Good old Khadim, always so inclusive
.
I guess first, it would depend what religion i believed in before the Bi'that. If i was already a Jew or Christian things would probably a bit easier to accept because i already believe in a God. On the flip side of that of course, Christians believe it ended with Jesus, so, that would be a little hard. If you look at Christianity though, it started as a breakaway sect of judaism.
I don’t think we also can’t forget the fact that Muhammad was also a politician and a general, we can't deny those aspects of power in gaining the allegiance of certain earlier followers and tribe. What still astounds me is we have (supposed) actual letters written from Muhammad as a head of state, sent to other heads of state (
https://en.wikipedia...oldid=461100745 ).
This reminds me of a question that always use to previously bug me. I use to think back to the time of Jesus, he gained followers, some people obviously believed him and people still had common sense back then.... If people believed him surely some of this stuff must of happened. I struggled with the question for a while, then i realised, just because he managed to get some people to believe him it does not necessarily mean any of it happened. We have people with very wacky beliefs today like the
Raelians and scientology. So, the property of having some people believe something in no way speaks to the veracity of it. Of course im not comparing Jesus to a cult leader or rael or anything like that, i don’t intend any offense, i'm just trying to illustrate the pure fact that some people have believers doesn’t necessarily speak to its validity.
There were plenty of other prophets around the Jesus as well but their religions didn't take off, Apollonius on tyana for example.
Jesus supposedly healed the sick, changed water into wine, made the blind see, most of us know these stories. If you saw something like someone healing a blind person (of course making sure that they’re actually blind and not just a plant or something, we have plenty of Christian pastors today who purport to be able to heal with the holy spirit but really its staged), i think that would be a pretty convincing experience. We obviously have limits to how sure we can be about...anything really but this will get too philosophical if i get down that road. I mean you could question it but once you are very sure there are no tricks (if you can get past this point) you just have to trust your senses (eyes ect) or question your own sanity i guess.
Let’s look at the prophets before Muhammad first. Say there was a guy going around town today telling people he was the son of god, would you believe him? If i walked up to you and told you God was talking to me, how would you feel? Would you honestly believe me or would you worry about me?
Reminds me of a comic i recently saw, I’m not sure if they're trying to be offensive or just point out that no one believes anymore:
Very few if any would believe me.
Look at it in another light, many here are muslims so of course they would of accepted muhammed either way, they're working backwards. Pretend it was some other person you had to asses and not muhammed, what questions would you ask, what proof would you need. Say you went back in time to the time around Jesus or moses, pretend you had no way of knowing who was jesus or who was moses, who was real or who was fake. You cant ask their names or tell by looking at them or any other way. The only way you can tell is by observing what they do, what would you need to see to be able to distinguish them from all the other false prophets of the time? What personal proof would we all require to be able to tell which ones are the real prophets and which ones are just full of hot air?
Of course, Jesus had the stupendous miracles like the loaves and the fish if the bible is to be believed. If you witnessed these with your own eyes, they are fairly hard to dispute. I think this would provide decent reason to believe but to me i think God could do an even better job of collecting followers by directly talking to them, it seems a little strange he sent Jesus in that light.
Things like changing water into wine; if you saw me change water into wine and i told you i could do it because i had powers from God would you truly believe me? Would you look for a hidden canister, powder, or something perhaps?
Onto another prophet, Moses. He had some of the most spectacular miracles, he split the red sea (most scholars actually don’t think it was the red sea, they might of just walked across another river at low tide). That’s fairly unbelievable and seas just don’t split themselves. It's not a natural event, it’s a supernatural event. Beyond things like questioning your senses or sanity of course, i think this would be strong proof. The red sea simply cannot split itself and there’s really no way to trick your way around that one, that is, if it actually did happen.
The problem for Muhammad of course is that he didn't really perform any miracles of this nature.
People often tell me the Quran is Muhammad miracle and keep shouting it at me how great the Quran is and how perfect it is. The fact of the matter is and I’m sure most of the mature people here can realise this, that fact alone won’t win you many converts. Almost all the people who claim its impressive are already Muslims, they are working backwards to justify their faith. I have read most of it and i do not find it particularly enthralling or amazing. As far as literature alone goes i personally prefer the bible or even better the gnostic gospels (Before people bombard me with the sura why challenge or other things like that, I’ve already looked at these things, I’m not really interested in being told of them or arguing over them once again).
Muhammad seemed to have a fair few people believe him before the Quran was even revealed in its totality, they didn’t see the entire Quran yet and still believed this.
No offense intended of course but say i told you God was talking to me and i wrote this down. I gave you the book telling you God was talking to me and this is what he said, what would your reaction be? The reaction you probably would have is the reaction most people would probably have.
So, i think i would find it very difficult to believe Muhammad was a prophet of God using that as my only basis and proof.
Obviously, times are a lot different now but some of the general ideas still apply.
Clearly, if you look at many of the new religious movements or what some people call cults, we can see it is not terrible hard to get at least some people to believe you.
Personally, i do not think we should discount the political climate and things like that which might of lead to Muhammad gaining followers.
That said, if i were around at that time, being the same i am now, i probably wouldn't believe him. If i saw Moses split the waters though or bring plagues on egypt (another debated topic among biblical scholars) i just might believe.
Edited by kingpomba, 19 February 2012 - 12:53 PM.
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, a the age of 40, declared his Prophethood. My question to you all is, if you were an atheist before this incident and were, then, presented with Islam, what would make you accept Islam as the religion you want to follow? For atheists, I will modify the question a bit and ask "what is the criteria for you when deciding which ideology you want to follow?
