“Why else would the muslims embrace those stories?”
Because they are told to embrace those stories.
In much of the muslim world, the primary purpose of education of the youth is to weed out question askers. The rest of the muslim world where education is, more or less, about education learns to keep it’s collective head down as they are in all actuality, hostage to those who’ve been properly de-weeded.
There is no free thought in islam. Any manifestations of free thought are cured with public execution.
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Also because free thought is to contradict allah, who has predetermined everything down to the subatomic level. Islam is the antithesis of Christianity and Judaism.