If a member of this forum claims personal authority (as I outline in #50):
Has he, or has he not "made it personal"?
Is challenging the legitimacy of said claim to authority a form of "making it personal"?
Some Freepers are published writers and post their articles. Some Freepers write vanities. Some Freepers post articles claiming that they are speaking for God. Some Freepers write articles all about themselves (particularly as an opus or mea culpa.)
In all of these cases, if the article is posted on the Religion Forum then the guidelines here apply to it.
Arguably, in each case, the Freeper made himself a "target." And when the article is "about" himself (e.g. an opus) - he "made it personal" from the get-go.
In order to keep the thread from being locked or pulled for "childish behavior" on the RF it falls to all the RF posters to discuss the issues without going down that road, even when he opened the gates himself.
In the case at hand, an RF poster might reply that author's claim to be a prophet is false because ... or that the author's prophecy is false because ...
What he must not do is "make it personal" by saying such things as "you're a liar" "have you taken your meds?" "you're only saying this because..." and so on.