@Child of Monica,
I think my biggest issue with this thread, is that it has the gall to call it "True Religion."
Judaism is true. Christianity is true. Buddhism is true. Why?
Because they speak of reality in real terms. Buddhism was a man's struggle to free people from the cycle of human suffering. Judaism and Christianity is the story of generations of people and their personal relationship with God.
Islam, however, is not true.
If we accept Muhammad as a historical figure, it is no more true than Mormonism and his mountaintop experience with the angel Moroni. In fact, if you're gonna start a religion, it seems like the patented approach is to tell people that you saw a deity, and he told you to do this or that. It's also the surest sign of a fraud. "Yesterday, I saw the Goblin King Mu'sha'staroth and he told me to tell you that you need to give me a deed to all your land and all your money. Then you must kill yourself."
Secondly, that's even if the assumption that this was the angel Gabriel. Muhammad tried to kill himself because he decided that this angel was a demon. But don't take my word for it. Take his word for it.
https://kjvbiblebeliever.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/muhammads-demon-he-originally-thought-he-was-possessed/
But it gets more interesting. Some historians don't believe Muhammad was real. This isn't like the historical denial of Jesus where "no serious historian doubts the existence of Jesus" where yes, they may indeed disbelieve that Jesus did miracles, but there is a Jesus-shaped piece in history, including two unsympathetic records of him, and quite few others.
This is virtually 300 years of no mention of the guy. He first shows up mentioned on coins, once the Muslims got their folk hero right. Btw, Mecca?
It didn't exist until 741 AD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca
Quote:The early history of Mecca is still largely disputed, as there are no unambiguous references to it in ancient literature prior to the rise of Islam. The first unambiguous reference to Mecca in external literature occurs in 741 CE, in the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle, though here the author places the region in Mesopotamia rather than the Hejaz.
Although there is general consensus in modern scholarship that Macoraba mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE is indeed Mecca, some scholars have questioned this conclusion.
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus writes about Arabia in the 1st century BCE in his work Bibliotheca historica, describing a holy shrine: "And a temple has been set up there, which is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians". Claims have been made this could be a reference to the Ka'bah in Mecca. However, the geographic location Diodorus describes is located in northwest Arabia, around the area of Leuke Kome, within the former Nabataean Kingdom and the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.
The temple at Petra, not Mecca. And it's pre-Muslim. 741 AD is the first real reference to Mecca.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY04Me417bY
As for Muhammad, even a Muslim scholar ultimately concluded the guy never existed.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/07/islamic-theologian-concludes-muhammad-probably-never-existed
There's Christian fundies saying this too, but we expect bias from them, right? So let's move on.
Richard Carrier, who claims Jesus wasn't real despite historical evidence, and has to answer for every atheistic yahoo that decides to present a half-baked case that there is no evidence for Jesus (even though that is the one claim you cannot make, in favor of instead disputing whether or not he was the Messiah and the Son of God)... as anti-Christian as he is, even he cannot side with Muslims on the historicity of Muhammad. Why not? Well, let's read.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/8574
Quote:Experts (at least non-fundamentalists) do agree that:
The Quran can’t be used non-circularly to challenge such a hypothesis. (Nor, conversely, can a recent manuscript find prove such a hypothesis, since even that was written on parchment dated to precisely when the Quran claims to have been written, not before, and its stylistic features strongly suggest the current ink was not even placed on that parchment until many decades later.)
The Hadith contains much that is fabricated (so in fact Muslims were inventing Muhammad tradition, in abundance). Discussion and bibliography on that point can be found in Robert M. Price, “The Abhorrent Void: The Rapid Attribution of Fictive Sayings and Stories to a Mythic Jesus,” Sources of the Jesus Tradition (ed. R. Joseph Hoffmann).
No literature about Muhammad, that adds information not in the Quran, appears to have been written (or if written, none survives) until a century or more after his purported death, a situation in fact worse than for Jesus.
Mentions of Muhammad, and minor details about him, do exist within decades of his death, even from non-Muslim sources, but they all appear to be repeating what is said or implied in the Quran, or by Muslims using the Quran as a source. There are no eyewitness sources, nor any contemporary sources.
There is no archaeological corroboration (coins, inscriptions, or attesting manuscripts, of documents or literature, dating to within his life or very near it, other than the Quran). The earliest coins mentioning Muhammad start in 685 A.D., and the earliest inscriptions mentioning Mohammad start in 691 A.D. (dates that are fifty to sixty years after his purported death), but both reference him only in a creedal declaration (known as the Shahada), the existence of which is already entailed by any minimal non-historicity thesis. Similarly all subsequent inscriptions (e.g. on the Dome of the Rock, inscribed a year later; in fact, that just quotes the Shahada and the Quran).
Read that one part again. They were claiming Muhammad exists... because the Quran says he does.
He then discusses Robert Spencer, one of the biggest proponents of this theory, along with others (including Muhammad Sven Kalisch). Ultimately, he decides to not assert an opinion (like I say, he hates Christianity a bit more) claiming the issue needs qualified experts to make a case one way or another, but he does assert that it could be a thing and shows why.
I don't even like Richard Carrier. I think he is more or less among the more intellectually dishonest writers. But just is having opponents of Christianity speak of Jesus's existence, having people who should be into Islam (or at least against Christianity enough to support its rivals) speak in favor of this theory lends some credence to its plausibility.
Islam is NOT a true religion. Islam is a false religion. In fact, the Bible directly prophesizes it. Gal 1:8
Quote:But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!
