Was Prophet Mohammed a caravan thieve?

[R00tKiT]

The islamic methodology was to rattle of what sally told james who got it from bob - ad infinitum.  That's a game of telephone, not a method.

As I said, I don't think it's possible to have an accurate understanding of hadith methodology unless one studies it extensively. People who are deemed "reliable" in a chain of narrators are usually well known scholars in their time who taught numerous students -themselves becoming scholarly authorities. Also, more often than not, they left manuscripts, schools of thought, charity work, etc. Enough elements to prove they are trustworthy in their respected fields, and, of course, their existence. It's just subtler than you think.

I guess it's more convenient for muslims to insist that their problems don't exist - but that would be points for the christers..whose hack and slash job doesn't seem to have the power to convince you of the reliability of gospel.

What reliability of gospels are you talking about...? Christians themselves treat it as a problem, they call it the synoptic problem. They themselves talk about a problem, which they answer by various contradictory theories, check this out;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels#Theories

Maybe Matthew and Luke used Q independently, or that Mark collected what Matthew and Luke share in common, or that all of them used Greek anthology[sic]. Does that sound to you even remotely close to an audio book transmitted directly from Muhammad to his followers..?

There isn't even a claim to be defended, the Q source is lost -it's a hypothetical document, by definition, in christian literature. What else is there left to say..?

In Islam, the Q source's equivalent is there for everyone to read, analyze and recite.

Crowds of people -do- get the words of speeches wrong....regularly, and that's after whatever the speaker got wrong.  A chain of hilarity ensues.  A speaker says something batshit, listeners hear an entirely different batshit thing, and then faithfully transmit both sets of misapprehensions to the written word, where a lack of any other information makes that garbled mess into "history" by fiat.

Well, I think you're misrepresenting what crowds of people are capable of. Followers of Muhammad were convinced he was a prophet, a man who has a link to God, think about it. What kind of attention would they devote to this man....... there are reliable hadiths out there about his eating habits, his sleep position, even his yawns, sneezes, everything he does, basically. It's hard to imagine how they would miss this man saying "treat your mothers well" and somewhat transmit that wrong... Hadiths aren't really detailed explanations of some mind bending four-stroke engine, most of them resemble to idioms that are easy to remember... Ah, and don't forget their absolute mastery of arabic, composing good poetry was a piece of cake for these folks... Muhammad's idioms really become hard to miss.

Kind of helps if you exterminate anyone who won't bend the knee...too.  This is what I attempted to explain to you.  At best, absolute best..you have some version of what some warlord thought about the life, the universe, and everything.  So what?  Do I seem like the kind of person who would fall to the ground in submission just because some ignorant shitheel has thoughts?  If every ignorant shitheel in all of human existence  and all of their thoughts about any given subject were to collectively disappear, just...poof...the world will have lost nothing of value.

All what were discussing concerns the reliability of hadiths, of course. This has no bearing on whether his extraordinary claims are true. The problem now is, how to account for Islam, being one of the most explosive forces in history, and his central figure being either the biggest conman imaginable ever, to the point of lying about god himself....... or the most sincere person imaginable, to the point that god chose him to be THE ONE. One is really left with two extreme choices.

And it's usually not hard to decide between two extreme choices. BTW I looked up for the history of religious movements, and most of what comes up is related to new religious movements, it's really hard to find some article taking on the task of accounting for Muhammad, scientifically and without cultural bias... so much so that I doubt it's possible.

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I'll give you a little more to consider while the above sinks in (or doesn't), Kloro.  The sunni shia split..the one that atlas is so convinced accounts for all of the garbage in islam, was a disagreement over the proper succession of a divinely installed king.  Of who should follow Dear Leader when he mercifully expired and could wage war against the infidel no longer. 

First of all, this whole sunni shia split thing is a political problem, it has nothing to with the Qur'an or theology. Second, there was no disagreement when Muhammad died, Abu Bakr' was the de facto choice for most Muslims back then -Muhammad kind of singled him out to lead the prayer when he couldn't do it himself, at the end of his life. It was a clear hint -among others- that Abu Bakr' would succeed him.

So, you tell me..what possible motive could warring tribal factions have for selecting whatever oral traditions privileged their sect?  The sunnis won that fight.  Their magic book wouldn't be standardized until the third caliphate.  The shia believed that ali presented his full and final version of magic book..but that it was outright rejected.

What fight are you talking about...? Muhammad said one thing, people heard this one thing and they transmitted it. The central disagreement between Sunni and Shia Muslims is about Ali, a cousin of Muhammad. They believe he was the one who deserved to be the first caliph directly after Muhammad's death, he came fourth. And as I explained to you, Muhammad specifically and expliciltly singled out Abu Bakr', this is the case even in their sources.
Next thing they do is that they consider Abu Bakr' an enemy of Islam, Shia literature is extremely hateful of Abu bakr's figure -for the obvious reason cited-, and Omar's, and Aisha's, Muhammad's wife, and Abu Bakr's daughter. It's clearly politically motivated.