Benevolent Creator God?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If you believe that, you're a solipsist.

I didn't read Poca's post, but here's the deal. It is more plausible to think "healers" in ancient times were charlatans than to think that they might have actually had healing powers. Why is it more plausible? Look around. We have the same shit going on nowadays. Faith healers and the like. But never do they turn out to be provably genuine.

But they do turn out to be provably charlatans sometimes. What makes you think ancient times were any different?

Well, healing and receiving a message are two different things, in general, it's not difficult to expose charlatans. Not the same can be said about sincere people who can or cannot be delusional.

The beginning of Muhammad's religious experience is well-known, and he himself thought in the beginning that he had some mental illness, it's clear that he didn't want to be the recipient of the Qur'an. Now, what are we to make of his religious experience? His sincerity and devotion to his own message is not really disputed by anyone, so we're left with either delusion or accepting his message at face value. Evaluating the content of his message and whether he could up with the Qur'an from knowledge that is available locally is the way to proceed.

Muhammad also had a military career and was a successful statesman, which means he definitely didn't have some debilitating mental illness or something like schizophrenia. Also, epileptic seizures are followed by memory less, Muhammad produced the revelations immeditely after his reported agitated states of receiving revelation, so they are unlikely to be symptoms of epilepsy.

I invite you to re-think this part of your statement.

Boru