Didact,

Thanks for the comments. remember, that Mohammed was literally tarred and feathered as well as fled for his life from Medina. Yup. Again, it seems that there as an uncle or someone close to him who was a Neestorian monk who inspired Islam. Again, we need to regress harder and take a fresh look at Nestorism. Re-re read Nestor's original writing, those of the Church fathers that led to the Council of Chaldea (Chalidan Council) and then compare it with the latest development of doctrine. Yeah a challenge but a necessary one.

Yeah it's deeply irrational but St Thomas Aquinas gave the rational in either the Summa or the Summa contra gentiles. Never underestimate human free will to actively choose the bad.
xavier

I think the comment is germane to the discussion.

It is true that Islam's problems were known and understood for centuries before the current time. Even during the ascendancy of Islam, the Jews and Christians of Arabia were deeply unconvinced about the claims that Mohammed made as a "prophet" and repeatedly pointed out the contradictions and problems with the Koran in order to highlight the flaws in his teachings.

As far as the outright misogyny of Islam goes, that has definitely been true from its inception – and actually a closer examination of its roots shows that Islamic misogyny basically takes Jewish teachings about the relationships between men and women, completely distorts them, and claims that all that is wicked and evil, is in fact good and pure.

It's a batshit insane ideology when viewed through any kind of a rational lens.

Sorry to hijack the post.

Go to PJmedia and look for Andrew Botom's article on Emperor Leo III letter to Omar. It's a remarkable document written by someone who intimately knew the Moslem since a young age He was fluent in Arabic and Greek. Better yet, the dawa hasn't changed one iota. There are lots of mind blowing points for example Leo denounced female circumcision as barbaric EVEN BY 8TH CENTURY standards. He also slams the mysogyny of treating women as fields to be tilled (and totally explains the rape gang phenomeon in England. And provides an outstanding defense of women from a Christain point of view)

The saddest thing is that the Latins didn't get a copy of this letter as it would've given them lots of arguments to resist and kick the Moslems out of Southern Europe a lot earlier.
Imagine if St Thomas Aquinas had this letter and used it in Summa contra gentilicum

That letter needs to be republished in the original language (not sure if in Arabic or Greek) with translations in all major languages.

Another tidbit:
1) Some camels supposedly ate some of the palm leaves which had Koranic verses written.
2) Omar or one of the later caliph gathered those who had memorized and tried to harmonize the verses. If I remember correctly there were obvious problems so there were compromises
3) The ordinary people need to be aware of extant copies. Written documentation wasn't printed in the millions of copies at the local Kinkos/Big 5 publishers They had to be labouriously handwritten and lot of stuff was lost because they simply weren't needed, interesting or wanted.

Sorry again to hijack the post.
xavier