(April 12, 2013 at 3:30 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Why would you believe this oral transmission has anything to do with what really happened in history?
Oral transmission doesn't necessarily tell us what really happened, yes, but it is still reliable to a great extent, for many different things. It used to be one of the ways of preserving the past before writing was common. And especially regarding the existence of Muhammad and Jesus, peace be upon them, there are thousands of oral traditions about them and I think it would be very stupid to ignore that fact and then say that they never existed.
(April 12, 2013 at 3:30 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Can you produce evidence of it's existence and accurate recounting of any event in history?
As I just said, oral traditions are not necessarily accurate all the time. They might even be entirely fabricated. However, if there is an abundant amount of oral reports about the same person throughout history, and the reports match with each other, corroborate each other, and we have specific dates and information and so on, then it certainly increases the likelihood that the person existed although it doesn't 100% prove that.
(April 12, 2013 at 3:30 am)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: The fact that religious beliefs depend heavily upon mere faith in the existence and accuracy of oral tradition does not mean it is real nor does it change the way memory works nor the way memories are stored.
I agree. See my comments above.
