Prophets
OP - November 20, 2014, 08:31 AM
Once there was a man who was visited by the angel Gabriel, which caused him to go out and preach a message of monotheism and a turn away from the current pagan beliefs and practices which were prevalent at the time. This man was known to be very charismatic and won large amounts of converts quickly due to his religious zeal and claim to prophethood. He practiced polygamy and was known to be very superstitious. He believed in the validity of occult practices, including witchcraft. Many miracles were later attributed to him by his followers.
I, of course, speak of a man named... William Wade Harris
Harris lived in Liberia and claimed that the angel Gabriel had visited him and had called him to prophethood by tapping him on the head three times in an anointing that emphasized the tri-unity of God. He became a charismatic Christian "prophet" and wandered across the countryside of West Africa gaining massive amounts of converts for Christianity (it was reported he gained 100,000 new converts in a two year period!). He did not dismiss witchcraft and other superstitious practices as delusions as many Christian missionaries were claiming, but was known for burning items of the occult and taught that they had dark power. Legends spoke of how pagan shrines would actually burst into flames as he approached.
I learned about this from a book I am reading for my history class about how the spread of Christianity in places outside Europe and North America in recent centuries. In highly superstitious environments, like some parts of Africa, supernatural visions and calls to prophethood are a dime a dozen. You can find tons of people with a message given directly to them from God or people who claim they have had visions of heaven or hell. Even in China, there are notable examples of similar things such as Hong Xiuquan, who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus and had a divine mission to overthrow the Chinese government. Throughout history, the number of people who have claimed prophethood probably number in the millions. Many of these prophetic messages blatantly contradict each other and, of course, many people are just lying about their "revelation" from God.
What exactly makes Muhammad different? I say that in absence of extremely strong evidence that this individual has access to knowledge that would only be available to a super intelligence that we would not be justified to believe in any of these prophetic claims. Even in Muhammad's time, there were many people claiming to be prophets, but according to Muslims they were just "false prophets." There is nothing in the Quran that would begin to prove that Muhammad was a "true" prophet, so why bother making the distinction?
Just my two cents...
"I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."
-Thomas Paine
Topic: Prophets