I refute your characterization of my statement as a defense of anything but factual reality. Prophets do not claim to speak to gods, which anyone praying does, but to have been spoken to by a god, and to tell others of it. No more, nor less.
Whether you judge them to be knowingly speaking falsely, or to be deluded, is immaterial. That is all that it means to be a prophet. A prophet is not a priest, a king, a banker, lawyer, or leader. Whether they are also any of those things is immaterial to whether they are a prophet, which is solely applied to them on that basis alone.
Please do not misunderstand my comment as criticism of your person, beliefs, or writing, except as it results from my understanding of the definition of prophecy and that being incorrectly applied in your writing. I certainly am not telling you what to believe, or write, and the whole objective I had in making comment is expressed precisely in that comment: I but recommended you consider it misapplied.
Further I don't do so out of any religious belief, or to promote any philosophy or cant - except that of using words as they are defined, and that because you write so well I am confident you undertake to write as well as you can. My purpose in my comment expresses my own often stated appreciation of criticism of my own writing. I have given you that coin I most desire thereby.
i am humbled and honored by your critique.
critique is what i live for.
critique is what i crave.
my understanding of a "prophet" is someone who has a direct experience of "the divine" or "magnum mysterium" or whatever you want to call it AND THEN TELLS PEOPLE ABOUT IT.
It's the TELLS PEOPLE ABOUT IT part that's problematic.
Having a direct experience of "the divine" or "magnum mysterium" or whatever you want to call it is, can we say, "apophatic".
the only "problem" is in thinking that this (GNOSIS) should be spoken about openly.
While I today generally do not blather about such things, there were times in my life I felt it extremely important to share them proselytizing. Since I am not proselytizing, it's no longer something I do, but I understand why prophets do. Some knowledge so gained is certainly only personally applicable, but it is difficult for me to criticize someone for sharing what they are absolutely certain is true just because I disagree it is true.
I see that as an opportunity to reconcile contrary understandings and create agreement, which I consider a good thing.
Don't you?
That's exactly what I'm doing, but I make a point to couch most of my statements in a framework of logic and try to avoid unfalsifiable appeals to authority (like "god told me").