Whenever there is prophecy involved the implications of which are rarely looked at such as...

if a prophecy is made and people band together and stop the prophecy is it still a prophecy? The event did not happen so it prediction was not accurate.

or

the self-fufilling prophecy, a propehcy is made and in the process of trying to prevent it the prophecy is in turn fulfilled, had the prophecy not been made it would not have occured calling into question the seer as they are creating events rather than seeing them.

ultimately it boils down to those who make the prophecies. seeing into future is a questionable practice from my standpoint and i have doubts about prophecy existince. Is it plausible that anyone suffiecently skilled at probabilty and game theory could extrapolate future events with out any hocus pocus? given that a self-fufilling prophecy is equaly as possible as self-defeating prophecy from the viewer stand point are they really all that accurate to begin with?

Finally what do you think of those creating prophecies with the intent on causing certain patterns of behaviour in people to achive a particular outcome?

Prophecy can be used to bring people together.
It can be inevitable.
It depends on the pattern of behaviour being created.

The last one interests me most.

Can you define "prophecy"...? Are you talking about anyone who has the ability to see into the possible future by any means, or are you only talking about people who sell their services, only predict grandiose (be it good or bad) futures, etc, etc?

That's not "prophecy", that's "profit-cy".

Depends on your definition of what a prophet is... I wouldn't call myself a prophet, though I use divination to see potential futures. A prophecy is *generally* described as foretelling a definite future, on a grander scale than just a prediction; prophecies are generally considered to be unavoidable, unlike predictions, and so on... However, there are people who see them as one and the same.

Myself, using the definitions described above, I've seen no evidence that prophecies exist outside of some really good (and some really bad) fiction.

Miss Cleo actually solved a case for me.
I used Sasha's credit card for the call though.

KT, I think you're not a prophet. (You said you weren't, anyway)

Prophecy usually involves some form of higher power, or divine will, to predict the future. Therefore, anyone touting prophecies is either best buddies with their own personal Jesus, or just trying to break the bank.

What about the prophecies that aren't?

By the definition of the work "prophecy", it would have to involve some higher power. Maybe not Jesus, it could be some ancient Norse dude with a holy beerstein or something.

concrete_Angel wrote:By the definition of the work "prophecy", it would have to involve some higher power. Maybe not Jesus, it could be some ancient Norse dude with a holy beerstein or something.

Sometimes.

What if someone sees the future and it never comes about on the time line they live but it does come about in an alternate time line? Are they a prophet/sooth sayer/fortune teller or are they just catching glimpses of another reality and wouldn't that make them more of a clairavoynt or just plain nuts.

The greek ideal of a Prophecy was just a random statement that could mean almost anything to anyone who heard it. The same can be said of most psychic-mediums today. A broad, generalized statement can be looked back on after a series of events and be seen as having been predictive. A real telling of the future would be detailed and complete, not general and vague.

Ron Caliburn wrote:Prophecy is typiclaly a coded message from those who know something to those who don't.

As for prophecies being coded messages, it is required that both parties know the code for them to be effective. Otherwise, they are simply jibberish.

KonThaak wrote:Depends on your definition of what a prophet is... I wouldn't call myself a prophet, though I use divination to see potential futures. A prophecy is *generally* described as foretelling a definite future, on a grander scale than just a prediction; prophecies are generally considered to be unavoidable, unlike predictions, and so on... However, there are people who see them as one and the same.

Myself, using the definitions described above, I've seen no evidence that prophecies exist outside of some really good (and some really bad) fiction.

A prophecy that predicts a definite future, on a grand scale, would be more like waht I was asking for; but all too often, they are small and opaque.

Sophoroto wrote:What if someone sees the future and it never comes about on the time line they live but it does come about in an alternate time line? Are they a prophet/sooth sayer/fortune teller or are they just catching glimpses of another reality and wouldn't that make them more of a clairavoynt or just plain nuts.

Oh! You mean the Oracle of the Padded Cell! Yeah, he's just in there for the protection from the outside world.

Sophoroto wrote:I was being serious when I posted that because I myself have been to alternate reality with my mentor and guardian Mr. Greydawn.

Thanks for the answer though.

Then perhaps your prophetic veiws were, in truth, self-fullfilling prophecies and they only applied to your own existence. You are seeing your own future and that is always up to you to alter or accept. In any case, welcome back.

There are however times when one's understanding of the Tao allows one to predict the future based on details that others consider trivial. In many ways such a prediction would be considered prophesy. I have no difficulty in believing that there are those who can unravel the lines of cause and effect far more efficiently than I, and that for me their predictions and plans may well seem to be prophesy rather than understanding.

Shang Li wrote:There are however times when one's understanding of the Tao allows one to predict the future based on details that others consider trivial. In many ways such a prediction would be considered prophesy. I have no difficulty in believing that there are those who can unravel the lines of cause and effect far more efficiently than I, and that for me their predictions and plans may well seem to be prophesy rather than understanding.

I am sorry to say that you are most certainly wrong here, esteemed Shih Shang. The Tao has its patterns, its ebbs and flows, it has structure; and yet it allows for the actions of the beings of which it is made and which it makes. It is malleable to the slightest of degrees.

An understanding of the currents of the Tao can allow for a logical calculation of possible events in the future, but, in truth, that remains only a 'possible' future. The Tao does not have a Will, per se. It is but a force that makes up and moves the universe. The Will of the Tao is to be found in the emotions and actions of living beings; therefore, it is only through actions that are in concert with the flow of the universe that the Tao moves without eddy. Prophecy requires Divine Will:

prophecy
Main Entry: proph·e·cy
Variant(s): also proph·e·sy \ˈprä-fə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural proph·e·cies also proph·e·sies
Etymology: Middle English prophecie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin prophetia, from Greek prophēteia, from prophētēs prophet
Date: 13th century
1: an inspired utterance of a prophet
2: the function or vocation of a prophet; specifically : the inspired declaration of divine will and purpose
3: a prediction of something to come

Adn just for clarification:

prophet
Main Entry: proph·et
Pronunciation: \ˈprä-fət\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English prophete, from Anglo-French, from Latin propheta, from Greek prophētēs, from pro for + phanai to speak — more at for, ban
Date: 12th century
1: one who utters divinely inspired revelations: as aoften capitalized : the writer of one of the prophetic books of the Bible bcapitalized : one regarded by a group of followers as the final authoritative revealer of God's will <Muhammad, the Prophet of Allah>
2: one gifted with more than ordinary spiritual and moral insight; especially : an inspired poet
3: one who foretells future events : predictor
4: an effective or leading spokesman for a cause, doctrine, or group
5Christian Science a: a spiritual seer b: disappearance of material sense before the conscious facts of spiritual Truth

A prophecy is the telling of the will of the divine. If the Western description of the divine is correct, then that Will CANNOT be subverted or altered and the event WILL happen regardless of man's actions to try to keep it from happening.

Events that are seen, but never seen to come to fruition due to one's actions to avert said events, are non-events. Therefore, a prophecy of things to come becomes the mere mad ravings of things that might have been. As the people who learn a prophecy must live the events, the events cannot be foretold in one dimension (or alternate reality) and come to pass in another, for the prophecy was not for the other but for the prior.

Heather Dawes wrote:Goofy jetlag, going to drink more before next flight. Taaaah.

That's right Miss Dawes, Ya' go do that.

Heather Dawes wrote:I had a seer, who was angry at me (go figure) fore tell my future was to marry a male demon. I asked if mean a female demon.

???

Angel: I just don't ask anymore. There's a reason I have her on my Block list.

Not familiar with those... Succubi and Incubi are the closest things I can think of, but so far as I knew, they had very definite genders. Most of the others were never referenced as having genders, meaning they were either genderless or it just didn't matter.

I think that they serve as potential futures, as warnings and as guides. but I don't really see them as fixed and inevitable.
A self-fulfilling prophecy is one where people know about it and try to fulfill it.
Crouching Jesus, Hidden Imam?
Let's say, purely theoretical, some leader of a large Western country believes in a literal interpretation of the book of Revelation, and tries to create chaos in the Middle East in order to bring about the Armageddon scenario. He does it because he believes that this will cause the return of Jesus.
And, let's just say that some madman in the Middle East thinks that if he can cause chaos and war that the Hidden Imam. Put those two factors together and you have a recipe for disaster. What if their prophecies are wrong and all they do is get a bunch of people killed? Gee, who would benefit most from this? I wonder....

From what I've read in Victor Lazlos' books, and what we are learning in modern cosmology & physics, there may be multiple futures, multiples pasts and perhaps multiple presents!
I've recently been reading Brian Greens' "Elegant Universe" and Michiu Kakus' "Hyperspace", and they have strong implications for prophecy students. There may very well be a whole slew of universes, millions of them, all bound up together. Ours would be just one of these, like a single bubble floating in a sea of foam. Most would probably fall into parameters where the relationships between matter and energy are so different from our own that life as we know it could never get started.
Now, imagine a 3(+1 for Time, but it's not needed for our map) axis with a universe where the 'Big Bang' (though I despise that term because it is hardly accurate when we take into account what we've learned from scientific observation) fizzled and never expanded on one end (X), a universe where the 'Big Bang' expanded too quickly and burned itself out before even the proto-stars formed (Z), a universe where things worked out like our own (Y). Now, between these three we can map a probability range of curved points for how many types of universe possibilities. Millions of possible universes. In any number of them, the various prophecies that have failed may have become true. They overlap, they bounce of each other. Sometimes they diverge and converge to one another... it would look to us like a mess of spaghetti.
Oh my sweet Lord Krishna, maybe the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is onto something!

Heather Dawes wrote:Disregarding the rest of the 'stuff' you mention; your talking about the theory of the multi-verse.

Multi-doesn't quite cut it though, that just implies simple plurality.
I'm talking about millions of universes. If our universe was at the center (at least for perspective/relativity purposes) of the 3 axis graph, the further you got from us, the more divergent it would be along a line or curve from our own; but the majority may be so different that we could not exist in them in a conventional sense. Yes, many of them would occupy the same space and time as us and be wound up in a tighter space than we can fathom, the "failed" universes that never started even tighter still! Some could be in higher dimensionally defined spaces so strange and large that our universe seems infinitely limited and insignificant.
But that's highly speculative and probably impossible to verify.