An Update on the Bible Code Bozos

About 10 days ago, I wrote a post about a group of bozos who believe they've found a secret code in the bible, and that according to them, there was going to be a nuclear attack on the UN building in NYC by terrorists. This was their fourth attempt to predict a date based on their oh-so-marvelous code.

Well, obviously, they were wrong again. But, do they let that stop them? Of course not! That's the beauty of using really bad math for your code: you can always change the result when it doesn't work. If you get the result you want, then you can say your code was right; if you don't get things right, it's never the fault of the code: it's just that you misinterpreted. I thought it would be amusing to show their excuse:

We made another mistake. The monthly Sabbath of 2006Tammuz is not 30 individual daily Sabbaths, but is one month long Sabbath. Our new predicted date for a Nuclear Attack on the UN in New York City launched from the Sea or a great River is Sundown Tuesday July 25th - Sundown Thursday July 27th.

Yeah, they got days and months mixed up. That's the ticket! So now it's another three weeks off. But they're still right! They still know the truth, and want to save us!

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Reminds me of Monty Python's "Spanish Inquisition" sketch:

Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no ...

Trouble is, the Python sketch was deliberately funny. The Bible Code charlatans, and others of their ilk, are serious. People actually believe that junk, and are willing to spend money on it.

Actually this kind of charlatanry is nothing new. People have been trying to uncover secret messages within religeous texts for centuries. Although it's not widely known Isaac Newton, popularly depicted as the very pinacle of rationality, spent a good deal of his lifetime trying to find hidden messages within the bible which would predict the end of the world.

What gets me is not the idiocy of trying to tell the future from some code in the Bible, but wanting to know the future. If the future is something good, then I want to be pleasantly surprised. If the future is a bad event, then I don't want to live in dread. An example - my mother and I had a good time on the day she died. I am quite happy not to have known the end of the day. Because I didn't dread the ending I have good memories of the day. Wanting to know the future seems to me to be more ridiculous than finding something hidden in scripture. And should I also mention the gnostic sort of heresy where only special people could know all of what God intended?

Roger

But in this case they have means to make the prediction true. "Latest news: Bible code terrorists release A bomb in NYC!!!"

By Torbjörn Larsson (not verified) on 08 Jul 2006 #permalink

Many years ago I studied the phenomenon of medieval alchemy. Not because I believed in the possibility of it working, but for the purpose of writing some RPG scenarios. At the time I read several books on the subject. As I recall, there were three primary goals for the medieval alchemists.

1. Eternal Life
2. Unlimited wealth
3. Knowledge of the future

In many ways these goals reflect common fears among people, the fears of ignorance, penury, and death.

Funny how little human nature has changed in the last millennium.

Cheers,

-Flex

P.S. Incidently, when Nicolas Flamel was mentioned in the first Harry Potter book, I had already read a biographical sketch of him. He was basically a Parisian money-lender who professed to have become weathly from alchemy once he became a philanthropist when he neared the end of his life. Alchemists being far more respected than usurers.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd their at it again! Kudos for trying. The excuse this time, of course people needed a few days to get their bearings, and they forgot to calculate that into the equation.

We have now made 6 or 7 mistakes (depending upon how you count them) as regards the precise day of the first nuclear terrorist bomb, which we understand will hit the UN in Midtown Manhattan. We deduce the attack from our interpretations of 1 Kings 18 and Revelation 13 and 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Our new and 7th/8th attempt at the date should be correct since Elijah told his attendant to go back and look for a man made mushroom cloud 7 times after the first no show, giving 8 attempts in all - 1 Kings 18:43. We have deduced that the first nuclear bomb goes off 900+850=1750 days (a day for a prophet) of 1 Kings 18 after the prophetic end times contest between the 3rd true Christian church (the Jehovah's Witnesses) and the 4th true Christian church (The Lords' Witnesses) began. We thought said contest began on 911. 1750 BLC days after 911 was July 25-27, 2006 (inclusively/exclusively). That date was our 6th/7th mistake. But being realistic, people were in a state of shock for several days after September 11. So it is reasonable to suppose that the contest would not have begun until thoughts were collected.

So the new date for the first nuclear terrorist bomb at UN Plaza in Midtown Manhattan is Sundown Sunday July 30th - Sundown Tuesday August 1, 2006

Don't be there!!!

... and even before the clock runs out on their last prediction, they've admitted they're wrong, sort of, and made a new one.

I have a little trouble deciphering this, but I think they say that they were technically wrong about the bomb (for the eighth time ... hey, they're not completely innumerate). But mostly they were right because they also predicted that the UN would "lose its headship" over Israel, and that obviously happened. So the day of Jehovah hasn't started yet, but it has started to get ready to begin to prepare to start.

Oh yeah, and that bomb is going to hit on Friday. Or Saturday. Unless it doesn't.

By Billy Carson (not verified) on 01 Aug 2006 #permalink

Jesus stated that no man knows the hour but the father. So making these predictions is not biblical but contrary to the bible. If the prediction came from God it must be correct each time, God makes no mistakes. These are false prophets

whats up with those stupid idiots who claim their religion is better than any other and their religion is the true religion of god. dont they know that we are here because of evolution and not creationism and now they want to use science to prove their hypocrisy. unbelievable there are 70% of all american (idiots!) who believe in creationism. stupid americans. the future create the past if you believe in quantum physics. therefore there is no god only mathematical probabilities due to evolution.

By alan van cleave (not verified) on 23 Jun 2007 #permalink

the future create the past if you believe in quantum physics.

No, there is nothing in todays QM that indicates that, and there are plenty of indications that ordinary light-cone causality is demanded. But that, and evolutionary biology, is all that is needed.

By Torbjörn Lars… (not verified) on 23 Jun 2007 #permalink

No, there is nothing in todays QM that indicates that, and there are plenty of indications that ordinary light-cone causality is demanded.

But Torbjorn! Microtubules Roger Penrose "weirdness" Einstein Podolsky-Roger Penrose!

Coin,

Microtubules Roger Penrose "weirdness" Einstein Podolsky-Roger Penrose!

Danger, Will Robinson! Doesn't compute - zckl!^prftzzsss ...

By Torbjörn Lars… (not verified) on 23 Jun 2007 #permalink

This is a purely technical point...
E wrote:

Jesus stated that no man knows the hour but the father. So making these predictions is not biblical but contrary to the bible.

That verse is part of a larger speech by Jesus. [Matthew 24:1-36.] In that speech Jesus tells his disciples that the world will end in their lifetime.

Matthew 24:34 Truly I [Jesus] tell you [the disciples], this generation will not pass away until all these things [the end of the world] have taken place.

Then he says,

Matthew 24:36 But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Jesus tells his disciples that the world will end within a few decades, but the exact day or hour is not known.

Which is to say, you can't use the bible to say the exact day or hour of the world's end; but you can use the bible to figure out the general timeframe. That timeframe was, according to Jesus, the lifespan of his disciples.

So while you can use the bible to predict when the world will end, what you predict is wrong: the bible predicts that the world ended 1900 years ago.

By David Ratnasabapathy (not verified) on 24 Jun 2007 #permalink

if we are here becos of evolution we would find transitory forms every time we dig the garden but theyre pretty thin on ( or under ) the ground the writer of the zion protocols claims to with others to have pushed evolution so as to corrupt gentile youth seems to have worked kh