garzan37

I have always wondered something, Judaism believes the prophecies ended with the destruction of the 2nd temple. Christians believe they havent ended yet but in the U.S. where the most religious people are Christians, its still commonly seen as weird and insane when people claim they were told to do something by God. If the prophecies are still happenning how does people determine who is a prophet and who needs to be put in a padded room?

Scourge

Apparently they say it has a lot to do with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and things like Hypo mania or just Mania or a combination of the two brain disorders.






Most of the time people with these brain disorders can become hyper religious and have experiences in which they believe the brain disorder causes a vision is a "God". Apparently when they identify it as a God is when they start to believe they are visions. A scientist conducted an experiment with a helmet that has electrodes on top of the persons head to try and recreate the effects of those brain disorders and some have responded to seeing a dead relative, aliens, and some times in very rare cases "God" or the God they identify it as. Sometimes they see Vishnu, Satan, Jesus...ETC. Though most of the time it just felt like there was a presence in the room.

In a cult called Aum they had their members where a similar Helmet during Prayer Sessions to further their connection with the divine by telling them it helps to align your senses and thoughts more with an enlightened mind. Though in effect many members of the said cult reported seeing the leader if their cult appear in visions along side their "God" or one of the two.

In a cult in France called the Order of the Solar temple the two leaders Luc Joret and Joseph Di mambro thought they are were spiritually divine people who were the reincarnation of some groups leaders from like a thousand years ago called the Order of the Rose.

Here in America the Heavens Gate Cult Leader thought he was Jesus's Avatar on earth or something ridiculous like this and needed to move back up to the "Evolutionary Level Above Human" as he called it or in Heaven with Jesus who he thought was controlling his actions.

So combined with hyper religious feelings and these visions I'd say makes all of them sure foot for a padded room. Though they say things like hours of extended praying and or fasting. Helps to further make these visions more elaborate. They say many Cult leaders are like this and actually believe their own crazy delusions and are dangerous based off the fact that they identify themselves as a prominent figure here to spread some message and to make sure people listen to it like they are Christ or something; Sometimes though they are just awesome at manipulating like Jim Jones back in the 70s.

Many figures through out the bible display such tendencies as these men I described. Moses, Jacob, Jesus and ETC they all claimed to see visions and believed extremely in the religions. Whether these men were real or not is I do not know though in many passages they show signs of believing extremely in their visions or the person having the said vision. Like Moses when he said he talked to God through a burning bush.

Many people with Mania or Epilepsy say similar things. That God talked to them telepathically or through an object. Though like I said or they are skilled manipulators. This article may seem extremely biased towards religion but that is proven fact.

Richard Stanbery

That is an easy one! The Biblical standard to know if a person is a true prophet of God is 100% accuracy in thier prophecies. Whatever that speaker says in a prophecy must come true 100% of the time, down to the smallest detail.
Anything other than that standard means it is time to take said person to the padded room. They are a false prophet, and not of God.

And yes, Scourge is right. There are a lot of folks out there who need to go to a padded room. These are the false prophets, to use Biblical terms. Most folks today just call them nuts.

So, where does that leave Nostrodamus? Remember, one mistake is all that it takes to sort a speaker into the false prophet category, according to Biblical standards, that is. If a person is claiming to be a true prophet of God and makes 10,000 prophecies but gets one little thing wrong, then they are a false prophet. Get the paddy wagon and direct said person to a padded cell.

With that Biblical standard to go by, how many out there claiming to be a real prophet of God measure up? There is your answer. That is how many real prophets that there are in the world today.
Of course, there are a lot of nut cases. The world is full of them.

Scourge

By that time they unfortunately sometimes have followers that won't persuaded and others they explain it away as something else. Like an end of the world story. Oh well you know the world did not end last night and the rapture never happened because our holiness; so you know God decided it wasn't time.

Raven45

What bothers me is when the "prophets" have bodyguards and security with guns who ensure the prophet is obeyed. How do you explain that? They can't really believe in the prophet, can they? What do they get out of it - money?

Scourge

Most of the time people who join cults they get so messed up by that point they believe so much that they won't be able to stop believing by that point. Its the social conditioning and the lies. Though at first sometimes they are just regular people or are religious people bumping from one religion to another and find their "Correct Answer" at this church and join. I don't know but its the process of the beliefs, the feeling like you belong to something important and have importance to the group, the esoteric things that happen; like creating a sense that the things that are happening are of biblical importance. Though what I am trying to say is that the process of brainwashing has been a million times more effective on the guys with the guns than anyone else.

Turnip

If you have enough nutters predicting events eventually one of them is going to magically get it right. Then hey presto, you have a "true" prophecy. If coupled with a manipulative personality "as other have said" you have the makings of a cult. Also, if you are truely a manipulative master you don't even need to go out on a limb, just pry around followers until you can "read" their minds.

Prophecies are much like pieces of toast, if you burn enough of them, you're going to get a vigin mary to spread your butter on.

fullview

here is a study discerning prophetic words people since it is in multiple word documents I added them to a .zip file and uploaded to sendspace

here is the link - size 466kb