Originally Posted by premjan

True, but some fantasies are obviously at odds with reality.

Originally Posted by Clinical

Muhammed is a name. Names in Arabic have meanings. My name means "self-made" or "self-dependent". You can also find similarities in other languages, such as "Christian" in English.
Thus Muhammed is a name that means "blessed". It is not a common name or just a title/description.

None was called Muhammed before Muhammed.

1. None was called Muhammed in Arabia before Muhammed.
2. The Quran is not "just a collection of sayings attributed to various early Arab" and neither "many of the sayings probably come from preexisting inscriptions on monuments and buildings". So far we have found nothing even remotely similar to what the Quran says from pre-existing monuments or buildings. Where do you get your information from? The only theory similar to this is that the Quran copied some of the pre-Islamic poetry, but this theory is now discredited because the vast majority of these poetries were proved to be post-Islamic invention.

Muhammed wrote and collected the Quran. That's what it says at least. So far I have seen no credible alternative theories.

Wrong. The story of "Uthmanic recension" have been proved to be a forgery. It is a very late invention actually.
We have several manuscripts from the mid-7th century that prove the preservation of the Quran we have today.

I agree with you on the Hadiths and Sira and part of the Muslim history, but not when it comes to the Quran. Muslims were known to hold the Quran in a very high regard and status. If someone attempted to deliberately change the Quran it would have a created a massive backlash throughout the Muslim world. You are wrong to compare between Muslims and Christians here because Christians had no revealed book, just several biographies of Jesus. Everyone wrote what he heard or believed Jesus had done and said. There is no comparison with the Muslims whose one of their belief tenets is the preservation of their revealed Scripture.

Muslims began to idolize the Quran way before the mid 13th century. You are depending on very old "scholarship" here. We have Arab inscriptions of the Quran from mid-7th century (The very dawn of Islam) on coins and monuments.

1. Muslims claim that the Quran is perfect unadulterated of what was revealed to Muhammed. We have several manuscripts from mid-7th century that confirm this.
2. There is no "book that exists in heaven". What exists in heaven is an imperishable tablet that has history from the beginning to the end. The Quran says we will see it on Judgment Day.

The Quran is not worshiped and is never treated like God. It's a preserved creature.
Your attitude is biased indeed; you make offensive and mindless sweeping generalizations about other religions and their followers. Muslims have always contributed to comparative religion and theology, including textual criticism hermeneutics and philosophy of religion. There was always study of science and philosophy in schools from the dawn of Islam till this day. The oldest continuous university today is in Morocco.

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

They are "obviously at odds with reality" only to those who regard them as fantasies. To a Christian, there is nothing obviously fantastic about the resurrection of Christ. It's just another miracle, and if you're a Christian, reality includes a few miracles.

People invent stories to answer questions, and it makes no difference to that tendency whether the stories are consistent with a scientific view of reality. The mere fact that Muhammad's putative biography includes no miracles does not raise the probability of its being factual.

I have no strong opinion on Muhammad's historicity, but considering the state of the extant evidence, I see nothing the least bit improbable about his nonexistence.

Originally Posted by Steve Weiss

The existence of a Koranic Mohammed is probable based upon what evidence?

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

I didn't say it was probable.

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

I didn't say it was probable.

Originally Posted by Steve Weiss

But perhaps you could state your position more in the positive.

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

My position is that the evidence is not sufficient to justify a firm belief on my part one way or the other,...

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

According to Islam, the Night Journey took place 12 years after Muhammad became a prophet, during the 7th century. Muhammad had been in his home city of Mecca, at his cousin's home (the house of Ummu Hani' binti Abu Thalib) in Isha'a prayer. Afterwards, Muhammad went to the Masjid al-Haram. While he was resting at the Kaaba, the angel Jibril (Gabriel) appeared to him followed by the Buraq. Muhammad mounted the beast, and in the company of Gabriel, they traveled to the "farthest mosque". The location of this mosque was not explicitly stated, but is generally accepted to mean Al-Aqsa Mosque (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem. At this location, Muhammad dismounted from the Buraq, prayed, and then once again mounted the Buraq and was taken to the various heavens, to meet first the earlier prophets and then God. Muhammad was instructed to tell his followers that they were to offer prayers 50 times per day. However, at the urging of Moses (Musa), Muhammad returns to God and it was eventually reduced to 10 times, and then 5 times per day as this was the destiny of Muhammad and his people. The Buraq then transported Muhammad back to Mecca.