Was Prophet Mohammed a caravan thieve?

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

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.

I want you to notice, here, that even if big mo never said a word of any of it, even if big mo never existed, we could (and probably would) still have muslims squabbling over it. Just as you can easily concede that the god-man, christ, never existed...and yet various christians sects still wrote about the god-man and what he said or did.

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Details are actually what matters. As I said, to get a feeling of why the hadith methodology works, one simply has to delve into it. Being able to spot false quotes about your favorite writer is the best analogy I can think of.

And that's why those bad Hadiths should be true because Muhammad claimed obvious lies in Quran like that he rode on a winged horse, met Jinns and had conversations with them - he is established liar and liars and conmen also do other bad stuff. Why is that so hard to understand?

I'd go so far as to suggest that any lying and conning was incidental.  That wasn't the goal, if the historical detail provides any context.  He was a warlord, he wanted what any warlord wants.  Straight up bullshitting your subordinates comes with the territory.  Especially if they're so gullible that they'll believe the kinds stories he's said to have told. Why waste time trying to explain the strategic or tactical necessity of offensive raids against neighboring economic powers if you can tell them that a fairy told everyone to do what you say..or further, that the great man did-too give you and only you the keys to the kingdom he built by inflicting misery on others?

It's so much easier to incrementally reveal whatever the fairy just told you, that just so happens to be the answer to the problem you're facing, or the challenge to your authority. Come to think of it, Kloro's right. Magic books and the gods who author them are pretty damned reliable!