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Comments
gravenimagesays
Video: Robert Spencer and Jay Smith on the historical Muhammad
…………….
More good stuff–thank you.
william carrsays
Jay Smith says correctly and I believe Scientist and cosmologist Feineman said. ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’, which is how to reply to the charge of conspiracy theories. This applies precisely to Holocaust denial for example, The evidence exists and is overwhelming.
mortimersays
Superb conversation and discussion of the disturbed state of affairs with which the Muslim dawa team is struggling. The incredible narrative about the Koran being unchanged has finally exploded all over the Islamic world.
Jay Smith and Robert Spencer have both greatly contributed to this state of affairs in which leading Muslim apologists have all but admitted they have been lying to the Muslim community for decades with the full knowledge that the Koran is has a history of textual change and development.
This, simply put, annihilates the claim of Allah in the Koran that he defends the Koran from being altered.
Aware of this problem (and panicking!) a new group of Muslim scholars has been formed to do away with the 37 variant Arabic Korans and harmonize the text 1400 years after Allah failed to defend it from changes.
This would be one of greatest of man-made changes to the Koran and the greatest admission that it is not defended by Allah.
The leading Muslim apologists have been exposed and now they can no longer hide.
curious georgesays
Mortimer,
?
Jim J Foxsays
Mortimer, I fervently hope your opinion that Islam is being exposed as fake is getting through to Muslims but even if this is true I don’t see much supporting evidence. Some Muslim scholar said “were it not for the death penalty for apostasy, Islam would collapse”. That fact, added to the universal ability of devout Muslims to accept and believe absolutely anything the Koran or Muhammad said seems to be an insurmountable obstacle.
in short, Muslims are immune to logic or reason
Peter Clemersonsays
“The incredible narrative about the Koran being unchanged has finally exploded all over the Islamic world.”
While Jay Smith made a comment in the video to this effect, has it really? What is the evidence that it is true? Are we in danger of believing in our own wishful thinking?
Jay Smith’s English language videos are watched by a few hundred thousand people at most, many only tens of thousands of times, with the likelihood that only a smallish minority of these are Muslims. The same is true of Robert Spencer’s and the same claim was made in the video about David Wood’s.
To be exploding “all over the Muslim world” and thereby having a significant effect, these videos would need to have been seen by millions and even so, such figures would be small percentages of the total of Muslims throughout the world. It seems obvious to me that the videos of these three critics of Islam need to be subtitled into Arabic in its multiple regional variants,Turkish, Indonesian, Persian and Urdu. Even then, they would have to be promoted and a way found to escape the censorship exercised by the relevant countries’ governments.
Until something like the above suggestion is implemented, I will continue to believe, and lament, that the effect of their videos is confined to the western world, and even then with only a minor effect upon our culture. This view gains implicit support in Robert Spencer’s comment that Western church leaders in their public pronouncements about Islam either manifest great ignorance about it and its history or are self-censoring. The same would be true of the majority of western politicians, of course. Macron is an interesting and topical exception. perhaps.
If I am mistaken in my view that the explosion has yet to take place, please let me know where the evidence about the current explosion, not a squib, is to be found. I would be delighted to learn about it and I am confident that there are many others like me. For the use of word “explosion” to be justified, we need to be talking about millions of people taking notice.
Mauriciosays
Spot on Mr. Clemerson. I have seen David Wood’s subscribers in Youtube increasing at a rate of like 1000 per week. That’s good news but not enough to mean an “explosion”. I would love to see subtitles in their videos, although I am not sure if it’s worth for them to do that, since they may not get the desired increase in views for a subtitled video.
curious georgesays
Excellent video, thank you Robert.
Knowledge is power!
Brian Hoffsays
Than nonchristan can write an book Did Jesus exist.
Yes, of course. Why not? But I wouldn’t recommend that *you* write it, “Brian.”
gravenimagesays
🙂
Eursays
The debates about the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth is nothing new. There are documentaries, TV debates, books. There is complete freedom in this regard. Doing the same with Muhammad in Islamic societies implies jail or your death sentence and even today in non-Islamic societies it is evident that questioning anything about Islam implies your death sentence at the hands of any Muslim With Muslims living in the west we go back to medieval times.
The logic of the Muslims is the following: if you are not a Muslim you cannot talk about Islam or Muhammad and of course question anything because it is not your business. If you are Muslim you cannot question anything about Islam because you must accept everything in an orthodox way. In short, no one can question Islam.
James Lincolnsays
Eur says,
“…if you are not a Muslim you cannot talk about Islam or Muhammad and of course question anything because it is not your business.
If you are Muslim you cannot question anything about Islam because you must accept everything in an orthodox way.
In short, no one can question Islam.”
Brilliant!
gravenimagesays
Well, of course they can write on this subject–and have.
Christians don’t go around threatening to behead people if they write on such subjects. Would that one could say the same about Muslims…
In fact, “Brian Hoff”–really, “DefenderofIslam”–has said that when Muslims reach large enough numbers that they will destroy the US Consititution and impose brutal Shari’ah law on us–including “blasphemy” laws.
Jayellsays
Excellent video with two experts who really know their stuff.
But this does not really essentially change anything much if you accept the idea that islam is basically no more than totally contrived totalitarian imperialist politics with a recognisable racist element, and validated by an equally contrived bogus religious front in order to manipulate the kind of relatively uneducated and superstitious population to which islam was engineered to ‘appeal’. The only difference seems to be whether or not this ‘religious philosophy’ (sic) was the brainchild of one politically-convenient deluded ‘Prophet’ or a somewhat protracted committee of devious, cynical political opportunists with gross imperialist ambitions; if it’s the former, then it seems to suggest an appallingly gratuitous gullibility on the part of a human population during a particular period; if it’s latter, then it suggests that the same population is actually complicit in the concoction of an utterly obscene pseudo-religious fabrication for (we would think) the basest of political motives. Whichever is correct, we still end up with the same outrageous result today.
One gets the impressions from this discussion that Mohammed (real or fictitious), and the 6,000+ stories about him that sourced islam holy literature, existed as much a ‘folk hero’ as a religious ‘prophet’. To draw a parallel with a folk hero of our our own of this side of the pond, it’s as if Robin Hood’s fame and lasting popularity was based on tales of rape, murder, pillage and oppression that were more the province the evil Sheriff of Nottingham to whom Robin was opposed in the stories. But Robin Hood never actually existed, so he must have been the product of a similar kind of consensus folk consciousness to that which generated all those 6,000+ stories about ‘Mohammad’ back in the 8th. century. Unlike Mohammed, however, Robin Hood’s celebrated reputation most definitely does NOT include rape, murder, pillage, etc. It’s strange how the moral standards of folk heroes (or ‘prophets’) differ between civilisations.
Michael Copelandsays
Bukhari found that Arabs are 98% unreliable. He collected all these stories from them about Mohammed, and rejected 98% of them as unreliable.
overmansays
Thanks to Robert, Jay and Kay for this excellent debate. lt answers a lot of questions.
it’s true, that mohammed can’t be compared to someone like Jesus [or Buddha, Krishna, Zoroastra etc]. He has much more in common with Tyrannical Psychopaths like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Caligula etc etc.
gravenimagesays
Spot on.
Jim J Foxsays
“He has much more in common with Tyrannical Psychopaths like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Caligula etc etc.”
Yes indeed. BUT I would argue that Mohammed is the Prince of psychopaths judging by the hundreds of millions slaughtered in the name of Allah over the course of 14 centuries.
And the amateurs you named did not need religion to justify their atrocities!
Mauriciosays
Mohammad most probable did not exist but I like to pretend that he existed so I can make fun of him.
ME Infidelsays
Jay Smith, Robert Spencer AND David Wood are all invaluable, as is Bill Warner, to understanding Islamic doctrine. The point in this discussion is that Muhammad is either 1. embarrassing or, 2. did not exist. Kay, who is on the fence, might consider checking out Tom Holland’s book, “In the Shadow of the Sword”. He could not arrive at a conclusion either way either. In my unscholarly opinion, Muhammad is a false prophet and his “religion” is fraudulent.
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gravenimage says
Video: Robert Spencer and Jay Smith on the historical Muhammad
…………….
More good stuff–thank you.
william carr says
Jay Smith says correctly and I believe Scientist and cosmologist Feineman said. ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’, which is how to reply to the charge of conspiracy theories. This applies precisely to Holocaust denial for example, The evidence exists and is overwhelming.
mortimer says
Superb conversation and discussion of the disturbed state of affairs with which the Muslim dawa team is struggling. The incredible narrative about the Koran being unchanged has finally exploded all over the Islamic world.
Jay Smith and Robert Spencer have both greatly contributed to this state of affairs in which leading Muslim apologists have all but admitted they have been lying to the Muslim community for decades with the full knowledge that the Koran is has a history of textual change and development.
This, simply put, annihilates the claim of Allah in the Koran that he defends the Koran from being altered.
Aware of this problem (and panicking!) a new group of Muslim scholars has been formed to do away with the 37 variant Arabic Korans and harmonize the text 1400 years after Allah failed to defend it from changes.
This would be one of greatest of man-made changes to the Koran and the greatest admission that it is not defended by Allah.
The leading Muslim apologists have been exposed and now they can no longer hide.
curious george says
Mortimer,
?
Jim J Fox says
Mortimer, I fervently hope your opinion that Islam is being exposed as fake is getting through to Muslims but even if this is true I don’t see much supporting evidence. Some Muslim scholar said “were it not for the death penalty for apostasy, Islam would collapse”. That fact, added to the universal ability of devout Muslims to accept and believe absolutely anything the Koran or Muhammad said seems to be an insurmountable obstacle.
in short, Muslims are immune to logic or reason
Peter Clemerson says
“The incredible narrative about the Koran being unchanged has finally exploded all over the Islamic world.”
While Jay Smith made a comment in the video to this effect, has it really? What is the evidence that it is true? Are we in danger of believing in our own wishful thinking?
Jay Smith’s English language videos are watched by a few hundred thousand people at most, many only tens of thousands of times, with the likelihood that only a smallish minority of these are Muslims. The same is true of Robert Spencer’s and the same claim was made in the video about David Wood’s.
To be exploding “all over the Muslim world” and thereby having a significant effect, these videos would need to have been seen by millions and even so, such figures would be small percentages of the total of Muslims throughout the world. It seems obvious to me that the videos of these three critics of Islam need to be subtitled into Arabic in its multiple regional variants,Turkish, Indonesian, Persian and Urdu. Even then, they would have to be promoted and a way found to escape the censorship exercised by the relevant countries’ governments.
Until something like the above suggestion is implemented, I will continue to believe, and lament, that the effect of their videos is confined to the western world, and even then with only a minor effect upon our culture. This view gains implicit support in Robert Spencer’s comment that Western church leaders in their public pronouncements about Islam either manifest great ignorance about it and its history or are self-censoring. The same would be true of the majority of western politicians, of course. Macron is an interesting and topical exception. perhaps.
If I am mistaken in my view that the explosion has yet to take place, please let me know where the evidence about the current explosion, not a squib, is to be found. I would be delighted to learn about it and I am confident that there are many others like me. For the use of word “explosion” to be justified, we need to be talking about millions of people taking notice.
Mauricio says
Spot on Mr. Clemerson. I have seen David Wood’s subscribers in Youtube increasing at a rate of like 1000 per week. That’s good news but not enough to mean an “explosion”. I would love to see subtitles in their videos, although I am not sure if it’s worth for them to do that, since they may not get the desired increase in views for a subtitled video.
curious george says
Excellent video, thank you Robert.
Knowledge is power!
Brian Hoff says
Than nonchristan can write an book Did Jesus exist.
Robert Spencer says
Yes, of course. Why not? But I wouldn’t recommend that *you* write it, “Brian.”
gravenimage says
🙂
Eur says
The debates about the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth is nothing new. There are documentaries, TV debates, books. There is complete freedom in this regard. Doing the same with Muhammad in Islamic societies implies jail or your death sentence and even today in non-Islamic societies it is evident that questioning anything about Islam implies your death sentence at the hands of any Muslim With Muslims living in the west we go back to medieval times.
The logic of the Muslims is the following: if you are not a Muslim you cannot talk about Islam or Muhammad and of course question anything because it is not your business. If you are Muslim you cannot question anything about Islam because you must accept everything in an orthodox way. In short, no one can question Islam.
James Lincoln says
Eur says,
“…if you are not a Muslim you cannot talk about Islam or Muhammad and of course question anything because it is not your business.
If you are Muslim you cannot question anything about Islam because you must accept everything in an orthodox way.
In short, no one can question Islam.”
Brilliant!
gravenimage says
Well, of course they can write on this subject–and have.
Just a couple of examples:
“Did Jesus Exist?”
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/did-jesus-exist/
“Was Jesus a Real Person?”
https://www.livescience.com/13711-jesus-christ-man-physical-evidence-hold.html
Christians don’t go around threatening to behead people if they write on such subjects. Would that one could say the same about Muslims…
In fact, “Brian Hoff”–really, “DefenderofIslam”–has said that when Muslims reach large enough numbers that they will destroy the US Consititution and impose brutal Shari’ah law on us–including “blasphemy” laws.
Jayell says
Excellent video with two experts who really know their stuff.
But this does not really essentially change anything much if you accept the idea that islam is basically no more than totally contrived totalitarian imperialist politics with a recognisable racist element, and validated by an equally contrived bogus religious front in order to manipulate the kind of relatively uneducated and superstitious population to which islam was engineered to ‘appeal’. The only difference seems to be whether or not this ‘religious philosophy’ (sic) was the brainchild of one politically-convenient deluded ‘Prophet’ or a somewhat protracted committee of devious, cynical political opportunists with gross imperialist ambitions; if it’s the former, then it seems to suggest an appallingly gratuitous gullibility on the part of a human population during a particular period; if it’s latter, then it suggests that the same population is actually complicit in the concoction of an utterly obscene pseudo-religious fabrication for (we would think) the basest of political motives. Whichever is correct, we still end up with the same outrageous result today.
One gets the impressions from this discussion that Mohammed (real or fictitious), and the 6,000+ stories about him that sourced islam holy literature, existed as much a ‘folk hero’ as a religious ‘prophet’. To draw a parallel with a folk hero of our our own of this side of the pond, it’s as if Robin Hood’s fame and lasting popularity was based on tales of rape, murder, pillage and oppression that were more the province the evil Sheriff of Nottingham to whom Robin was opposed in the stories. But Robin Hood never actually existed, so he must have been the product of a similar kind of consensus folk consciousness to that which generated all those 6,000+ stories about ‘Mohammad’ back in the 8th. century. Unlike Mohammed, however, Robin Hood’s celebrated reputation most definitely does NOT include rape, murder, pillage, etc. It’s strange how the moral standards of folk heroes (or ‘prophets’) differ between civilisations.
Michael Copeland says
Bukhari found that Arabs are 98% unreliable. He collected all these stories from them about Mohammed, and rejected 98% of them as unreliable.
overman says
Thanks to Robert, Jay and Kay for this excellent debate. lt answers a lot of questions.
it’s true, that mohammed can’t be compared to someone like Jesus [or Buddha, Krishna, Zoroastra etc]. He has much more in common with Tyrannical Psychopaths like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Caligula etc etc.
gravenimage says
Spot on.
Jim J Fox says
“He has much more in common with Tyrannical Psychopaths like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Caligula etc etc.”
Yes indeed. BUT I would argue that Mohammed is the Prince of psychopaths judging by the hundreds of millions slaughtered in the name of Allah over the course of 14 centuries.
And the amateurs you named did not need religion to justify their atrocities!
Mauricio says
Mohammad most probable did not exist but I like to pretend that he existed so I can make fun of him.
ME Infidel says
Jay Smith, Robert Spencer AND David Wood are all invaluable, as is Bill Warner, to understanding Islamic doctrine. The point in this discussion is that Muhammad is either 1. embarrassing or, 2. did not exist. Kay, who is on the fence, might consider checking out Tom Holland’s book, “In the Shadow of the Sword”. He could not arrive at a conclusion either way either. In my unscholarly opinion, Muhammad is a false prophet and his “religion” is fraudulent.