Did Muhammad or the Buddha or Guru Nanak Dev exist?

Or for that matter Homer or Agamemnon? Why are we not up in arms over the truth of these assertions?

He came relatively late and was a leader and conqueror as well as religious figure. I don't think there is any controversy at all about his actual existence.

(at least as depicted in the Gospels)

Homer might have existed, Agamemnon mythology.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha lived from about 623 BC to 543 BC (but was not the first Buddha, neither the last)

Buddha means somebody that has reached enlightment.

Muhammad ibn Abdullah was born ca. 570 in Mecca (Makkah) and died June 8, 632 in Medina

Is it the same sort of thing as any other ancient history, where we have transcribed oral histories written down much later?

Also, on a side note, I thought that someone made an argument for Agamemnon's existence, but I could be wrong?

scientifically. They can rely on older historians, but those can be reliable. Homer wrote about Agamemnon. Herodotus talks about Homer but it was 400 years later. Thus uncertainty.

Jesus is an interesting case, because only Tacitus talks about him and only as "Christus" in a footnote about the story of Nero. The Gospels were written 100 years after Jesus's presumed death, by people who never met him. Thus contradictions among the Gospels. Some historians say that Paul invented the whole story. But Paul did exist.

No.
Aside from the mythology built up about him in Rome, I don't think there is much doubt he really lived.

but who he was and really did is unclear

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

You would think that a guy who upset as many applecarts as Christ would leave some contemporary record, but it isn't the case. As tocqueville noted upthread, the gospels aren't a contemporary account - they were written well after the theorized date of Jesus' execution (based off his date of birth, which I might add wasn't recorded but calculated by scholars in the third and fourth centuries AD). There's no reputable reference to the existence of Jesus Christ existing in any Roman records from Judea or anywhere else...

To me, that strikes up some significant doubt right there. YMMV

I seem to remember hearing that Homer did live, but didn't write the works attributed to him? Or possibly the works were by someone called Homer, but he didn't actually exist? Something like that, anyhow.

did. There are several accounts of his life independent of the legend.

mean another one did. I'm assuming that this is in response to the thread about whether or not Jesus existed. I don't get the purpose of this thread though. Are you saying that the OP of that thread should have questioned everyone's existence?

I mean, the earliest life of Muhammad we have comes from about 130 years after his death, and yet it seems to be pretty well accepted that he lived.

I was also looking to see if anyone had perspectives on whether Muhammad had pagan traditions, I guess you'd call them, ascribed to him or added on to him after his death.

I remember learning perspectives on Homer in school, and also learning about bias, point of view, and the diffuculty of interpreting historical information.

So, I guess one part honest inquiry, one part snarkiness, one part procrastination ('tis finals week).

My goodness. Oh, sorry, I forgot to flip the "teacher switch" before I left work today. Go on about your cavorting. :toast:

:toast:

oops wrong thread

I thought it was funny. A nice little turn on the cliche of someone being on something like "white on rice." Perhaps my last push to get progress report grades done has warped me a bit.

I am going to school for computer science so I'm close to studying by being on my computer. :evilgrin: I don't think I remember what cavorting is like though, I'm also working two jobs and have an 8 year old. I haven't had a day off since Thanksgiving and won't have another one 'till xmas. Posting on DU is about the wildest thing I do these days.

I teach high school English, have a daughter, 12, who plays violin and is in two orchestras, and a son, 9, who just started wrestling and plays cello. This, by far, is the most social free time I have. So, get crazy.

I was looking at guitars tonight for my son. Hopefully he's got more musical talent than his father, he can't be any worse. I am completely tone deaf.

Glad I'm not the only one.

As to your question as to why nobody is up in arms about these:
1. Seems to be pretty clear records for muhammad, but you really think islam doesn't take serious hits? Live under a rock?
2. There is no religion centered around buddha.
3. He was recent enough to not have doubts about him, but, again, they take a lot of hits, too.
4. Trust me, there are debates in the literary community (much as there are about Shakespeare, if Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, etc.), but, again, there is no religion centered around Homer.
5. Seems like a pretty clear mythological figure; again, no religion.

When people make a big deal about the existence of someone, and there is evidence to indicate that person is a combination of other figures/remake of roman myths/or just plain didn't exist, you gotta expect some discussion about it. Not wanting that discussion to occur is the same as wanting everyone to live in ignorance.

That's more surprising to me than almost anything else.

:tinfoilhat:, but I am a recent convert to the theory.

Check out my thread here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=208&topic_id=7967&mesg_id=7967

? FWIW.

of the volumes of that debate. I wouldn't be surprised if there were proof tomorrow that someone else (more likely a "committee") wrote the plays. I don't know why Bacon would do it without credit (there are some reasons behind the Capote/Lee business). There is a lot of "embedded code" stuff with the Bacon/Shakespeare debate that I have only skimmed. I do know that is sure is a lot of shit for one guy to write in a short life. He would be like the Stephen King of his time except Shakespeare's stuff didn't suck (now that will probably piss off more people than the "was Jesus real" posts).

Huh?

but I won't. It is winter and I am happy that there may be a snow day tomorrow (I teach high school, so that would be a very good thing).

Check this out
http://www.buddhistinformation.com/is_buddhism_a_religion1.htm
A simple google search will give you many more sites that discuss this topic.

On edit: dude, your avatar is hilarious. Is that one of the standards or a personal one? Why don't I have it (well, it would have to wait until after the football season, you know)?

It is incorrect to call Buddhism "a religion centered around Siddharta." He was only one of many teachers of the dharma (the one who got the press, as a teach once described it); there were buddhas before and since, including several who are living. The Dalai Lama, many believe, the reincarnation of a buddha who keeps coming back to teach and guide.

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

how long would he survive a flight Jerusalem-New-York today ?

stop that shit. Jesus was as white as rice (well, the white rice, not the brown shit--that's just for hippies anyway). Stop it with your geography, and facts, and other nonesense.

There exists evidence that can be considered impartial supporting the existence of Muhammad, Guru Nanak and several other religious founders. By impartial supporting evidence, I mean resources found outside of the writings of those followers. Muhammad's flight to Yathrib (latter renamed Madinah), the conquest of Mekkah and the subsequent conquest of the Arabian Penninsula is well documented in non-Muslim records. These same records, however, indicate that Islam went through several significant changes in doctrine and practice between the first appearance of Muhammad on the international scene and the canonization of the Quran and Hadith.

Prince Siddharta (as said in a different response, "buddha" simply means "enlightened one" and the founder of Buddhism was neither the first nor last to be given that title), probably not. Many purported details of his life have been verified: there is evidence of a Shakya family of the kshatriya (warrior) caste who lived as princes in the city of Kapilavastu (in modern Nepal) during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, and this clan had a famous ancestor by the name of Gautama ("Siddharta Gautama" can be used as a title, in which case it can be translated as "descendant of Gautama whose aims are achieved / who achieves aims effectively", according to the Wikipedia.) Beyond that, however, there is no independent evidence of a specific individual who founded the religion known today as Buddhism.

Homer, no. In fact, there is evidence that the Iliad was composed over a period of time by several authors and latter written down and edited into a single work, possibly several times.

Agamemnon, no. He figures in several legends but then, so does Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. While archaeologists have excavated both Mycenae and Argos (city-states supposedly ruled by Agamemnon) there has been found no evidence of any king bearing that name or the name of his father, Atreus, or his brother, Menelaus.

Jesus... no. More so than Siddharta, Homer or Agamemnon, there should be independent records of Jesus' life. He was executed as a criminal by the Romans, who were borderline neurotic about keeping written records. Extensive execution records have been found listing people who were put to death in the province of Judea; there are many people with the right name (both Joshua and Joseph were very common names) but none of them fit the particulars given in the Gospels (executed in Jerusalem as a political leader at the time of the Passover after being convicted by Pontius Pilatus, who was prefectus of Judea from 26 CE to 36 CE.) There is one purported mention of Jesus in an independent source: Antiquities of the Jews published in 93 CE by Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. This passage, in book 13, chapter 3, item 3, is first mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea in 324. It is very interesting to note, however, that an earlier Christian apologist, Origen, referenced Antiquities extensively in several writings around 240 and not once quoted book 13, chapter 3, item 3. If mention of Jesus had, in fact, been a part of Antiquities during Origen's time, certainly he would have use it? For this reason, the "Testimonium Flavianum" has been held as a latter redaction added by Christian propagandists and is not a part of the original work written by Josephus.

I'm not bothered by not having temporal, clinical evidence of their existence. I'd like to see ideas they extolled handled more responsibly than they often are, as for example the far-right fundamentalists' complete distortion of the ministry of Jesus.