, Muhammad doesn't have himself that much of a place in the Qur'an. His name is only mentioned -explicitly- four times, while Moses for example is mentioned 21 times. There are entire chapters about Noah', Mary the mother of Jesus (Surah of Maryam') and another Surah about her family. Also, the first thirteen years of his prophetic career in Mecca didn't include any military action... 82 chapters of the Qur'an are Meccan ( out of 114 ).

With this in mind it's harder to imagine that the qur'an is written just to defend one man's desires or ideas/justify his wars.

Even if we assume as much, for reasons of pure lulz - magic book still describes big mo as a caravan raider.  People who don't subscribe to the ideological ticks of a 7th century warlord aren't even going to care whether things happened as described.  It's completely irrelevant to their rejection of your magic book as a source of truth or virtue.  If big mo did what magic book said, I'm not interested..if big mo didn't do what magic book said, and for whatever reason magic book just describes him that way, in error...I'm still not interested.

I think you should elaborate on this caravan raider charge - namely what verse are you referring to, and what historical event.

[The Architect Of Fate]

And none of this refutes Grands point

---

And what possible process can they have? How can history be preserved if not by having a similar reliable process... Another reason why it's reliable is the huge amount of hadiths, stories, recitations of the Qur'an they rejected, and some of them recently, based on the same mechanisms.

And it's a whole field of study and lots of hadith terminology you have there, I am just trying to simplify things.

Studying the historic development of religions.  We're so lucky as to have seen them born in the age of cameras and audio recordings, even. 

The sheer volume of work produced by an author or a group of ideologically aligned authors is no indication that any of it is true, or reliable.  

That's a non sequitur.

Beneath it all, magic book (any magic book..and this goes beyond magic books to most ideology) isn't about what happened or what is, but about how it's authors wished for things to be.  The story in question, for example..is written from a point of ideological assent to the actions of a warlord.  It offers pretense, but we'd have to be very credulous to believe that what a warlord's pr shills wrote was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (as told by steve who heard it from jan who..).  

Even if we assume as much, for reasons of pure lulz - magic book still describes big mo as a caravan raider.  People who don't subscribe to the ideological ticks of a 7th century warlord aren't even going to care whether things happened as described.  It's completely irrelevant to their rejection of your magic book as a source of truth or virtue.  If big mo did what magic book said, I'm not interested..if big mo didn't do what magic book said, and for whatever reason magic book just describes him that way, in error...I'm still not interested.

The issue isn't whether or not big mo really believed that angels were talking to him, it's that what those angels said...allegedly the contents of your magic book, is filth.

Brace yourself for a long pointless rant

[The Grand Nudger]

If I rejected 50 percent of what you say, would you think that this made my position more reliable™? OFC not. As to what magic book was written for, I just commented. Magic books are about what the authors wish to be, not what is or was.

Have atlas elaborate for you on caravan raids, and how people shouldn't mention caravan raids, because it's insulting to muslims... and big mo had a good reason for caravan raids.

[Mr Greene]

Or, at least, they have what islam decides is a good enough chain of narrators.

Sally heard it from bill who got it from steve who spoke to jon that heard from jenny who knew thomas edison... that he hated peas!  Great point about hadith and magic book though...both were constructed using that same reliable™ process.

And what possible process can they have? How can history be preserved if not by having a similar reliable process... Another reason why it's reliable is the huge amount of hadiths, stories, recitations of the Qur'an they rejected, and some of them recently, based on the same mechanisms.

And it's a whole field of study and lots of hadith terminology you have there, I am just trying to simplify things.

There's a reason history starts with the Sumerian texts.
These things dot the landscape here;

According to spoken narrative they were conjured into being by fairies.
How reliable do you think spoken narrative actually is?

[R00tKiT]

If I rejected 50 percent of what you say, would you think that this made my position more reliable™?  OFC not.

If you reject 50 percent of some sayings, you would have lots of remarks/methodology/reasons for every bit of the 50 percent rejected. In the case of Islamic hadiths, popular reported numbers are of 12000 genuine hadiths (total number in major hadith collection) of, at least, 750000. You can easily imagine how much ink was spilled to clarify why the hundreds of thousands of hadiths were deemed untrustworthy. And people who write about this are trained scholars who, above all, master classical arabic and can very easily spot a recent fabrication (with respect to their era).

It's difficult to convey the sense of confidence one gets from studying one man's sayings, unless one tries it himself. For example, if one is accustomed to read biographies of Einstein, for example, it gets easier for him to spot the numerous false quotes mentioning his name. If one reads Einstein enough, then encounters the quote "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." he would know Einstein just didn't say this shit, it's just some clever nonsense that fits the revolutionary scientist stereotype.

---

How reliable do you think spoken narrative actually is?

Very reliable. There is a reason why you believe so many countries exist out there when you went to none of them - you hear about them frequently.

[The Grand Nudger]

Or, I'd have aesthetic, political, cultural and/or ideological reasons for excluding the bits I left out.

That's all just academic, though. You wouldn't think that my opinion of islam was reliable just because I rejected half of what you say about it. This thing you offered up as proof...well, it doesn't convince you, so why should it convince me? The christians left alot out of their magic book as well. Does that convince you that the christ bit is reliable? Or are you with me on that, laughing at the mere conjecture that this was some indication of reliability?

[Mr Greene]

You believe in Atlantis?