• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Mohammad Never Existed

1000 years from now, people will be saying that George Washington and Ben franklin never really existed. :lamo
 
1000 years from now, people will be saying that George Washington and Ben franklin never really existed. :lamo

They are well documented as was Cengiz Khan, i highly doubt that.
 
Last edited:
Really then tell me which non-Christian contemporary wrote of Jesus? Josephus is the only one listed who lived during Jesus's supposed lifetime, and his work was a forgery all the other Greco-Roman sources listed in that wikipedia article weren't even born until 50-100 years after Jesus's supposed death.

Pliny the Younger b. 61 AD.

Tacitus b. 56 AD.

Suetonius b. 70 AD.

Mara Bar-Serapion of Syria doesn't identify Jesus by name but a "wise king" the original letter doesn't exist and the copies are only found in 6-7th century manuscripts and no date is given for his birth.

Your article mentions Lucian who wasn't even born until the 2nd century.

Your article lists some more Jewish sources but again they are from the Tannaitic Period between 70 and 200 AD and they provide nothing but recitation of the early Christian scriptures.

None of them, including Josephus, lived during Jesus' lifetime, but Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonius were all born within 70 years of Jesus. Josephus' work is a legitimate historical document, not a "forgery." The passage in question is widely considered to be corrupt, but that's not unusual with ancient texts. It's also generally considered to be a reference to Christ, even if we don't know exactly what it originally said about him.

There are also the Christian writings, of course, which you have no real reason to dismiss other than the fact that they're Christian. That in itself doesn't mean that they aren't legitimate sources. The idea that they were invented out of whole cloth is pure supposition and isn't supported by any non-Christian contemporary writings, whereas the existence of Jesus has about as much support as one would expect considering that the primary concern of Roman historians was Rome.
 
Last edited:
It makes people fight.

no, they don't, people use it as an excuse to fight... just as the use 'romantic love" as an excuse to ****. people also use religion to oppress others, even their own folks. they use it to maintain power over others by maintaining a high level of ignorance.

but they also use it as an 'excuse' for other, more benign human traits which, if denied religion, they would also do anyway, such as feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, fight war and protect the defenseless.

it is no more just to blame 'religion' for the bad things we do than it is to 'praise' it for the good.

whether he ever lived of not is irrelevant, he is not more accountable for what folks do in his name as a real person than he is as a myth.

geo.
 
Last edited:
They are well documented as was Cengiz Khan, i highly doubt that.

And what if civilization collapsed (as with the fall of Rome} and only a few scraps o written records remained of them? When civilization rebuilt, they might end up becoming legendary figures about whom many were skeptical.
 
None of them, including Josephus, lived during Jesus' lifetime, but Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny, and Suetonius were all born within 70 years of Jesus.

Well there you go. You don't have a single contemporary non-Christian source for the existence of Jesus. At the most you have secondary sources.
Josephus' work is a legitimate historical document, not a "forgery."

No actually it is not, at least in terms of the passage referring to Jesus, it's authenticity is at the very least suspect. It is almost certainly a forgery:


Josephus on Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The passage in question is widely considered to be corrupt, but that's not unusual with ancient texts. It's also generally considered to be a reference to Christ, even if we don't know exactly what it originally said about him.

lol if we don't know what it originally said then how do we know it said anything about him at all?

There are also the Christian writings, of course, which you have no real reason to dismiss other than the fact that they're Christian.

Just as I dismiss Greek writings about the existence of Achilles. Societies have their mythical figures, and there is no reason to believe that Jesus or Mohammad were anything more than that.

That in itself doesn't mean that they aren't legitimate sources. The idea that they were invented out of whole cloth is pure supposition and isn't supported by any non-Christian contemporary writings, whereas the existence of Jesus has about as much support as one would expect considering that the primary concern of Roman historians was Rome.

lol ya because the Romans didn't chronicle the existence of important non-Roman historical figures; such as, Hannibal, or Attila the Hun.
 
And what if civilization collapsed (as with the fall of Rome} and only a few scraps o written records remained of them? When civilization rebuilt, they might end up becoming legendary figures about whom many were skeptical.

lol what like Obama :2razz:

Rome wasn't civilization within itself but yeah, if the world civilization collapsed then that's different. Cengiz Khan's empire did, but the man remains.
 
to be idiot is easy and free, even you have some degrees. I wonder why 'Some' people in Usa are in race to create new lies about Islam,and to insult Islam. btw, insulting the religion of 1.5 b people is seen 'democracy/freespeech', killing people up to 50-60 in afghanistan is seen 'mistake', practising the religion of Islam is seen 'concession' etc. i did read a book about Nazi's Germany and there were similar approachs to 'inferior' people by 'superior' Germans .

don't blame it on all Americans, there are plenty of Muslims here, and Christians that know Muhammad existed as well.
 
These men lived centuries ago. It's not like they had the best records then that cold survive all these years.
 
If one insists on nonexistence, how is nonexistence proven?
 
people believe that muhammed lived without confirmable evidence because they want to. they accept an oral history because it satisfies a need to believe and includes them in a community of believers. oral histories ARE evidence, though not particularly dependable evidence.

people believe (as acceptance of a premise that cannot be shown) that the oral history is false without evidence because it facilitates the rejection of the faith based upon the acceptance of his living. although it is impossible to show that the premise is false, it is not impossible to show that the premise was fabricated. we can show, for instance that the 'conquering of cannaan' by joshua et at is almost certainly fabricated. the same evidence, though, shows a degree of truth to the history in that the hebrews did enter and eventually take displace the previous residents.

the belief that muhammed lived has greater rational basis than the belief that he did not. oral history has greater historical provenance than personal likes and dislikes. much of what is attributed to Mohammed did in fact, occur. the rejection of his being leaves unaccounted all his accorded accomplishments which can be documented.

if it is rational to say that he never existed because there is no extra islamic evidence of his living, it is equally rational to say that Islam does not exist because the only evidence that we have that it came into being is unconfirmable.

geo.
 
Last edited:
people believe that muhammed lived without confimatble evidence because they want to. they accept an oral history because it satisfies a need to believe and includes them in a community of believers'

people believe that the oral history is false without evidence because it facilitates the rejection of the faith based upon the acceptance of his living. although it is impossible to show that the premise is false, it is not impossible to show that the premise was fabricated.

the belief that muhammed lived has greater rational basis than the belief that he did not. oral history has greater historical provenance than personal likes and dislikes.

geo.

What is the rational basis for Mohammad being anything more than a mythical figure?
 
for most of human history, most of what we could be said to know was transmitted orally. to reject something that we claim to know based on the fact that it is "only oral history" rejects most of what we knew prior to the invention of writing.

that, as a scientific OR philosophical premise, is nonsense.

the reason to accept it is that the history has survived for a millenia and a half and there is no reason equally good to reject it.

it is pretty certain, as i said above, that the bloody carnage accredited to joshua and the hebrews in conquering cannaan never actually happened. to extrapolate from that and the fact that no nonhebrew writings confirm joshua's existence that he did not exist is completely unsound as reason.

provability is not a trait of existence only of knowledge. that a thing can not be proved does not make it false. the earth was round before copernicus or galileo.

geo.
 
for most of human history, most of what we could be said to know was transmitted orally. to reject something that we claim to know based on the fact that it is "only oral history" rejects most of what we knew prior to the invention of writing.

This isn't prior to the invention of writing, and my objection is not that it was not written but that it was not written down by outside contemporary sources.

that, as a scientific OR philosophical premise, is nonsense.

the reason to accept it is that the history has survived for a millenia and a half and there is no reason equally good to reject it.

it is pretty certain, as i said above, that the bloody carnage accredited to joshua and the hebrews in conquering cannaan never actually happened. to extrapolate from that and the fact that no nonhebrew writings confirm joshua's existence that he did not exist is completely unsound as reason.

provability is not a trait of existence only of knowledge. that a thing can not be proved does not make it false. the earth was round before copernicus or galileo.

geo.

Ya and the Greeks new that long before them, and guess what? They wrote it down.
 
I still don't understand your point. Can you draw me a picture?
 
How about any records from contemporary non-Muslims or non-Christians?

Jesus was just some obscure Jewish preacher, and Mohammed was some preacher/warlord out in the middle of Arabia. There may have been records, but they were lost. We accept many things in history without mountains of evidence.
 
Jesus was just some obscure Jewish preacher, and Mohammed was some preacher/warlord out in the middle of Arabia. There may have been records, but they were lost. We accept many things in history without mountains of evidence.

They were supposedly not obscure.
 
Buddha existed because we know Siddhartha existed... there is proof of it. Also, his teachings have been passed down unbroken for more than two millennia. Unlike Christianity and Islam, the core Buddhist text have remained unaltered from the day they were recorded.

Most Buddhist scholars will tell you though that there were other Buddhas which existed before "the" Buddha, it's just that their teachings weren't written down. I think the most valuable lesson we can take from such a fact is that enlightened people are continuously born, and we shouldn't cling so obstinately to these single individuals from so long ago. There are enlightened people even in today's world.

As for Jesus and Mohammad... I really don't know. Considering that what Jesus said was written down almost a century later for the first time, then transcribed, then was translated over the ages, then the original Roman manuscript (that was translated from Aramaic before the Aramaic copy was lost) was partially burned in a fire, then we had the crusades, etc etc. It's impossible to know whether or not half of the stuff they said happened actually happened. The other problem is that the story of Jesus is almost identical to earlier legends about the execution and rise of Horus in ancient Egypt, and Tammuz from Sumeria. Even the stories of the Greek and Roman gods have parallels to earlier civilizations... for instance, Ishtar is comparable to Aphrodite.

Mostly I just wish people would use their critical thinking skills and their own spirituality to look inward now, and find some of the answers. Instead, people are having wars over what may or may not have happened 2000 years ago. It's so juvenile. Just get over it, and look for new routes to enlightened knowledge already.
 
Buddha existed because we know Siddhartha existed... there is proof of it.

No there isn't.

Also, his teachings have been passed down unbroken for more than two millennia. Unlike Christianity and Islam, the core Buddhist text have remained unaltered from the day they were recorded.

Ya from Buddhist sources.
 
No there isn't.

Ya from Buddhist sources.

How does that not qualify as proof? Do you want scientists to time travel to use their modern diagnostic techniques or what? In the pre-scientific eras, it was these kinds of traditions in Asia that preserved knowledge.
 
How does that not qualify as proof? Do you want scientists to time travel to use their modern diagnostic techniques or what? In the pre-scientific eras, it was these kinds of traditions in Asia that preserved knowledge.

How about a non-Buddhist contemporary historian making mention of Buddha?
 
Exactly. If people want to believe in Mohammad, Jesus, the easter bunny, tooth-fairy or Santa Claus, who cares? As long as they don't tread on me, I could care less what they think. Although, I do find them to be illogical and perhaps a bit delusional, who cares?

Furthermore, if the great religious figures never existed, how does that make their moral stories of any less value?

Just because Jesus/Mohammad never existed doesn't suddenly make it wrong to donate to charity.
 
Back
Top Bottom