What is a Prophet?

Deus wrote: beloved wrote: How do you know what God does?.......how do you know God sends "prophets"?   remains unanswered. [sarcasm] While we're at it, we might as well as ask: How do you know God exists? [/sarcasm]

Dear Deus,

Please let's keep on focus, this thread is about people who call themselves or are considered as "prophets, chosen by God"

Why not start another thread about "How do you know God exists"?

Here is something to think about when it comes to the question of "prophets"

Mind-Manipulating Groups:

Are you or a Family Member a Victim?

The following statements, compiled by Dr. Michael Langone, editor of Cultic Studies Journal, often characterize manipulative groups.

Comparing these statements to the group with which you or a family member is involved may help you determine if this involvement is cause for concern.

Place a checkmark beside all items that characterize the group in question.

If you check many of these items, and particularly if you check most of them, you might consider examining the group more closely.

* The group is focused on a leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.

* The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

* The group is preoccupied with making money.

* Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

* Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

* The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).

* The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).

* The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.

* The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).

* The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).

* The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.

* Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.

* Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.

* Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members

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beloved wrote: How do you know what God does?.......how do you know God sends "prophets"?   remains unanswered.

[sarcasm] While we're at it, we might as well as ask: How do you know God exists? [/sarcasm]

mouhssine4 wrote: if you beleive the message than you will beleive in the messenger

This is not logical and in my opinion is not a good advice.

What if I had a message in the mail, it appealled to me as good and I believed it?..........it makes no sense that I should also believe everything the mail-man says or delivers or even believe the message was from who the mail-man said it was from.....he could have written it himself.

Now if the mail-man were to say "I have brought you one good message, therefore you must believe everything I deliver, and I am the only mail-man who delivers good messages nowadays, there will never, ever be another mail-man who delivers good messages"........would you really commit to believing that every message the mail-man delivered was good?............if so.........why?

Would you believe that the mail-man was good in everything he did beside deliver messages.........he might be a liar, a cruel, murdering thief who delivers messages in his spare-time.

A good advice........

"Watch out for false prophets (or mail-men/messengers). They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves."
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011.025:We sent Noah to his people (with a mission): "I have come to you with a Clear Warning:

011.026:"That ye serve none but Allah: Verily I do fear for you the penalty of a grievous day."

011.027: But the chiefs of the Unbelievers among his people said: "We see (in) thee nothing but a man like ourselves: Nor do we see that any follow thee but the meanest among us, in judgment immature: Nor do we see in you (all) any merit above us: in fact we think ye are liars!"

011.028: He said: "O my people! See ye if (it be that) I have a Clear Sign from my Lord, and that He hath sent Mercy unto me from His own presence, but that the Mercy hath been obscured from your sight? shall we compel you to accept it when ye are averse to it?

011.029:"And O my people! I ask you for no wealth in return: my reward is from none but Allah: But I will not drive away (in contempt) those who believe: for verily they are to meet their Lord, and ye I see are the ignorant ones! 

011.030:"And O my people! who would help me against Allah if I drove them away? Will ye not then take heed?

011.031:"I tell you not that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor do I know what is hidden, nor claim I to be an angel. Nor yet do I say, of those whom your eyes do despise that Allah will not grant them (all) that is good: Allah knoweth best what is in their souls: I should, if I did, indeed be a wrong-doer."

To me Jesus (PBUH) is as important as Mohammed (PBUH). You have the choice to believe in whatever you wish, I will not be held accountable for what you do and you will not be held accountable for what I do. The above verses stand true for all the messengers. But history repeats itself when man is blinded by his arrogance and thinks he is all sufficient. Whatever you have claimed in the last two sentences of your post are a deliberate slight on the character of the prophet either from ignorance or from reading material designed to taint Islam as a false religion as believed by those to whom books were sent earlier. Thankfully we don't impose our religion on anyone such as what has been going on for centuries by others through either force or bribe. Yet, those who are guided are moving to Islam everyday of their own free will and no one can harm Islam in the least by their attempts to demonise it as false. But for sure they harm themselves.

Edited by Tasneem