wordy

But Ali was a relative to him wasn't he. Persian muslims, did they make Ali up too? Wouldn't the Sunnis then counter with saying that Ali is made up? That he wasn't close relative to Muhammed?

post tenebras lux

They are claimed to be first cousins, with both sharing Shaiba ibn Hashim (aka Abdu’l-Muttalib) as their fathers' father.

Ali is also said to have married Mohammed's only surviving daughter, thus also becoming a son-in-law.

Sunni's cannot disown Ali as they consider him to be the fourth caliph (and the last of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, whilst the Shia consider him to be the first imam as well as the first (rightful) caliph.

Malachi151

This is all based on made up stories hundreds of years later, its all just nonsense.

Jesus supposedly had a brother names James too, so what?

And Zeus had a wife named Hera....

wordy

doesn't that support that muhammed existed. I think they could have edited the many different traditions to be consistent in the books about him.

the Koran was collected from many who had learnt it by heart? They must have edited that collection then? One argument I heard are that the very old arabic was hard to interpret. Not easy to know what some verses actually intend.

I've tried to read translations to english or swedish and the arabic is very different in how it express things.

Malachi151

A coincidence here and there is one thing. When ever character in all your stories has a name that literally relates to the role of the character in the story, that's something else, and the funny thing is that Jews don't deny this, only the Christians do.

Some Jews deny it, but its generally accepted among Jews that their stories are just that, stories. The Christians are the ones that try to make it history.

Its obvious to Jews, they know that Adam means earth, they use the language.

Also, BTW, the name Peter literally means rock, its not a name even, it was never a name before the invention of the Peter character.

The name comes from the Greek Petra, from which we get petrafication, etc.

Peter is the masculinization of Petra to create the name Peter, or Rock, which, in Mithric mythology (the dominant religion of the Roman Empire when Christianity deveoloped) is the source of the birth and power of Mithras, i.e. the Rock is the foundation of the religion, and in Christianity Peter (Rock) is supposed to be the foundation of the Church, as Jesus delcared "Peter you shall be the rock on which the church is founded", or, in the origional Greek "Rock, you shall be the rock..."

premjan

Maybe he had just one name (he was an orphan) and it was Muhammad.

wordy

Zoroaster maybe didn't exist either. But Joseph Smith of LDS fame migh have

Billy Graham I have actually met so he has existed or still exist even. Paul Kurtz exists too. Not all persons are fictive.

post tenebras lux

Yes, right. Very witty. Please explain how he could be called Mohhamed, when Mohammed is not a name, only a title? It's like claiming that when Hitler was born, Mr and Mrs Schicklgruber decided to name their son Führer.

So how can I name all fifty of his patrilineal ancestors if he was an orphan? Mind you, he grandfather - the one he shared with Ali - looks dodgy. His first name was meant to be - quite literally - 'Old Man'.

Jack the Bodiless

No miracles? What about splitting the Moon in half?

I've also seen claims that Mohammed was illiterate: which would make his authorship of the Koran miraculous.

wordy

What I heard is that Muhammad got visions and they had a scribe behind a curtain and we wrote down what Muhammad revealed from Allah.

Maybe that is a made up story then? But even if it is that doesn't help us atheists much. People will be fundie muslims cause it support their identity.

Atheists need to learn how to build identity that other atheists could mirror.