How do you tell someone their prophet was wrong?

Technarch
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How do you tell someone their prophet was wrong?

Many religions rely on a prophet as proof of communication with a greater spiritual being.  How do you make the claim that the prophet was most likely lying, delusional, dreaming, or on drugs rather than having a genuine vision?  Let's say you make an argument with the assumption Moses, Muhammed or Joseph Smith were not seeing visions but were making up events in order to persuade others, how would you  make this argument when it can't be proven?  You can say I believe he was lying, or it seems obvious he was lying, or chances are he was lying, but such assumptions seem to have as little evidence as the assumption that they honestly saw visions of God.   I'd like to base a series of arguments on the "lying" assumption, but it's still a groundless assumption with no evidence.


Magus
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 The basis for believing in

 The basis for believing in something should be the evidence.  Not the basis for not believing in something should be the evidence.

Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.


American Atheist
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Well, there are some theist

Well, there are some theist vs. theist moments, in which they claim that the other person's religion was found by a false prophet.

Check out this debate between a Christian and a Muslim, right here


serotonin_wraith
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I'd mention all the

I'd mention all the 'prophets' they don't believe in. For example, if you're talking to a Christian, ask them if they believe Muhammed was delusional or lying, ask them if they believe Claude Vorilhon (now called Rael) was really contacted by aliens to form the Raelian movement, or whether he was delusional or lying.

Then ask them to explain why their 'prophet' was not lying or delusional and see if they can answer it in any way that doesn't involve 'faith that my parents told me about the one true religion.'


JCE
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I think you would have to

I think you would have to come up with proof of a personal agenda for the prophet.  What did each stand to gain by persuading others to believe them?  Or what did they gain by doing this?  Sorry I do not know enough history about any of them to establish a better argument, and in some cases there may not be enough information available.  As per a discussion I had recently, L. Ron Hubbard made quite a financial gain with Scientology although this may not have been his original intent.  Scientology is a crummy comparison, but it was the only example I could think of - sorry!