Mohammad and his small band of followers were not having success converting people, he told them to go to Medina and convert the Christians and Jews there. His followers had very little success and came back despondent. So he told them to wage battle against the inhabitants of Medina and that worked much better; the ones who they couldn’t forcibly convert they killed, and others ran away.
Then Mohammedan moved his entourage to Medina, and the new method of spreading Islam by the sword was born, and continued to this day.
Is FR page formatting different for anybody else since yesterday? Word wrap seems to be gone, across the site, and now very difficult to read. :(
J Smith created the same impetus in LDS. While he lacked the push (sword), he ingeniously created an even greater pull. Using the 1A as an umbrella, the state had no effective means to combat a team of pedo-rapists from first kidnapping, and then having each others' friend "marry" them (many multiple times I might add). Is it any wonder that out of the untold multitude religions created nearly 200 years ago, only three have survived? (LDS, JW, CS)
As a devout atheist, I'm in a unique position to evaluate the success/failure of different religions. Like any good marketing campaign, they need to be designed for a particular audience. Xian appeals to the inherent good in people, while Islam decided to emphasize the dark side. With history as a guide, we can see the general population is pretty much evenly divided.
If I were considering religion, I'd look hard and long at Islam. Lots of upside and very little, if any downside. State protection, shielded from criminal prosecution, large established apologist organizations. I mean, who wouldn't love to be a perpetual whiny victim while committing multiple crimes on a regular basis?
mo was quite the jerk...and sociopath .