[MD] Barbarian attack

[Arlo Bensinger]

Greetings SA, Peter, All,

[SA asked]
from what I know about Mohammed, he, right from the start went on a killing 
spree.  His spiritual and biological descendants kept it up until they held 
much of Spain until Columbus' time.  This killing, no matter what the 
ideology, and thus, these actions laid out for all to see how the wisdom is 
being used has me wonder at times if Mohammed was a false prophet.

[Peter replied]
re Mohammed being a false prophet; all prophets are false - there are no 
supernatural agencies.

[Arlo]
I'd say all "prophets" deliver a metaphorical message. What historically 
happens is that often that message is perverted by literal interpretations. 
This happened to the message of Jesus as well. Until the reformation, the 
message of Jesus was used as a "divine mandate" to "conquer the infidel and 
pagan worlds". Not only into the Middle East, but also in the conquest of 
the Americas. A "prophet", whose message was one of love and compassion, 
was used to justify the wholesale slaughter of millions whose sole crime 
was not accepting Jesus' divinity. The Crusades. The Inquisition. Etc. It 
was not until the Reformation that most of the militant "literalization" of 
Jesus' message waned (although it did not disappear overnight, and in 
important ways its effects are still seen, think of the Trail of Tears).

Gautama Budda, White Buffalo Calf Woman, Jesus, Quan Yin, Zarathushtra, and 
Mohammed (among some) brought a metaphorical-spiritual message for the 
world. Trouble is not the message or the "prophet", its the 
"literalization" (and subsequent "nationalization") of the message (and 
subsequent "divination" of the "prophet").

As an aside, I remember once someone asking "How can people actually 
believe that 'God' has only ever revealed himself in one tiny spot of 
desert while ignoring the rest of the world?" The answer given cracked me 
up, "Because everyone there is so f*&ked up it's the only place he HAD to 
intervene." :-)

Arlo