(April 3, 2022 at 11:53 am)Angrboda Wrote:(April 3, 2022 at 11:48 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: That's 5th of the world's population and it's probably smaller because most of those Muslims (who believe him) are not allowed to say that they don't believe him. So it seems that most Muslims don't believe Mohammad because it makes sense but because they will be killed.
This doesn't seem to follow. Just as the existence of doctrines about hell doesn't demonstrate Christians live in fear of it, the existence of a death penalty doesn't necessarily entail that their belief is on account of it. Additionally, though I don't know the extent to which it matters in practical terms, but the death penalty applies to only certain forms of apostasy.
Doesn't necessarily but if it is so believable, as Klor claims, why are people threatened into believing it? All sorts of penalties exists to force people to believe Mohammed. People in Muslim countries are thrown into jail just because of talking or blogging that Islam makes no sense, like Abdel Kareem Nabil or Raif Badawi.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
