How and why Islam was started?

[no-excuses (OP)]

Islam is the last Abrahamic religion that was started by Mohammad around 1400 years ago, with over 1.5 billion (23% of population) followers in our present time. How did Mohammad did it and why?
From an atheist point of view it is astonishing to go back in time to see Mohammad, a regular guy in his 40's, building the foundation of one of the most notorious religion human kind came across. What was his motivation to call people for the new awakening, and what did he really experienced in the cave he was allegedly meditating in? was he christian and was influenced by Jesus's story and wanted to imitate him some how by creating the story of his encounter with an angel in the cave. because to me, that looks a lot like what Mary experienced when God told her about the good news.

My concern is where did he get the strong will to do what he did? because if you look at it from a religious point of view it make s a perfect sense, the guy didn't have any choice, he was following orders from god, but of course that didn't happen. so why he was so determined and he basically did all he can to spread the word.

Just few thoughts I wanted to share with you...

[Solitary]

Probably because his meditating in a dark cave made him have a hallucination experience that was so profound he thought it was real. The fact that he saw a Christian angel shows he was having a religious epiphany from reading the Bible or hearsay. These experiences can seem as real as reality seems, and very life changing if you think they are real, or not. I've had them from meditating and psychedelics. If you believe in real magic and also religious they will have that theme. When with a group of people all doing the same thing like praying or meditating it is even more convincing. Our minds can really play tricks on us, and why some gods were called trickster gods.

There were many gods before God for the same reason. It all comes done to placating an imaginary God or angel, or demon, that scared the shit of you. I saw two men in white robes as a toddler while waking up from sleeping, and until this day it seems as real now as then. I have dreams that are just as real as being awake, which helped me as an artist and musician. When I played solos I imagined the music as movies while in a trance. But who really knows why a person starts a religion unless there is something in it for them: like delusions of grandeur or fraud.    Solitary 

[Maldini]

He saw Jews, he liked it, he tried to recreate it.

[SGOS]

All over the world, charlatans come up with this shit all the time, and every once in a while, one develops a following, although not often at the level of Christianity or Islam.  It's just smaller players coming up with their scams to gain power or money or both.  What does it take to create a really big following like Christianity or Islam?  Leaders are a dime a dozen.  So do people like Paul or Mohammed have some special gift?  I don't think so.  They just need a susceptible vulnerable group of people who are ready to have the wool pulled over their eyes.  Much of it is just being in the right place at the right time.

People are sheep.  Religion counts on it.  Religions even glorify people acting like sheep.  It doesn't take that much.  Be it Mohammed, the Pope, Joseph Smith, or PT Barnum, people are willing to believe in silly shit and will throw away reason at the drop of a hat.  Just promise them something that sounds too good to be true, and people will defend it to the death, because they prefer a fantasy to the truth.

[Desdinova]

Maybe he had a wager with L. Ron Hubbard?

[Elect]

People are sheep.  Religion counts on it.  Religions even glorify people acting like sheep.  It doesn't take that much.  Be it Mohammed, the Pope, Joseph Smith, or PT Barnum, people are willing to believe in silly shit and will throw away reason at the drop of a hat.  Just promise them something that sounds too good to be true, and people will defend it to the death, because they prefer a fantasy to the truth.

But, back in those days people didn't really have the luxury of choosing or not choosing a religion. It was more of a life or death thing, not a decision for one to make. And in some places it really is still like that. You really can't call someone a sheeple for wanting to live.

[doorknob]

I think mohammed is full of total bullshit from the start. I think he like all who created or started a religion saw an opportunity to control nitwits and ran with it. He knew damn well what he was doing! And the fact that he claims to have seen a christian angel means he stole popular folklore of the times.

[Cocoa Beware]

Apparently there is a specific type of temporal lobe epilepsy that causes people to have intensely spiritual experiences.

These individuals can suffer delusions I would say are similar to those under the influence of intense mind altering substances, where anything that you sense or that pops into your head can assume a new and profound significance.

For example, someone who suffers from this might feel the need to run around naked in the street proclaiming they are God, or at least one of his lieutenants in Mohammed's case.

Perhaps it explains a lot, as history writes of many people who acted this way.

Personally, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if serious brain damage was the culprit in Mohammed's case...

[Youssuf Ramadan]

He saw Jews, he liked it, he tried to recreate it.

There's a lot of truth in that.

I think mohammed is full of total bullshit from the start. I think he like all who created or started a religion saw an opportunity to control nitwits and ran with it. He knew damn well what he was doing! And the fact that he claims to have seen a christian angel means he stole popular folklore of the times.

... and a lot of truth in that too.

From what I've read, Mohammed was pissed off with the fragmented and fractious nature of tribal life in Arabia.  In the trading centres he witnessed the solidarity and direction of other cultures, jews in particular and it is pretty obvious that he stole much of the practices from judaism to create his own vision of a religion suitable to Arabia that would unite the warring tribes and raise Arabia's culture to a social level that would gain respect on a parity with judaism etc.  Practically, it took a long time to implement and he got a lot of shit wrong from the start, hence all the contradictions in the Qur'an as he rewrote stuff as he went along to try and shore up the holes in it, and eventually the notion of abrogation whereby Mohammed's later passages supersede previous passages on the same topic.  While doing this he failed to realise that in having attributed the Qur'an to a direct revelation from Allah, the changes in law and need for abrogation lay bare the fact that Allah must have got shit wrong from the start.  So much for an omniscient deity!

Anyway, it wasn't long before Mohammed became a totalitarian, mysogynistic warlord who demanded a 20% share of any war spoils from his followers when his bunch of thugs routed neighbouring tribes, jewish tribes in particular.  And guess what?... whenever Mo clapped his eyes on a nice young girl that he wanted to add to his collection, he always got a sudden revelation from Allah that allowed for this to happen, despite the face that other guys were only allowed 4 wives.  Funny, that..... 

Apparently there is a specific type of temporal lobe epilepsy that causes people to have intensely spiritual experiences.

Yes indeed. And it is now possible to induce that very experience into anyone by stimulating the temporal lobe of the brain.  That made me laugh - the notion of religious experience being a form of 'mental illness' is not one that will be popular! However, I love it...  :fU:

[MagetheEntertainer]

you should read the mohammad code, its a book about the life of mohammad that had alot of research put into it.  My thoughts for why Mohammad created islam is that Mohammad was a war general, and at the time Religion was BY FAR the most powerful weapon on the planet at the time, and IMO a weapon like an army of cult followers has only recently been out done by chemical warfare and nukes on the destruction level.

[Minimalist]

Read "Did Mohammed Exist" by Robert Spencer.

Mohammed's as much bullshit as all the others.

[Mister Agenda]

He tried to combine Judaism and Christianity. He saw all the trouble arguing over the nature of the divinity of Jesus was causing, so he put an end to that nonsense by defining God as an entity that doesn't subdivide or reproduce, and demoted Jesus to greatest prophet.

He hoped to unify Arabs without making the mistakes that kept Judaism small-time and the Christians at each others' throats. That's my interpretation, anyway.

[Youssuf Ramadan]

Read "Did Mohammed Exist" by Robert Spencer.

Mohammed's as much bullshit as all the others.

Possibly.  Possibly not.  Mr. Spencer isn't exactly a proponent of balanced discourse though.... but then someone who co-founds movements described by many as 'hate groups' was never likely to be....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Islamization_of_America

Robert Bruce Spencer (born February 27, 1962) is an American author and blogger best known for his criticism of Islam and research into Islamic terrorism and jihad.
As of 2014, he has published twelve books, including two New York Times best-selling books.[citation needed] In 2003 he founded and has since directed Jihad Watch, a blog which he describes as containing "...news of the international jihad, [and] commentary..."[1] which is dedicated to "bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts".[2]

He has also co-founded Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the Freedom Defense Initiative with blogger Pamela Geller, with whom he also co-authored a book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America. Spencer and Geller have been barred from travel to the UK for supporting "anti-Muslim hate groups".[3]

Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) (also known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative or simply the Freedom Defense Initiative) is an American far right,[1][2] anti-Islamist, anti-Muslim, and Islamophobic organization[3] led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.[4] Geller describes it as "a human rights entity dedicated to the freedom of speech, which is under attack, as well as to the freedom of religion and to individual rights."[5]
The group was founded in 2010 as the US branch of Stop Islamisation of Europe. It became notorious for its highly publicized ad campaigns in New York City, especially one opposing Park51, a Muslim community center proposed for lower Manhattan.[2] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists SIOA as a hate group.[6] They are headquartered in Houston, purposely to 'reconquer' a city lost to "ethnic and religious diversity".[2]

However, I'd piss myself laughing if it could be proven that Mohammed didn't exist.  That would be immense!   

[Munch]

The question thats brought up on these 'divine' characters in religious groups is always interesting, because while theists are either trying to find proof of there existence or just accepting in their minds that they existed because the bible or Koran said so, thats all they need.

Of course its a matter of fact that finding proof of them having actually lived doesn't in anyway prove the stories made up about them as being real, it just proves that a person hundreds to thousands of years ago created a cult following around them and people made up stories about these people, at best this is the most materialistic way of explaining them, if they even existed at all.

Its pretty much the Joseph Smith thing, make up a bunch of bullshit stories and self contradicting messages, but use fear and testament to get people to follow your word, and you have a cult. Of course as time goes on these peoples stories get rewritten over hundreds to thousands of years, before it turns into a fairy tale that people follow.

[Youssuf Ramadan]

^^^ Sounds about right.