Mohammed’s Winged Horse

Islam claims Mohammed flew to heaven on a winged horse. I don’t believe this story. Why?

• There are no winged horses.
• There is no air between the earth and the moon/heaven. Air is needed for the horse, for Mohammed and for the wings to beat against.
• Mohammed had a history of visions. He visited many times with his invisible friend the angel Gabriel. It seems most likely this night flight was a vision too.
• The moon is 384,400 km (238,855.09 miles) away. If the winged horse could fly at 40 km/hr (24.85 mph), it would take 400 days to get there. Yet Mohammed reputedly made the journey in one night.
• By the laws of physics, winged horses cannot fly. They are way too heavy. Their wings are way too small, and they would require far more than one horsepower. Consider the largest birds, the condors. The have much larger wings and weigh much less than a horse. Imagine you were going to fly a horse from ranch to ranch in some sort of small plane. The minimum horsepower you would consider for its engine is 13.42 kilowatts (18 horsepower). There is no way you could do it with just one horsepower of horse muscle power.
• It may just be the illustrations, but winged horses don’t appear to have any musculature to drive the wings.
• Birds have a special high-efficiency respiratory system and hollow bones to allow flight; horses do not.
• To deal with all these problems, you have to presume miracle upon undocumented miracle. That is the hallmark of a liar’s tale.

~ Roedy (born:1948-02-04 age:68)