Searching for proof of God/Islam - Tell me why I'm wrong

[loverofhumanity]

Many of us don't see the necessity of it, though.

I was talking about proofs vs prophecies. A few posts back I asked you to share some proofs. Some of the things you ended up sharing as proofs looked more like prophecies to me, at least some of which have yet to be fulfilled. If a prophecy has yet to be fulfilled, how can it count as a proof?

What kind of proofs do you seek? I think prophecies are one form of proof but not all proof.

What kind of proof are you meaning?

 

[The_Fisher_King]

What kind of proofs do you seek? I think prophecies are one form of proof but not all proof.

What kind of proof are you meaning?

I personally don't seek any proofs as such (in these matters that we are discussing). I think and I feel and I believe.

I think a prophecy can be a proof if it has been fulfilled. But if it has not (yet) been fulfilled, I don't think we can (yet) take it to be proof of something.

For me, proof is a convincing demonstration that something is true.

 

[loverofhumanity]

I personally don't seek any proofs as such (in these matters that we are discussing). I think and I feel and I believe.

I think a prophecy can be a proof if it has been fulfilled. But if it has not (yet) been fulfilled, I don't think we can (yet) take it to be proof of something.

For me, proof is a convincing demonstration that something is true.

Baha'u'llah, we believe has fulfilled many prophecies with regards to His Coming.

For instance Jeremiah 49:38

I will set my throne in Elam....

In the last days God would establish His Throne (Revelation) in Elam.
According to Eerdman's Bible Dictionary ....

ELAM (Heb. ʽêlām) (PLACE)
Name denoting both a region in highland Fars province (Iran) around the modern city of Shiraz

The Baha'i Faith began in Shiraz when the Bab declared His Mission.

Another example is the Revelation of Muhammad.

Deut 33:2

The Lord.......
he shined forth from mount Paran,

Where is Paran (Strong's Bible dictionary)

h6290. פָּארָן p̱â’rân; from 6286; ornamental; Paran, a desert of Arabia: — Paran.
AV (11) - Paran 11; Paran = "place of caverns"

Prophet Muhammad had His Revelation in a cave

There are hundreds if not thousands of prophecies which all tell of a Prophet's Coming but there will always be those who dispute and never accept any proof.

 

[viole]

Sure. Do you understand what I'm talking about? We have Mohammed's remains with us to this day but where are the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, sir? They were guarded closely by a team of professional Roman soldiers. So what happened to them?

Nice stories in a book, you know .

Ciao

- viole

 

[The_Fisher_King]

Baha'u'llah, we believe has fulfilled many prophecies with regards to His Coming.

For instance Jeremiah 49:38

I will set my throne in Elam....

In the last days God would establish His Throne (Revelation) in Elam.
According to Eerdman's Bible Dictionary ....

ELAM (Heb. ʽêlām) (PLACE)
Name denoting both a region in highland Fars province (Iran) around the modern city of Shiraz

The Baha'i Faith began in Shiraz when the Bab declared His Mission.

Another example is the Revelation of Muhammad.

Deut 33:2

The Lord.......
he shined forth from mount Paran,

Where is Paran (Strong's Bible dictionary)

h6290. פָּארָן p̱â’rân; from 6286; ornamental; Paran, a desert of Arabia: — Paran.
AV (11) - Paran 11; Paran = "place of caverns"

Prophet Muhammad had His Revelation in a cave

There are hundreds if not thousands of prophecies which all tell of a Prophet's Coming but there will always be those who dispute and never accept any proof.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[YmirGF]

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Oddly, that is what most Muslims have said to the Bahai followers almost since day one... though, to be fair, many Muslims were quite strident about it.

 

[loverofhumanity]

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Most welcome. Thank you for being so patient.

 

[The_Fisher_King]

Most welcome. Thank you for being so patient.

No worries!

 

[Arkannine21]

I don't think your conclusion above (in bold) follows from your preceding conditions.

I should say that I believe 1-4 to be true.

But getting back to your argument, why should the facts that Muhammad (pbuh) brought the Qur'aan, that the Qur'aan has not materially changed since the point of its arrival, that Muhammad (pbuh) genuinely believed that the Qur'aan was from God and that the Qur’aan, along with its effects on people, are beyond what can realistically be expected from the products of someone with mental illness necessarily mean that there is a genuine supernatural nature to the Qur'aan? None of these things necessarily point to a supernatural origin for the Qur'aan. It could be that Muhammad (pbuh) was a particularly canny individual. Not all canny individuals are God's Messengers.

Let me ask you a different question. What do you think about the things that the Qur'aan says? What do you feel when you read the Qur'aan?

Hi Ya'quub,

If Muhammed genuinely believed he met a non-human being (Gabriel) and received revelations in the form of the Qur'an, it's likely that he was either crazy or this actually happened. If he wasn't crazy, it happened. If the book is unchanged since when it was first revealed, then the book with us today has non-human origins.

What I feel when I read the Qur'an is not relevant - if the criteria for a religion being right/wrong is simply that it "feels" right, then any religion can be made to seem like the right way.

Look forward to your response!

 

[Arkannine21]

Seems you are starting with the assumption that there must be a god of some kind. Why do you think that you need a belief system that embraces unproven and unsupported supernatural claims and ancient mythology? Being an atheist is much easier. Gods and spirits don't bother me, I don't bother (with) them. Why invest so much time and effort building a belief system up around invisible entities that likely don't exist?

Thanks JustWondering! Would be great to hear more about your thoughts on the first post. Specifically, why do you think there is an underlying assumption that God exists?

Whether or not it's easier to be an athiest is irrelevant - the purpose here is to try and work out what's actually true.

 

[Arkannine21]

It's almost deceptive here. Qu'ran as a whole book is never verifiable. The parchment is just a small part of the whole book. So no one can tell if today's Qu'ran is the same book published 1500 years ago.

God's messages, if anything critical to humans, must be conveyed consistently throughout history.

OT Bible:
We have a whole library (Dead Sea Scrolls) with complete books for us to draw the conclusion that theologically the same contents remain in today's Bible.

We have an authorized earthly entity to maintain its consistency strictly to prevent any adding or removing of contents. The canonization of OT was serious done and maintained.

NT Bible:
We have 2 whole book artifacts (NIV stream of Bibles), and another independent source (KJV stream) for us to cross reference to draw the conclusion that the same theology is conveying today as it was some 2000 years ago.

We have another authorized earthly entity to maintain its consistency strictly to prevent any adding and removing or contents. The canonization of NT was serious done and maintained.

It's the work of a serious God for a serious message (of salvation) to convey.

My understanding was that the manuscripts, at least the Sana'a manuscript, actually incorporate a significant portion of the book. On a google search, it looks like the Sana'a manuscript does incorporate at least parts of many different Surahs.

Could you please provide a source that shows how much of the Qur'an is included in the manuscript? Or a source that confirms it's only a small part of the book? It would help me tremendously.

Furthermore, my understanding was that the Dead Sea Scrolls differed significantly from the contents of today's Bible. To clarify, when I mention that the Sana'a manuscripts are almost identical to today's Qur'an, I mean that differences are very minor - for example how a word is spelled or substitution of one word with a very similar word. Are the Dead Sea Scrolls at the same level of consistency?

Also, I don't understand what is meant by the term "authorized earthly entity" - please could you clarify?

 

[Rajina]

Hello all,

I'm in the process of looking at different belief systems, and I've tried to summarise why I am beginning to settle on belief in God & specifically Islam.

Getting some challenge from your sharp debating minds would be immensely helpful to highlight any shortcomings in my current thinking.

Context: The Qur’an is a book which is claimed to be from God, written mostly in the first person, and said to have been revealed between 609-632 AD orally via Muhammed. It is claimed that Muhammed had direct interactions with Gabriel throughout the revelation of the Qur’an.

Basic structure:

If the following conditions are true:

1. Muhammed brought the Qur’an
   
2. The Qur’an has not materially changed since the point of its arrival
   
3. Muhammed genuinely believed that the Qur’an was from God
   
4. The Qur’an, along with its effects on people, are beyond what can realistically be expected from the products of someone with mental illness

Then: There is almost certainly a genuine supernatural nature to the core text of Islam that is available to us today



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



1. Muhammed brought the Qur’an

• There are many thousands of records called ‘Hadith’ that make reference to the Prophet Muhammed & his life, including Qur’anic revelation
  
• There are some corroborating records in contemporary times from non-Arab sources that mention Muhammed & the Qur’an
  
• There are no contemporary sources that even suggest Mohammed didn’t exist or didn’t bring the Qur’an

2. The Qur’an has not materially changed since the point of its arrival

• The earliest manuscript is the Birmingham manuscript, held in the University of Birmingham (http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2015/07/quran-manuscript-22-07-15.aspx) – this is carbon dated between 568 AD & 645 AD
  
• There are other very old manuscripts, e.g. Sana’a manuscript from before 671 AD
  
• None of the contents of these manuscripts varies in a material way from the modern Qur’an
  
• The official Islamic story of the Qur’an’s compilation is that it was revealed orally to Muhammed between 609-632 AD. It was then compiled into a book soon after his death, before which it was transmitted orally. The compilation into today’s standard edition took place in ~650 AD.
  
• Given the nomadic Arab oral tradition, it is very believable that the Qur’an would have remained mostly unchanged in the max. 10-20 year period before it was written down. To illustrate, even today, some nomadic Arabs are able to recite hours of poetry by heart

3. Muhammed genuinely believed that the Qur’an was from God
The potential motivations for Muhammed to recite the Qur’an to his people can be summarised in this tree:

An analysis of the factors mentioned in the above tree is as follows:

4. The Qur’an, along with its effects on people, are beyond what can realistically be expected from the products of someone with mental illness

• Schizophrenic patients or those with schizophrenic traits will often display ‘Knight’s move thinking’ – switching between ideas with little or no connection without warning. Those with schizotypal personality disorder also often exhibit unusual speech structures & unnatural shifts between ideas. On the other hand, the Qur’an is able to deliver coherent stories & makes a clear transition from one idea to the next
  
• Manic disorder/bipolar disorder is often characterised by hyperexcitable speech & flight of ideas. As explained above, the Qur’an is able to hold an idea/story & explain it, and there is a clear transition from one idea to the next. Furthermore, the tone of the Qur’an is consistent throughout, which indicates an absence of bipolar wild mood swings in the compilation of the Qur’an
  
• Muhammed claimed to interact directly with Gabriel when receiving Qur’anic revelations, including visual, auditory & physical contact. Schizophrenic hallucinations are usually only auditory, and usually have a negative connotation. In general, hallucinations are nowhere near as well developed as the experiences which Muhammed is claimed to have gone through.
  
• Epileptic hallucinations are even less likely to cause the combination of visual, auditory & physical contact with a person, especially not on a recurrent basis
  
• Furthermore, the Arabic Qur’an recitation demonstrates signs of having been written by someone with considerable intelligence. It has a certain rhythm which many find appealing, and a sense of authority which many find makes it easy to believe. These features are not easy to imitate. Most mental illnesses, including epilepsy, are correlated with a lower IQ, which makes it less likely that the Qur’an could have been produced by someone with a mental disorder

I think you should add one more point in the Answers of the 'self benefit' section in your chart. Hadeeths show that people of Mecca who were against Islam offered him wealth and other benefits including kingship if he stopped preaching Islam. He denied their offer and chose to suffer all hardships and preach Islam.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Sure. Do you understand what I'm talking about? We have Mohammed's remains with us to this day but where are the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, sir? They were guarded closely by a team of professional Roman soldiers. So what happened to them?

So closely guarded he was able to walk out of his own tomb and the first person he encountered was a female Jew

Out of curiosity, where are Muhammad's remains? Are they in a museum?

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Yeah. That's because even they know he is no savior. His grave is with us to this day.

Haven't you heard? Jesus has two graves: one in the Levant and one in India.

 

[Arkannine21]

Thanks for the response HonestJoe, and apologies for my very delayed response.

I don’t refer to belief in historical events as “faith”, certainly not with the same meaning as religious faith. The whole point of religious faith is that it replaces the factual evidence that exists for historical events.

The other key difference is that it doesn’t really matter if I believe in WW2, if I just accept it probably happened the way depicted or if I personally believe most of it but think some elements are misrepresented or misreported. With religious beliefs (certainly monotheistic ones like Islam), believers are meant to be 100% definitively committed, where any doubt or question is considered a failing or even a sin. Not believing (or not believing in the same way as everyone else) is even worse and had led to continued division and violence throughout human history.

The point of this exercise is to establish whether or not religion, specifically Islam, is true. If one set of criteria is applied to historical events and another, less stringent, set of criteria is applied to religious belief then that's a rather peculiar situation to be in. Especially considering how many orders of magnitude more important the truth of religion is in comparison to something like the details of a historical event.

With regards to your point on WW2, you're right - you can accept events as they are depicted with the understanding that some events almost definitely happened & others could very realistically not have happened.

For those events that almost definitely happened in WW2, for example Germany's airstrikes against Britain, there is still a chance that they didn't take place (e.g. falsified historical records, exaggeration of scale, etc). But it would be crazy to go around acting like it never happened, just because there is a small chance that historical facts are inaccurate.

In other words, once you get to a certain level of evidence, it becomes absurd to regard an event as not having happened. In other words, your 'faith' (for lack of a better word) is at 100%.

My main point was that it’s wrong for you to state that Mohammed can’t have had any kind of mental illness because you don’t think his experiences are consistent with that. He could have but even if he did, we can’t know how it might have impacted his life, including the key parts of it we’re discussing.

I do think Mohammed probably had some of the general psychological components common among those who seek and achieve positions of such power and adulation, not mental illness as such but still a significant influence of behaviour and worldview.

As above, the point of this exercise is to determine what the most likely scenario is. In my view, the information put forth in the first post demonstrates that it's very unlikely Muhammed believed he was receiving revelations as a result of mental illness. There is still a small chance that he was suffering a mental illness which caused him to imagine he was receiving revelations. That will always be the case. The point that is being made is that the probability is so low, it would be absurd to take it seriously.

Would love to hear if you think that's inaccurate, but based on your response, I think you agree?

On the topic of personality traits, you may be interested to know that people who are excessively obsessed with power/adulation are regarded as suffering a mental illness. Look up 'Personality disorders.' These illnesses have their own signs & symptoms, which I've tried to compare against Muhammed in the first post.

The conclusion I reached is that it is very unlikely Muhammed suffered a personality disorder based on the Qur'an's contents and his reported behaviour - but would be great to hear your challenge on that?

The same reason other people in similar positions are. It’s a fundamental element of human nature so it would actually be unusual for him not to be influenced to some extent in that manner. Again, I’m not making definitive claims, just challenging your position of definitively dismissing the possibilities.

See above - would be great to hear your challenge to the rationale presented in the first post. You'll find it in the table, which is copied as a picture. Let me know if you have any difficulty finding it, happy to repost here.

I don’t think what you’re trying to achieve is possible because the information we have about Mohammed’s behaviour is incomplete and largely biased. You can’t analyse someone on the basis of what his devoted followers say about him alone.

We've established that the Qur'an is seemingly unchanged, yes? If so, we can use that as a proxy for what might have been going through his mind, assuming it wasn't revealed by God.

In any case, I don't think you're right to 100% dismiss all stories/hadith related by his contemporaries. There might be exaggerations, there might be some blatant inaccuracies. But you'd expect these accounts to roughly reflect what actually happened? Do you disagree? Do you know any verifiable examples where religious, or even political, followers have entirely counterfeited their leader's past?

The physical nature of whoever visited Muhammed is irrelevant, it is the content of the interaction that matters.

Really? So you don’t think the difference between a real Allah sending angels to Mohammed to reveal the truths of the universe and (for example) a time traveller going back to Mohammed to troll him with tricks and lies would make any difference to the legitimacy of the Muslim faith?

A few points on this:

a) The conclusion being argued for is that the Qur'an came from an external/non-human source
b) We were talking about angels, not God. We know very little about the characteristics of angels. To give you a hypothetical example, even if one day we discover that angels live on a planet in another solar system, that doesn't change the fact they are angels. All it would mean is that we've learned more about what angels really are
c) 'Time traveller' is just a name and is irrelevant. The question you should be asking is 'what are the traits of the being that sent the Qur'an?' If it was revealed by a 'time travelling' being that has all of the traits that God is supposed to have, then yes, it makes no difference

Most early Muslims would have never met Mohammed and certainly wouldn’t have been present for all of the events in his life so they wouldn’t know if the early teachings were accurate or not. Even within his lifetime I’ve no doubt events could have been exaggerated and selected for propagation. I’m also not sure how much the average person would actually be involved in the detailed teachings anyway with the practicalities of surviving daily life being the priority for most.

I don't understand this one. The Qur'an was, according to Islamic history, compiled during the lifetime of Muhammed's immediate companions. Recently uncovered manuscripts seem to verify that history.

Most of the available Islamic historical records, called hadith, are attributed to Muhammed's contemporaries who were close to him. There were quite a lot of these people, as you can imagine given Islam's rapid rise during Muhammed's lifetime. Absolutely agreed that some of these might have been exaggerated, but would you advocate completely dismissing them?

Would love to hear if you disagree with the historical utility of these sources and, if so, why?

 

[JustWondering]

Thanks JustWondering! Would be great to hear more about your thoughts on the first post. Specifically, why do you think there is an underlying assumption that God exists?

Since there is no evidence whatsoever to confirm the existence of any god/s, anyone claiming belief in them HAVE to start with the assumption that these things actually exist/can exist.

Whether or not it's easier to be an athiest is irrelevant - the purpose here is to try and work out what's actually true.

Why do you think Allah's existence is more likely than that of leprechauns, Lord Zenu, bigfoot, Zeus, Ra, or unicorns?

 

[HonestJoe]

The point of this exercise is to establish whether or not religion, specifically Islam, is true.

I’d respectfully suggest your point in this thread is to establish Islam is true. You’re not really asking an open question, just seeking validation.

The If one set of criteria is applied to historical events and another, less stringent, set of criteria is applied to religious belief then that's a rather peculiar situation to be in.

There’s nothing inconsistent with applying different criteria to historical events and religious beliefs. I’m treating the historical elements of Islam and Mohammed the same way as any other historical sources. That’s why I’m not leaping to the same divine and theological conclusions you have.

The conclusion I reached is that it is very unlikely Muhammed suffered a personality disorder based on the Qur'an's contents and his reported behaviour - but would be great to hear your challenge on that?

The fundamental problem with much of this is that your assessment of the whole thing is based exclusively on what is written in Islamic scriptures but that is implicitly biased. Whether the writers truly believed Mohammed was divinely inspired or they were interested in promoting the idea for socio-political reasons, they would avoid reporting anything that presents him in a bad light and would possible exaggerate or spin words and events to present them in the best light.

In any case, I don't think you're right to 100% dismiss all stories/hadith related by his contemporaries. There might be exaggerations, there might be some blatant inaccuracies. But you'd expect these accounts to roughly reflect what actually happened? Do you disagree? Do you know any verifiable examples where religious, or even political, followers have entirely counterfeited their leader's past?

No, I don’t think religious scripture, especially when initially written to be such, can’t be assumed to accurately represent the reality of what happened.

a) The conclusion being argued for is that the Qur'an came from an external/non-human source

Your opening statement was that this is about establishing the truth of Islam and that states a very specifically defined source. If the source was anything other than that claimed within the Koran, that would not only be a break in the truth of Islam but also raise questions about all the other fundamental truths which are supported on the back of the claim of a truly divine source in the first place (the general self-supporting problem of many monotheistic religions).

b) We were talking about angels, not God. We know very little about the characteristics of angels.

We know literally nothing about “angels” – they’re not even consistently defined across religions and beliefs. It’s less than meaningless to talk about them in this context unless you first define exactly what and who they are and then demonstrate why that definition should be accepted as fact.

Most of the available Islamic historical records, called hadith, are attributed to Muhammed's contemporaries who were close to him. There were quite a lot of these people, as you can imagine given Islam's rapid rise during Muhammed's lifetime. Absolutely agreed that some of these might have been exaggerated, but would you advocate completely dismissing them?

I’m not completely dismissing them. They’re vital if you wish to assess the reality behind Mohammed’s live and the Islamic faith. I am recognising them for what we know them to be – scripture written by people with a vested interest in promoting their developing religion. We can’t blindly accept them on face value in the way you clearly wish to do.

The whole thing boils down to a big “We don’t know”.

 

[Arkannine21]

How does your argument not prove that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and the book of Mormon is from God?

Hi Tumah,

I've tried to do some reading on Joseph Smith and Mormonism. Although I'm no expert, I know more now and can share some thoughts.

I'm guessing you aren't Mormon? Do you know much about the religion? It would be great if you could comment on my factual accuracy or point out ways in which I'm being biased in any way.

Let's assume that Joseph Smith was sane and that history has recorded what happened accurately. The question then centres around "Did Joseph Smith genuinely believe what he brought was from God?" This is the same question I asked about Muhammed in my first post, so I've structured the points under the same headings.

1. Financial & material benefits
   • Motivations:
     Immediately prior to prophethood, Muhammed was a reasonably well-off merchant, married to a prominent business-woman. He also had a reputation for 'trustworthiness' and had been given prominent intercessory roles in disputes. He then initiated his call to prophethood, which put his comfortable life in jeopardy & necessitated emigration from his homeland. He is also reported to have undergone persecution & hardship in these early days.
     
     Joseph Smith, prior to prophethood, led a life of relative hardship. In early life, his family experienced several instances of bad luck which resulted in financial difficulty. For a long while, Joseph entered the divination trade and claimed to determine where underground treasures were located. Joseph himself admitted that this was not very profitable. After Joseph's revelations being translated to English, Joseph began to develop a following & influence. It wasn't all smooth sailing, but Joseph was materially better off after becoming a prophet than he was before.
     
     
   • Charitable behaviour:
     Although LDS teaches charity to the poor & needy, I couldn't find any stories of J. Smith being kind and/or charitable to a poor/needy person. J. Smith regarded charity as a shared love of God, and this included things like forgiveness for sins, overlooking faults, etc. It's not clear that he regarded charity to the poor as essential.
     
     In comparison, there are many reports & stories of Mohammed being charitable towards the poor & needy. He is reported to have not lived a luxurious life as a result of the large sums of wealth given away over his lifetime.
2. Genuine belief in religion
   • Self-inflicted hardship from religion:
     During prophethood, Muhammed is reported to have placed numerous obligations on himself which would have been difficult to endure on a regular daily basis without genuine belief. For example, he spent hours praying every day at defined times, including for one third of every night at a public mosque. Hadith report he would pray till his feet were swollen. He also subjected himself to the 30-day Ramadan fast, and many other fasts throughout the year which were not obligatory on all Muslims.
     
     Joseph's religion had far fewer obligations and was predominantly about belief. Prayer was an ad-hoc and short exercise. I couldn't find any reports of Joseph subjecting himself to any form of strenuous daily religious activity. He did initiate the building of temples, but I'm unsure how involved he was personally. If anything, Mormonism brought with it a relaxing of Christian rules & obligations (e.g. polygamy)
     
     
   • Public/private belief mismatch:
     At times, there was a mismatch between Mormon publicly espoused beliefs & privately practiced beliefs (e.g. polygamy, plurality of Gods). If these things were part of the Mormon religion, why did Joseph Smith keep them secret? Why did the Mormons not accept that polygamous relationships are part of their religion until long after J. Smith's death?

I look forward to your thoughts & comments - would be immensely helpful.

 

[Arkannine21]

Since there is no evidence whatsoever to confirm the existence of any god/s, anyone claiming belief in them HAVE to start with the assumption that these things actually exist/can exist.

Why do you think Allah's existence is more likely than that of leprechauns, Lord Zenu, bigfoot, Zeus, Ra, or unicorns?

If you have a point, you're not making your case very clearly. You're also supplementing your case with what looks like an attempt to be inflammatory, which isn't helpful at all.

Are you saying that belief in the possibility of God's existence, or that of other non-human entities, is necessary in order to accept evidence of non-human interventions? If that's what you're saying, then my answer is as follows:

I believe there is a very real possibility that the world doesn't work the way our senses perceive it. As a result, even though our senses don't perceive them, God or any supernatural/spiritual presence could possibly exist. If there is evidence of their existence, that evidence should be accepted.

 

[Arkannine21]

The fundamental problem with much of this is that your assessment of the whole thing is based exclusively on what is written in Islamic scriptures but that is implicitly biased. Whether the writers truly believed Mohammed was divinely inspired or they were interested in promoting the idea for socio-political reasons, they would avoid reporting anything that presents him in a bad light and would possible exaggerate or spin words and events to present them in the best light.

It seems that we've reached a roadblock. We need to clarify how we use the underlying historical sources before we can move forward.

No, I don’t think religious scripture, especially when initially written to be such, can’t be assumed to accurately represent the reality of what happened.

• The Qur'an, if unchanged, is an accurate reflection of what Muhammed was saying to his people. As a source for that purpose, it's helpful
• The hadith were not written as religious scripture - they were supposed to be historical records of Muhammed's life. They may have some biases and inaccuracies, but we seem to agree that they are helpful as an indication of what happened (see next quote)

I’m not completely dismissing them. They’re vital if you wish to assess the reality behind Mohammed’s live and the Islamic faith. I am recognising them for what we know them to be – scripture written by people with a vested interest in promoting their developing religion. We can’t blindly accept them on face value in the way you clearly wish to do.

I don't think I am accepting them on face value - I'm just accepting that the major events described in them probably at least resemble what actually happened. For example, if the hadith report that Muhammed regularly prayed 5 times a day except under certain circumstances, that probably happened. Don't you agree?

If not, what would be your criteria for accepting historical events in the hadith? Or do you have any specific challenges on my approach? Such as examples of when my logic would fail with another religious/political group?

Your opening statement was that this is about establishing the truth of Islam and that states a very specifically defined source. If the source was anything other than that claimed within the Koran, that would not only be a break in the truth of Islam but also raise questions about all the other fundamental truths which are supported on the back of the claim of a truly divine source in the first place (the general self-supporting problem of many monotheistic religions).

The purpose of the first post was to establish that the Qur'an came from a non-human 'external' source. There is a further question about what that source was. Way too much to include in one thread.

I’d respectfully suggest your point in this thread is to establish Islam is true. You’re not really asking an open question, just seeking validation.

Why would you say that? I've been very transparent - I've put forward some of my thoughts on Islam & want you to challenge those thoughts.

If you said that just to big yourself up as someone who can read my intentions, then I hate to inform you that you're a million miles off.