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You can anagram just about anything and it will give you bizarre readings you will swear are
prophetic. |
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Sola Scriptura.
And there is some figurative language |
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The entire "Bible codes" sort of thing can be shown to work equally well (which, in reality, equates
to "doesn't really work at all") with ANY text. |
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I'm generally open-minded about paranormal phenomena but, in my opinion, the bible code hypothesis
and, in fact, every supposedly prophetic text I've ever spent any time looking into, is complete
rubbish. My understanding of these bible codes is that they only work in Hebrew, and that Hebrew
doesn't have any vowels. So all you have is a bunch of consonants and you're allowed to put in your
own vowels. It's very easy to make up your own words therefore.
The text is very flexible. Especially when you take into account the rules that these bible code
searchers use. For example, they letters in the words that they claim to find don't have to lie next
to each other. They can be separated by other letters. So, if the adjacent letters don't give you
what you're looking for, you can jump across multiple other letters to get the one you need.
Supposedly, there has to be equal spacing between each letter in the word, though, so at least there
are some constraints. Nevertheless, the rules are extremely loose and it is very easy to find
whatever you want in such a vast mass of text when you're allowed to insert your own vowels. |
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I need to watch that broadcast on the History Channel to see just how “precise” the information
and fortune telling is. There are multiple routine ways “prophecies” are made. I’ll list a few
of the categories that almost any “prophecy” can fit into.
After-The-Fact Prophecy - The "prophecy" can be written or modified after the events fulfilling it
have already occurred.
Shoe-Horning (vagueness)- The “prophecy” can be worded in such a way that people can interpret
almost any outcome as a fulfillment. Nostradamus's prophecies are all of this type. The use of
vagueness works particularly well when people are religiously motivated to believe the "prophecies".
Large Numbers Prophecy - The prediction that even extremely unlikely coincidences will occur,
assuming a large enough number of trials. This works by making a great number of predictions,
whereas the odds of one of them being fulfilled is increased by the more “prophecies” the person
makes.
Inevitability (predicting the obvious) - The “prophecy” can predict something that is almost
sure to happen, such as the collapse of a city. Since nothing lasts forever, the city is sure to
fall someday. If it has not, it can be said that according to “prophecy”, it will. (similar to
TyWhyHiTy’s prophecy mentioned under the debate “We’re Not Doomed”).
Denial - One can claim that the fulfilling events occurred even if they have not. Or, more commonly,
one can forget that the failed prophecy was ever made, while acknowledging the so called
“successful” ones.
Self-fulfillment - A person can act deliberately to satisfy a known prophecy.
There is no “prophecy” within the Bible that I’ve come across yet that doesn’t fit into one
or more of these categories (there are actually more categories than just the ones I‘ve listed).
Also, notice that “prophecies”, not only the ones within the Bible, never seem to give specific
dates or times for the events being predicted. Ultimately, this allows any “prophecy” to last
forever without being fulfilled while the believers in the prediction simply claim “The prophesy
will come true SOMEDAY”. |
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Until they can predict the future accurately BEFORE it happens, then there's no such thing. Anyone
can take past events and shoe-horn them into a so-called prophecy, they did it with Nostradamus,
they did it with Edgar Cayce, they can do it with virtually any book as well.
Let's see them actually predict the future. |
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21 Mar 2008 16:32
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