I obviously don't think that there is a god and at the very least don't feel obligated to think that any "prophet" or any act in the name of any god would be given any special treatment when talking about their moral value. However I see where you are going with this and would like to veer this back into the broader term of "moral" which hopefully can stand up in a secular manner.
That is why I have to debate God as a concept with non-theists instead of a given reality. The point was what would be true if God did exist and did send prophets. You have no way of knowing that Moses or Jesus was not talking directly to God and carrying out his wishes. The vast majority of mankind throughout history have believed in God's and prophets, a huge proportion have believed in the Bible, it's God, and it's prophets so it is not something that can be hand waved away based on wishful thinking or desire. Billions of Christians would swear in court they have experienced God directly. However I have been talking about what would be true if God existed.
So is he a moral man? Was he "good"? Devoid of the existence of god is he good or not?
Do you mean the man in your analogy? If so his act was probably good. He may have been a scumbag the rest of the time. There are several reasons this is not really important or even knowable.
1. Without God wherever the line between immoral people and moral people is drawn it is completely arbitrary. In fact without God no moral truth can possibly exist. The best you can do is arbitrary ethics that if true would be so by dumb luck.
2. I am a theist. I debate everything in that context. I can't really see any relevance in discussing secular morality. I can say one thing for sure though. If you compare moral statistics for the US prior to the secular revolution in 1960 with those after almost everything has gotten far far worse. When we kicked God out of our institutions we have paid a dear price for it in about every category there is concerning morals.
Well this is where I run into snags. I mean if we assume Christianity and the bible is correct then obviously its a "no ****" moment. But if we don't assume Christianity is correct then all of those points kind of fall apart.
Well you kind of half to do one or the other. I debate what would be true if God exists. That is about the best that can be done. However those claims are logical even without knowing for sure what God or if any are true. Only if you we assume the one thing we can't possibly know (God does not exist) would those points loose all meaning.
Though to correct you a wee bit. The koran does agree with many of the same prophets of the bible on the basest terms that they exist. The stories are often very different. The Jesus in the Koran is a very different person than the Jesus in the bible. What evidence can you bring that proves that the Jesus in the bible is the correct version of "jesus" compared to the Jesus of the Koran.
Well over 80% of the stories are almost identical. Let me explain where all this corruption stuff came from. Muhammad as so many other false prophets wanted to gain legitimacy for his theology by associating it with the Bible. He had almost no knowledge of it but new it reputation. He was taught stories from it second and third hand by his uncle and others. He made the big mistake of suggesting the Koran should be judged by the Bible to indicate it's divine source because he wrote stories that agreed with the distorted versions of the Bible's stories he was told about. At first that was no problem because almost no one in Arabia had a Bible that was also a Muslim. Years later when people compared the Bible and the Quran they soon found contradiction and contradiction. Well now what do Muslim's do? They do the opposite of Muhammad said to do of course they condemn the Bible instead of letting the Bible condemn the Quran as they were instructed based on ignorance. The only way out was to invent stories about Biblical corruption that are demonstrably false. To give you two examples of just how screwed up Muhammad was about the Bible.
1. He claimed Christians believe the trinity was God, Mary, and Christ. The only Christians that believed that were a few fringe Hebrews kicked out of Israel for thinking something so absurd and they migrated to Arabia. Now why did Allah not even know what the doctrine actually was (regardless of whether the doctrine was true of false)?
2. He claimed Jesus was not crucified despite being removed from the event by 500 years and a thousand miles, and despite every single contemporary record claiming the opposite. The crucifixion is one of the historical facts virtually every NT scholar on every side of faith admits is reliable.
Multiply those two claims by a thousand and Islam becomes shipwrecked pretty fast.
Unfortunatly I don't put to much stock int C.S. Lewis. The man isn't terribly convincing. I don't claim all of what Jesus said was advisable or even remotely moral. In fact many of his statements were contradictory to earlier Hebrew doctrine.
When Britain was at it's lowest point in WW2 it was C.S Lewis that was tasked by Churchill to speak over the BBC to the people. He more than any other one thing kept England from complete despair. The only thing I can say is history does not confirm your opinion. You have no frame of reference to judge a divine being if one existed.
Let me illustrate it this way. If God killed every human on earth this instant by what standard could you condemn him?
I also don't like the Lord or Lunatic argument. Its a false dichotomy that really doesn't reflect the most likely choice at hand. I prefer to think of hims as a legend of some kind. Its possible he didn't exist at all but I at least lend the likelihood of his existence in some form or another.
I would never have thought anyone would ever have not agreed to that simple truth.
The greatest wrong possible is to lie, act on that lie, brings others into culpability based on that lie and claim that lie is a divine truth. There may be more damaging things but there is no greater wrong conceivable.
The only thing that has caused more damage than yelling "God wills it" or "Allahu Akbar" then killing until your exhausted, is claiming there is no God and killing until everyone on the other side is dead or that evolution justifies racial supremacy and killing 50 million people on that basis.
If Christ said he was the way but Muhammad was right then Christ will put 4 billion people in hell so far. If Christ was right then Muhammad has sent probably 2 billion to Hell. If neither are right then people in their name have killed millions based on a lie. If anything is worse then can you tell me what it is?
Well I get why a "christniaty is correct by default" position can make claims to his immorality of misrepresenting god but as you stated I am more for a secular position.
Christianity is correct by reason and evidence. I hate Pascal's wager in it's original form. Faith derived by default is not faith that will save anyone. If anything is wrong in this world it is the dismissal of faith based on a contrived motivation that lacks merit. Christians have studied their faith probably more than any subject in the history of man has been studied by any group.
According to more scholars professional opinions than not, history shows Muhammad was an immoral, tyrannical, and brutal warlord on a secular scale and a fanatical false prophet on a theological scale. However it is only on a theological scale that he has any relevance in a religious forum. I could discuss his mediocre military skills if you wanted but why would that be important?
