Why don’t Mormons demand more from their prophets?

[drumdude]

A plumber that doesn’t fix your leaking pipes and tells you to have the faith not to be healed is not a good plumber.

An electrician that doesn’t fix your sparking breaker and tells you that it’s not really sparking is not a good electrician.

A prophet who doesn’t prophesy, is not a good prophet.

Self help truisms are not prophesy. Diatribes on morality and rumination on culture wars are not visions from a seer. Take your vitamins is not a revelation. Demands for blind obedience and tithing from those who can least afford it are what you would expect from cult leaders.

Mormons should expect more. Especially at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes. If all they get out of it is community and warm fuzzy feelings, there are many more cost effective options on the free market.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

More like a plumber that shows up, blames you for the broken pipes, doesn’t fix anything and then Demands 10% of your annual gross income.

And then the plumber demands you show up to his house weekly to vacuum and clean his bathrooms for free.

[Dr Exiled]

More like a plumber that shows up, blames you for the broken pipes, doesn’t fix anything and then Demands 10% of your annual gross income.

And then the plumber demands you show up to his house weekly to vacuum and clean his bathrooms for free.

Nice analogy.

[Dr Exiled]

Stockholm Syndrome? Apologists and members alike defend their captors, even when faced with the clear, unmistakable truth that their captor leaders are failing them.

You shouldn't criticize the leaders even when criticism is true - Dallin Oaks

[malkie]

Perhaps, deep down, they realise that there is nothing to be gained from demanding more. And that if their demands become an embarrassment to the church there may be something to be lost.

If the god of the Mormons is unwilling or unable to deliver on his plainly stated promises, how can we expect anything substantial from god's mouthpieces?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

To answer the titled question:

Those who demand more from Mormon prophets often find themselves no longer Mormon.

- Doc

[Moksha]

More like a plumber that shows up, blames you for the broken pipes, doesn’t fix anything and then Demands 10% of your annual gross income.

The plumber offering an investment opportunity:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-al ... 0d4b618572

[Bret Ripley]

Self help truisms are not prophesy. Diatribes on morality and rumination on culture wars are not visions from a seer. Take your vitamins is not a revelation.

You left out launching rebranding campaigns that would make a pushmepullyou* blush: "I am a Mormon" followed by "Don't Call Me That (Just Call Me Maybe)".

But let us be sober: being a prophet is evidently a ticklish business. One lesson apologetics teaches us is that something once considered a prophetic utterance may later be reclassified as merely "speaking as a man"** so it is only reasonable to approach the prophetic with a healthy sense of epistemic humility: nobody, nobody, nobody today can tell the difference between the prophetic and a really gonzo marketing scheme. We'll at least have to wait for the 4th Quarter financials to make that call.

If I were LDS and you dared suggest I demand more prophet stuff, I'd reply with a polite "no thank you." I mean, I probably already have a pile of prophetic stuff from bygone decades/centuries that apologists are still trying to sort out; if the thinking hasn't already been done, I always have the blessed hope that there will one day be someone somewhere to do the thinking for me.

And, after all, maybe this is what having a prophet is all about? Even if something he says/does is later determined to be full of crap, we can always count on those future friends we haven't had a chance to alienate along the way.

* A small part of me is dying to see what autocorrect makes of that.
** To those who may prefer the gender-neutral, I ask: just who do we think we are kidding?

[Moksha]

Nobody wants micro-managing prophecies and especially prophecies asking for your wife or daughters. Just giving a couple of talks twice a year at General Conference is much safer.

[drumdude]

especially prophecies asking for your wife or daughters.

Good lord you’re right. Mormonism when it’s powerful is terrifying.

Thank God Joseph smith never created his theocracy in Utah.