Page 1 of 2

Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:38 am
by GabonX
..really believed all that stuff he said in the Koran?

I'm not sure whether his faith was for real (ie he believed it) or if he just used Islam as a way to gain followers...

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:48 am
by angola
Mohamed?

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:49 am
by KristenAmazon
(- The prophet Mohamed?)

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:50 am
by angola
Oh, I thought Mohammed was the guy that started Islam.

As far as I know, Mohamed is some guy that Gabon likes to shoot the shit with.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:51 am
by GabonX
Mohamed, Mohammed , Muhammad..
..You know the one, the one on the right.

Image
Do you guys think he really believed all that stuff he said?

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:54 am
by angola
GabonX wrote:Mohamed, Mohammed , Muhammad..
..You know the one, the one on the right.

Image
Do you guys think he really believed all that stuff he said?


Ha.

Well struck. I was just being a dick.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 5:49 am
by heavycola
No. Mohamed was trolling.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:25 am
by AlgyTaylor
GabonX wrote:..really believed all that stuff he said in the Koran?

I'm not sure whether his faith was for real (ie he believed it) or if he just used Islam as a way to gain followers...

You could say the same about Jesus, no?

He went around giving all the peace & love vibe - which I'm not knocking - but his dad was clearly more of a fire & brimstone kinda guy, at least in his youth.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:26 am
by AlgyTaylor
Coming to think of it, Jesus is quite a bit like Peaches Geldof in that respect .... only famous cos of who his dad is ...

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:54 am
by comic boy
AlgyTaylor wrote:Coming to think of it, Jesus is quite a bit like Peaches Geldof in that respect .... only famous cos of who his dad is ...


Yep and after 500 years of studious editing Peaches will appear quite an Angel :D

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 9:49 am
by Neoteny
I'd say it was probably half and half.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:08 am
by istanbul39
There are truly some amazing coincidences in the Quran that are not easily explained.
The word "land" is used 32 times and the word "sea" is used 17 times. On a percenatge basis, that is 72.11% and 28.89% respectively.
In the advent of modern science, scientists have documented that the actual ratio of sea to land on earth is 72.11% and 28.89%

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:29 am
by grandin
istanbul39 wrote:There are truly some amazing coincidences in the Quran that are not easily explained.
The word "land" is used 32 times and the word "sea" is used 17 times. On a percenatge basis, that is 72.11% and 28.89% respectively.
In the advent of modern science, scientists have documented that the actual ratio of sea to land on earth is 72.11% and 28.89%


Finally! A proof that there will be no global warming and melting ice caps!

:roll:

You do realize that that ratio changes over time, right?

how do you count, anyway? Area? Volume (if so, how do you count the volume of 'land']?

As for the actual numbers, i can't find any good sources...

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:31 am
by AlgyTaylor
istanbul39 wrote:There are truly some amazing coincidences in the Quran that are not easily explained.
The word "land" is used 32 times and the word "sea" is used 17 times. On a percenatge basis, that is 72.11% and 28.89% respectively.
In the advent of modern science, scientists have documented that the actual ratio of sea to land on earth is 72.11% and 28.89%

Nah, that's 34.7% sea and 65.3% land.
Earth it's 72.1% sea and 28.9% land

they're quite different, I'm afraid.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:33 am
by PLAYER57832
GabonX wrote:..really believed all that stuff he said in the Koran?

I'm not sure whether his faith was for real (ie he believed it) or if he just used Islam as a way to gain followers...

I am sure he did believe what he wrote.

Now Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard, on the other hand ... was begun on a bet.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:08 am
by Frigidus
I wonder this stuff a lot. Were Jesus/Mohammed/Moses/Buddha/Joseph Smith all crazy people or just a lot smarter than the mouth breathers who they managed to latch on to?

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:50 am
by Titanic
Do you think that Jesus really believed all that stuff he said in the Bible?

I'm not sure whether his faith was for real (ie he believed it) or if he just used Christianity as a way to gain followers...

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:08 pm
by The1exile
False analogy, Christianity didn't exist before Jesus so he can't have used it to gain followers.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:10 pm
by AlgyTaylor
Titanic wrote:Do you think that Jesus really believed all that stuff he said in the Bible?

I'm not sure whether his faith was for real (ie he believed it) or if he just used Christianity as a way to gain followers...

Was probably no different from all of us when we were at school.

"My dad's harder than your dad!"
"Yeah? Well my dad's Frank Bruno"
"Oh yeah? Well my dad's an omnipotent, monothestic deity who created the entire universe in less than a week"

We've all done it ...

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:19 pm
by GabonX
AlgyTaylor wrote:
GabonX wrote:..really believed all that stuff he said in the Koran?

I'm not sure whether his faith was for real (ie he believed it) or if he just used Islam as a way to gain followers...

You could say the same about Jesus, no?

He went around giving all the peace & love vibe - which I'm not knocking - but his dad was clearly more of a fire & brimstone kinda guy, at least in his youth.

Titanic wrote:Do you think that Jesus really believed all that stuff he said in the Bible?

I'm not sure whether his faith was for real (ie he believed it) or if he just used Christianity as a way to gain followers...

Rather than simply looking at this as a theological issue, I am posing this as historical question. You guys make an interesting comparative point about Jesus and Mohamed but I would argue that it isn't entirely valid. Both Jesus and Mohamed were real people regardless of whether or not their faith was divinely inspired...

While Jesus did preach, and he did gain followers he used them very differently than Mohamed. You could make the argument that he didn't use them at all, but rather tried to give people an outline for clean and harmonious living. Mohamed on the other hand was a conquerer. He united the Arabian peninsula through a series of offensive wars and Islam served the purpose of uniting his followers and establishing divine justification for their actions.

While Jesus was a pacifist, Mohamed was anything but. In my mind, this makes the question of why Mohamed established Islam much more pervasive than a similar question being asked of Christ.

Did Mohamed really believe what he said (he couldn't write, instead the Archangel Gabriel is said to have commanded him to "recite". I believe one of his wives 'wrote' the Koran) or did he simply use Islam to gain a heightened social and political status?

He did certainly gain heightened social and political status in a way that Jesus never achieved in life.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:42 pm
by jonesthecurl
Mohamed was real.
Perhaps Jesus was, but nobody mentions him outside of the bible (and some bits that were left out of the bible, written by Christians).

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:47 pm
by Frigidus
jonesthecurl wrote:Mohamed was real.
Perhaps Jesus was, but nobody mentions him outside of the bible (and some bits that were left out of the bible, written by Christians).


There certainly aren't any non-religious texts confirming that Jesus didn't enjoy any benefits of being a cult leader.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:06 pm
by Snorri1234
GabonX wrote:Rather than simply looking at this as a theological issue, I am posing this as historical question. You guys make an interesting comparative point about Jesus and Mohamed but I would argue that it isn't entirely valid. Both Jesus and Mohamed were real people regardless of whether or not their faith was divinely inspired...

While Jesus did preach, and he did gain followers he used them very differently than Mohamed. You could make the argument that he didn't use them at all, but rather tried to give people an outline for clean and harmonious living. Mohamed on the other hand was a conquerer. He united the Arabian peninsula through a series of offensive wars and Islam served the purpose of uniting his followers and establishing divine justification for their actions.

While Jesus was a pacifist, Mohamed was anything but. In my mind, this makes the question of why Mohamed established Islam much more pervasive than a similar question being asked of Christ.

Did Mohamed really believe what he said (he couldn't write, instead the Archangel Gabriel is said to have commanded him to "recite". I believe one of his wives 'wrote' the Koran) or did he simply use Islam to gain a heightened social and political status?

He did certainly gain heightened social and political status in a way that Jesus never achieved in life.



You are very right there. However, I doubt whether Mohammed believed what he said or not is important. It is interesting to think about how Mohammed's role as a conqueror shaped the way he made a religion though. Would his religion have looked differently if he weren't a soldier? Could he have used a different, already existing religion as effectively as his own? (Like Christianity for example)

As an aside, religions always get shaped more by people's thoughts and beliefs they already have than some supernatural power. People don't join up when they don't think what you're saying is already right anyway, and you don't write up stuff you disagree with even if some angel dictates it to you.

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:39 pm
by spurgistan
Frigidus wrote:There certainly aren't any non-religious texts confirming that Jesus didn't enjoy any benefits of being a cult leader.


Triple-negative? Really?

Re: Do you think that Mohamed..

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:13 pm
by finchboy
jonesthecurl wrote:Mohamed was real.
Perhaps Jesus was, but nobody mentions him outside of the bible (and some bits that were left out of the bible, written by Christians).


Wow, let's that 27 words and see how many mistakes you made...

but nobody mentions him outside of the bible

The histories of Josephus (a jewish scholar) confirms the historical existence of a crucified religious leader under the title, "Jesus of Nazareth from the region of Galilee"

and some bits that were left out of the bible
Some bits were left out of canonical bible, but these bits remain in the Apocryphal bible, and have always remained available to, well, anyone. clicky

(written by Christians)
Half the bible, and most of extra-canonical stuff, was written by, the Israelites (Jews before they were called Jews), the dead sea community (somewhere between Jews and Gnostics.) and some bits were copied and pasted from Near Eastern religions. clicky

So in fact the only thing you said that was correct in your entire post was...
Mohamed was real.

Insightful or what.

Sit down.

F