Toto

Elijah: did you actually read the positive evidence from Ohlig and Puin? You might disagree, but it seems that there is more to this case than a simple argument from silence. And Mohammed was not a simple peasant who flew under the radar of history.

hylidae

I like this guy.

Didymus

And you?

No evidence - what a ridiculous basis for disbelief!

Hopefully, we won't someday find you sitting on a jury, and finding someone guilty despite a lack of evidence.

"No evidence" is an old idea and the "argument from silence" is an old argument, and both are still relevant and useful. Since the emergence of rationalism in the Middle Ages, belief has been based on evidence. And a lack of evidence has been the basis of non-belief - in criminal guilt, scientific theories, historical assertions and just about everything else, including a god. Arguments from silence are just a variation of the no-evidence principle.

Would you find Muhammad Sven Kalisch's claims more acceptable if he resorted to faith, intuition, hallucinations or nocturnal phantasms as their basis?

gilly54

I'm suprised at the lack of Muslim indignation about this. Muslims were demanding the deaths of the Danish cartoonists and the British teddy-bear naming teacher, but because Mohammad Sven is one of their own, nary a peep?

I hope his book is successful and I don't begrudge him any money he makes if he manages to get Muslims and their mad mullahs to question their beliefs.

Elijah

Guilt.

No it would have been more acceptable if he hadn't came to the conclusion after reading the same concept applied to other religious figures. If he said he came to this conclusion after reading xyz in some ancient text rather than another guy pushing the same idea elsewhere.

Toto

He said he came to his conclusion after studying the ancient texts.

Elijah

You find what you go looking for. He ripped the idea off other authors.

Toto

This is not supported by any evidence.

You're just digging yourself deeper into a hole. You are convinced that this man is some sort of con man or rip off artist, but you won't even bother to look into the basis of his thinking or conclusions.

Please do a little more work before you post.

thedistillers

"Contributing last year to a book on Islam, he weighed the odds and called Muhammad's existence "more probable than not." By early this year, though, his thinking had shifted. "The more I read, the historical person at the root of the whole thing became more and more improbable," he says."

Last year he thought Muhammad's existence was more probable than not, and a couple of months later he claims that prophet Muhammad probably never existed? That's not very serious. Scholars are entitled to change their mind, but... jumping to an extreme in a matter of months?

Surely before making such a controversial conclusion public, he would have to study the issue for many more years and be extremely confident of his conclusion?

There is nothing wrong to investigate the historicity of Muhammad, but scholars have a responsability to not make hasty conclusions.

Didymus

So:

a) he shouldn't have read anything about the lack of evidence for other religious figures, and...

b) he should have tossed out that tired old "no evidence" concept and replaced it with... what?

Evidence is not an "idea." It's the way rational people separate truth from fiction.