To me, the fact that the fifteen are not prophets is blindingly obvious. One only has to think of the powers a prophet supposedly possesses, and think of the hypothetical implications of HAVING such powers on the Earth.

A prophet of God is said to literally be in communication with the omniscient mind behind our existence. Forget the church's claims for just a second, put that on the back burner, and think what a *real* prophet could learn? What they could *teach*? What they could *achieve*?

If you had a regular audience with a being that literally knew everything, your church would be the undisputed leader in scientific and technological advancement in the world. You would quickly become centuries ahead of those outside your church in terms of scientific knowledge.

And you can't weasel out of this by making a phony distinction between "spiritual knowledge" and "temporal knowledge", because such a distinction is entirely arbitrary. Knowledge is knowledge. If the celestial kingdom actually exists, it's not merely a "spiritual idea", it's a temporal fact.

If they had a prophet, the Mormon church would not be marginalized or ignored, struggling to maintain 7% of 1% of the world's population. The academic community would be BEGGING Thomas Monson's advice on everything, all the time, and Mormonism would spread like an uncontrollable raging wildfire.

But the reality is that no one outside the church gives a *damn* what Thomas Monson thinks. Shouldn't the very fact that they are unimpressed tell you something?

We are never going to sit down to General Conference and have Thomas Monson step up to the pulpit and say, "So I was speaking to the Lord last night, and he revealed to me the following cure for cancer. Any takers?"

Why is that? Because make no mistake, prophets have always made claims to such knowledge when they could get away with it. The Bible has a very interesting cure for leprosy involving bloody bird sacrifice...a ritual that is more likely to *cause* further illness.

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young both talked about people who lived on the moon and who needed the gospel. Why? Because nobody could check them at the time! It's easy to reveal hidden "knowledge" about things that yield no practical results and which can't even begin to be checked with current tools and methods.

If we ever discover there's a next life, and learn something about it, earthly "prophets" will immediately stop prophesying about the secrets of the afterlife, because we'll be able to check on them.


And the excuses I'd probably get from them for pointing this out are lame, that the Lord doesn't want us to know certain things at the present time, that things are revealed line upon line. That would be fine, except that *no* verifiably true yet previously unknown knowledge is ever revealed by LDS prophets.

If they had a living prophet, they wouldn't need faith, because they'd get results. Glorious, undeniable results.


So what say you? How do YOU think the world would be different if a living prophet actually existed? How does this contrast with the world in which we live?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2013 11:42PM by doubtisavirtue.

I suppose that if a supreme being were managing our planet we'd be better off. But your question is really about prophecy, right?
I think that the very concept of prophecy is fatally flawed. None of human progress can be attributed to prophecy. None. So, even if real, prophecy holds no value. It's a joke.

Well, that's what I'm getting at. Let's assume for a second there's never been a living prophet on the Earth (not hard to imagine). What would be different if suddenly there was one?

I guess you're right that it first assumes God's existence, which would drastically change the ball game *anyway*.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2013 11:51PM by doubtisavirtue.

At the very LEAST, such a person could have called up Japan before the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown in 2011 and given them a heads up! To be honest, if such a person existed, it would have been reprehensible of them not to!

I agree with nickname. A prophet would warn the people ahead of time about major disasters. He would also give medical info like boil water to get rid of cholera until our scientists knew enough to understand germ theory.

I can see God not stepping in and solving every problem because that would mean that we are here to do nothing, everything's already perfect. But he/she could give us info that the people could do, until science caught up with it. (ie boiling water leads to less cholera, but doesn't explain germ theory. Science would still have to figure that out.

A prophet would tell the truth about the next life, thus ending all religious wars, religions in general and the monies spent on religion could be used by the people themselves to better their world somehow.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2013 12:02AM by karin.

This is a really interesting thread. I like it! I am very intrigued by the theories on this subject.

...especially he would have warned the Japanese MP's, misheys, Bishops, etc. Alas nada...not even a shmeckel of a warning.

simple: every positive societal change would have its beginnings with the prophet(s)

instead when we look at how the supposed prophets have fared on issues like equality we see that they are often an impediment

seriously, before there was an ERA or even suffrage there would've been a woman apostle

same with blacks, gays, etc.


I'd also expect to see that prophet out in the world - and I don't mean attending ribbon cuttings - I mean right in the thick of humanity

and he/she would talk openly to the media

another thing I'd expect to see is people from all kinds of backgrounds listening to the prophet - they may not agree with everything but they'd be intrigued by the depth of his or her thinking

I occasionally listen to recordings of guys like Alan Watts or Terence McKenna for that exact reason - because sometimes they make me go, "whoa, dude, that's out there..."

I guarantee that literally nobody - Mormons included - does that at General Conference!

Why have a prophet if he cannot predict 9/11, the 2008 Economic Crash, or help us avert Global Warming? Name one thing TM has done for the world. Name one thing any 20th C prophet did.

There are exactly 'ZERO' things that any Morg Profit has seered, revelated, prophesied or inspired.

ZERO

ZILCH

ZADA

ZIP

EZ TO FIGURE OUT

If there WERE a prophet, would he be a cranky and insular man holed up in his house watching Jazz games? Would he isolate himself and be driven around in a $750,000 factory-armored car? And wouldn't he say something? You know, something wise and useful. Wouldn't he prophesy now and again? And then it would come true and people would be, like, "Whoa! He surely is a prophet!"

Since the invention of the printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and internet, God has grown increasingly quiet. For the life of me I can't figure out why: His message is easier to spread now than ever!

Folks,

Each of us are our very own 'Prophet'.

We are all part of the ONE MIND.

The phony GAs in SLC want us to think this isn't so.

There is only ONE MIND. (Put your own word in there)

ALL of man's accomplishments here on Earth are the result of tapping into Universal Mind. (Put your own label there)

We are all connected. (Even the phony GAs)

Intuition, inspiration, invention, creativity, imagination. This is part of each of us.

Religion ruins all of it

Why not millions of prophets all over the planet delivering the same revelations? More efficient, don't you think? And a more effective way to weed out bogus revelations.

And the frequency of a prophets utterings resulting in the accurate direction he gave humanity would be in accordence to humankinds needs. Not just an occassional hit. Like the saying goes, "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." Sure a god would give us challenges for learning and insight. But his list for that would't be filled with lessons that would be detrimental to ones life in my opinion.

A prophet would be a living extension of a gods love and manifestor of gods omnipotance for his creations benifit. Has anyone noticed anything resembling that definition?

"And you can't weasel out of this by making a phony distinction between "spiritual knowledge" and "temporal knowledge", because such a distinction is entirely arbitrary. Knowledge is knowledge. If the celestial kingdom actually exists, it's not merely a "spiritual idea", it's a temporal fact."

I believe there are numerous qoutes from TSCC profits about how many modern inventions have been provided by Sky daddy for the furtherance and progression of TSCC. Sooooo, apparently "temporal knowledge" is part of the profit-skydaddy protocol. Alas, I guess skydaddy feels like we've had nuff inventions.

If there was a prophet, after birth control was discovered by men and made highly available, God could have explained to us the ramifications of it. He could have warned us of the upcoming disintegration of poor families, of more and more babies being born to young unmarried girls, of women wanting more rights, then gays wanting more rights.

It all sprang from birth control and has changed our culture at its most basic level.

Hello, God? What we heard from his prophets back then was that sex is only for procreation. That's not really useful info when your society is changing this fast.

If there were a prophet, no-one would listen to him/her. Look at the prophets in the Bible. How often did anyone listen? Indeed, if someone got many followers, I would know he was NOT a prophet.

As for incidents such as the earthquate etc. with Japan, I am sure some people noticed the potential problem of a meltdown because the generators were below ground. However, the powers that be did nothing. Hence, a prophet is of little use. Too many things to warn about and probably such a person would not be an engineer.

Also, a lot of people warned about the market crash, including me. I tried to get heard about it a year in advance as I knew what to do to prevent it. People actually warned about 9/11 - even some of the very persons who carried it out were noted.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2013 10:38AM by rhgc.

That assumes that the Biblical prophets were the real deal.

If there were a real prophet, people would listen. How could they not? He'd be able to provide them with provably useful information at any given time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2013 01:42PM by doubtisavirtue.

I was in some kind of philosophical discussion recently where the subject of religious leaders like the pope and prophets came up. I said, "well, y'all just don't know that there is a prophet on Earth, right here in the good ol USA who is God's mouthpiece for the entire world and is in direct communication with God."

Some guy said, "yes I do, and I even know his name...Thomas Monson." I was quite nonplussed until he started singing, "and I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet, and I believe that the current president of the church, Thomas Monson, speaks directly to God...." He was like, "one of my favorite soundtracks." Then I was asked what kind of things the prophet prophesizes about. Obviously, the discussion got fun from there.

I love that now that the mormon moment has died out, what's still going strong is The Book of Mormon Musical. I don't think 50,000 more late teens knocking on doors is going to counteract the knowledge people get about TSCC from the Broadway source.

Prophets that speak for God
The Holy Ghost revealing things to our spirits
Priesthood power to bless
The First Vision
Translation of ancient scripture.........

Sorry folks, they're all imaginary.

I read once that the God (the universe or whatever you call it) only trusts its secrets to poets--because they are the only ones who won't abuse the power. After reading Rumi and Hafiz--I think this is true!