Was Prophet Mohammed a caravan thieve?

[The Grand Nudger]

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 understand games of telephone just fine - here in the us it's a children's game, but obviously the people who write magic books are free to write them whatever way they want.

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.

Exactly Kloro, exactly.  What reliability am I talking about.  This is the third time you've provided demonstration that you don't believe in the thing you called proof.  

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.

Jesus' followers were convinced he was a prophet, a god, think about it.....what kind of attention would they devote to this man......

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.

Depends on whether they live in a country were a nutball will kill them for it.  Maybe you should keep looking. Such a pointless fucking lie, lol.

"I cant find a book about something, there are no books about it, it's impoooosssibru to write a book about the thing".

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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.


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.

Excellent, it took you awhile to get there, but at long last you became aware of political motivation.  The christians did much the same.