Modern Day Prophets/Messiahs

[Bez]

I was thinking the other day about when I was a child being brought up Roman Catholic and being told about Jesus and his "followers". I understand the story of Jesus and what he did and how people believed he was the son of God, until he was crucified on the cross. Where i get confused is that this happened a long time ago. So long that no one alive today was there (obviously). So if a person in todays world was to claim to be a messiah or anything of that sort obviously we would take it as the talk of an insane person, or someone seeking fame. But the same thing happened to Jesus (allegedly), so in the future could one of these "present day messiah"'s be considered a figurehead for a religion in the future?

I'm sure the people who didn't believe that Jesus was the son of God would never see him being such an influential character in 2000+ years.

What are your thoughts on this?

Disclaimer: I do not practice Catholicism nor do I believe in it anymore. However, I made this topic through the eyes of a religious person.

[Rosewin]

A messiah simply has to make miracles appear, real or not, and people have to accept their teachings. There have been many false messiahs and will be more. For different peoples and faiths that is and some of them had nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity.

On the question of contemporary prophets I believe there is but only the Spirit can decide that for someone and they would never make money off of a gift. If they do they are false and self seeking. There is also such thing as testing the spirits to see if they are true or false but only the Spirit within someone can allow that to even occur. Basically the office of modern prophets is highly spiritual and only a few hear about them for they do not serve to give the masses a message but simply those within their groups. So as you can see there are prophets in many places, true ones, gifted by God, some by other deities or concepts. No one has to believe in them and personally I will only truly believe those prophecies spoken before me where I could feel the presence of God within me and the room.

[CrazY-BoY]

So if a person in todays world was to claim to be a messiah or anything of that sort obviously we would take it as the talk of an insane person, or someone seeking fame. But the same thing happened to Jesus (allegedly), so in the future could one of these "present day messiah"'s be considered a figurehead for a religion in the future?

What are your thoughts on this?

I think that if anyone claims to be a messiah during this time, and actually gets some followers they most likely be a figurehead for a religion in the future.Probably in like a 1000 years or more people will look back at our religions and make fun of it and most likely say its a myth like alot of people do know to some of the old religions, I bet the Greeks didnt think that zues wasn't mythical.

in a thousand year jesus is just gana be a myth.and then what ever the people from a thousand or more years from now belive will eventually be a mith.

It's all a cycle it keeps on repeating itself.

[Bez]

You both have interesting answers.

Rosewin, I agree with you on the not making money off a gift idea. I overlooked that entire aspect of it.

And CrazY-BoY that's an interesting theory. But don't we know that Greek or Roman gods were not real due to science disproving them? ie: the rotation of the earth instead of a chariot of fire riding across the sky. Still very interesting. It makes me wonder if science will ever become so advanced we can prove or disprove all religions. I bet wars would be waged over that...

[Rosewin]

The deity becomes myth only when it has outlived its usefulness and is replaced by another, not necessarily a higher, belief system. The way some think of the ancient gods as pure myth is simply a product of this but when analyzed outside of that we can see it was every bit a valid system as the ones we have today.

Edited November 7, 2008 by Rosewin

[Bez]

Well religion in my eyes was developed for two reasons.

1: To explain the unexplainable

2: To show there cannot be one person more powerful than another because in religion we are all less powerful than God or the gods.

Number two still holds true in my eyes, but number one falters when science is brought in, like the example I gave. I think a deity turns myth when most or all of the currently held system of belief is proven wrong, such as the Greek and Roman gods. Mount Olympus obviously cannot be a place where the gods lived because it is a physical area that humans can go to.

Where as religions of the modern day are impossible to disprove because no deity resides on earth or has any means of physical exsistance (at least recently). I don't exactly see this as another belief system, but instead more of an "evolution of religion" more or less. When one religion fails to uphold belief due to lack of facts, people invent new ways to describe things that haven't been disproven yet. Unfortunatly, when we deal with a subject beyond the realm of physical possibility, facts fail and faith wins...it's almost like cheating on the fact/faith system. Faith can't debate fact because well....it is fact. And fact can't debate faith because regardless of how solid the evidence against faith is, faith could change and create a new ground for debate and fact starts all over.

Analogy incoming:

It's like falling through ice into a frozen pond and when you try to pull yourself out more ice breaks off, making the hole you fell into bigger.