Quote:No I do not think raiding caravans is collective punishment. Thats just silly.
But Muhammad did punish the Meccans as a collective?
Quote:Its opportunistic and hitting back in any way they can.
So it wasn't collective because Muhammad was not able to get them all?
Quote:I think you are latching on to the 'collective punishment' smear to avoid having to concede that Muhammad had a legitimate casus belli for attacking.
When you say attacking, do you mean stealing and murdering?
Quote:I got it from your wiki article FD. I'm not going to explain your own thoughts for you.
What did you get?
Quote:Do you consider his preaching against idol worship hate preaching?
It depends what you say. Muhammad for example combined it with destroying pagan idols and slaughtering pagans, so I expect there was a bit of vitriol and frothing at the mouth involved.
Quote:I believe you said something about dissing the main attraction of Mecca (the idols) was a dangerous threat to the Meccan's mercantile livelihood.
This is what I actually said: Muhammad's own tribe was in charge of the pagan Kaaba and deriving a significant income from it. Muhammad's preaching was a threat to that income. In the end he figured out how to take it all for himself.
Quote:was Muhammad's actions in Mecca tantamount to a declaration of war?
Which actions? When he marched on Mecca with 10000 soldiers?
Quote:Or do you in fact want to entertain the idea that the muslims were indeed mistreated, and in fact a declaration of war had been made against them - for which Muhammad was justified in attacking back?
No. I think when he first fled to Medina, he was in a weak position, and his actions amounted to theft and murder. This talk of a "declaration of war" is just post-hoc weasel words by Muslims in a vain attempt to give legitimacy to his theft and murder. There was not two states at there was not a war. There was one man with a small following fleeing his own tribe, then launching his rape and pillage career by robbing Meccan caravans and murdering Meccan traders, then afterwards trying to justify his actions because he eventually grew powerful to wage actual war, after he got rid of the Jews.
You are no less ludicrous than previous Muslims we have had here who say these crimes, and lying about Islam, is only justified in a state of war, and that the west has been at war with the Muslim world for over a century.
You justify Muhammad's genocide of the Jews by saying they never officially declared war, but you also justify Muhammad's career of theft as murder by saying war is automatically declared against Muslims if you, or anyone else from your city, does wrong by them. You are a hypocrite.
Everything you say in defense of Muhammad's vile actions drips with hypocrisy and lies, because your religion is built on hypocrisy and lies.