The end is 2014 ???.... I will try to save it ;)

Phantom · Sep 25, 2005

Yes, I didn't see it this time around, but I have seen the Doco recently.

I have an open mind to alternate possibilities in a lot of things, but it doesn't mean I am locked into permanent scepticism, or believe any half credible story, either.

Trouble with most 'prophecies' is that people tend to reinterpreted the prophesies after the facts. For example, I've seen things like Nostradamis interpreted and reinterpreted on the exact-same quatrains so many times over the last thirty years alone it's not funny.

Mathematics, like a lot of things, can be made to support or refute just about any argument.

Will the Earth last a billion years, or be destroyed by a rouge asteroid, or whatever? I don't know, since I don't plan on being around long enough to verify it. Nor does anyone else that I know of, unless they can show some astronomical or other evidence that it's definitely going to happen on such-a-such a date.

It might happen next month, or the sun may go super-nova before it happens. I might get run over by a K-Mart truck too, which is probably a bit more likely, given the way I've seen some of them drive.

omnihilo · Sep 25, 2005

ANHEDONIC said:

Anywho, I have no doubt they can use other texts to create a few codes with significance.... But the Torrah (or Bible whatever) has created numerous matrix's of shocking accuracy... That one matrix they mentioned that referred to 9/11 has Bin Laden, Twin Towers, From The Sky, Muslim threat, etc (can't remember 100%)... Another one referenced the Pentagon being attacked as well with phrases such as "secondary target"... The show also made references of the Assasination of the Israel Prime Ministesr in the 1980's.. Somebody actually approached an Israeli official way back when and warned about that it would happen that year, turned out that person was analyzing bible code.

Another thing I found interesting was the fact that the phrases didn't just appear randomly in some of the matrix's... They appeared in semantic order so much so that they could be formed into sentences... Also thought it was interesting analyzing the bible code from scientific/mathematical perspective... Calculating that the accuracy of some of the codes found in various matrix's comes down to a million to one. The addition of dates found in various matrix's makes me even more perplexed...

Do I believe in this stuff 100%? I wouldn't say that. But there are far too many consistencies in the matrix's to dismiss them as coincidental...
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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code

The primary objection advanced against Bible codes of the Drosnin variety is that similar patterns can be found in books other than the Bible. Although the probability of an ELS in a random place being a meaningful word is low, there are so many possible starting points and skips that many such words are expected to appear. Responding to an explicit challenge from Drosnin, who claimed that only the Bible could yield ELS, Australian mathematician Brendan McKay found many ELS letter arrays in Moby Dick that contain ELSs related to modern events. Other people, such as US physicist Dave Thomas, found other examples in many texts. In addition, Drosnin had used the flexibility of Hebrew orthography to his advantage, freely mixing classic (no vowels, Y and W strictly consonant) and modern (Y and W used to indicate i and u vowels) modes, as well as variances in spelling of K and T, to wrench out the desired meaning. In his television series John Safran vs God, Australian television personality John Safran worked with McCay to look for evidence of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York in the lyrics of Vanilla Ice's repertoire.

Code proponents respond by claiming that the ELS letter arrays appearing in the Bible are better in some way than those appearing in other books. They also like to hypothesize and investigate new types of codes to stay ahead of criticism. However, in the absence of an objective measure of quality and an objective way to select test subjects, it is not possible to positively determine whether any particular observation is significant or not. For that reason, most of the serious effort of the skeptics has been focused on the "scientific" claims of Witztum, Rips and Gans.

In 1999, McKay, together with mathematicians Dror Bar-Natan and Gil Kalai, and psychologist Maya Bar-Hillel, published a paper in Statistical Science which they claim provides an adequate refutation of the earlier paper of Witztum and Rips. Their main points were:

The data used by Witztum and Rips was a list of rabbi names in Hebrew. The Hebrew language is somewhat flexible as far as name spelling goes, and each rabbi has several different appellations (aliases and nicknames), so special care should be taken as to how to choose the particular names searched for. So their result could be explained by claiming the data was not collected properly. From the paper: "...the data was very far from [being] tightly defined by the rules of their experiment. Rather, there was enormous "wiggle room" available, especially in the choice of names for the famous rabbis".
There is indirect evidence that the data were not, in fact, collected properly; that is, the choice of names and spellings was somehow biased towards those supporting the codes hypothesis.
Attempts at replicating the experiment failed to achieve the same result. From the paper: "A technical problem that gave us some difficulty is that WWR have been unable to provide us with their original computer programs. Neither the two programs distributed by WWR, nor our own independent implementations of the algorithm as described in WWR's papers, consistently produce the exact distances listed [by WWR]".
There has been a continuing debate on these claims. (See the web pages cited below.)

The experiment of Gans has also received critical attention. Several attempts at replicating it, designed by mathematician Barry Simon, gave negative results. Finally, a committee at the Hebrew University, comprising both codes proponents and skeptics, ran two replications using outside experts to compile the data. Both replications failed to find the phenomenon that Gans' original experiment claimed to find.
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Well gee, if they can find ominous portents in the lyrical stylings of Vannila Ice then I'm officially spooked. Oh, and did you know that gullible isn't found in the dictionary?

I'd say putting a billion year life expectancy on our earth is too generous. Hell aren't we at risk each and every day of a meteor smashing into our planet? I'm of the opinion we could go at any time... Whether it be from nuclear holocast, meteor, disease, or whatever...
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I doubt we'll make it a billion years on this planet, or that we'll remain human beings indefinitely. I don't think we'll just wind up extinct though, judging how much progress we've made technlogically just in the past 100 years, one can only imagine how far advanced we'll be in another thousand, or ten thousand. Nah, we'll be infecting the galaxy in no time, one way or another

ANHEDONIC · Sep 25, 2005

omnihilo that garble didn't really make much sense to me... in the special they mentioned those points and addressed some of the claims make by bible code oponents, it was a fairly well balanced presentation... to replicate that initial study using the rabbi's names, they instead used the birthplaces of them and I believe they could find those as well...

There are professionals who make a living studying these types of ancient cryptology and many of them are employed by the governments of nations across the world... according to the documentary Israeli officials even examined bible code in trying to predict missile strikes by under Saddam Hussein's regime during the first Gulf War... I don't think any information provided by a Wikipedia entry implies anyone is "gullible"...

StarBow1er · Sep 25, 2005

I guess I'm the guilty party for saying 'gullible'!
I said that cause I know some of the people reading this thread probably think we're nuts for even finding this stuff interesting!
I"d like to think I'm openminded, I do recall seeing the first show, tho offhand I can't remember most of it....
There's too much coincidence with their findings to ignore....
It's not that I think for sure the world will end in 2012, but, there's always that possibility.
I will definetly make sure I see the next show, so we can all talk about this again!

And 'hi' again hithere!
You're not the only one who watches those kind of shows, I've watched that Bermuda triangle show and found that to be interesting also!
When I had more time on my hands I used to watch those kind of shows all the time. Always watching the History channel and the Discovery channel.
I miss watching those shows!
(can't wait until Idol is back on)

ANHEDONIC · Sep 25, 2005

i'm disappointed with TLC (The Learning Channel)... seems like all they play is home remodeling shows.... only show I can stand to watch on it is Overhaulin'...

Clark_Kent · Sep 25, 2005

ANHEDONIC you are right those remodeling shows s**k big time i like Overhaulin' but now i am at discovery channel almost all the time and fox
from times to times smallville premiere next thursday

hithere · Sep 25, 2005

StarBow1er said:

And 'hi' again hithere!
You're not the only one who watches those kind of shows, I've watched that Bermuda triangle show and found that to be interesting also!
When I had more time on my hands I used to watch those kind of shows all the time. Always watching the History channel and the Discovery channel.
I miss watching those shows!
(can't wait until Idol is back on)
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LOL.. you're right.. who cares if the world is ending tomorrow, we still gotta watch American Idol ..
however, i might not be able to watch the next season because i might be leaving the states in a couple of months to go back home (or maybe not)...

StarBow1er · Sep 25, 2005

hithere said:

LOL.. you're right.. who cares if the world is ending tomorrow, we still gotta watch American Idol ..
however, i might not be able to watch the next season because i might be leaving the states in a couple of months to go back home (or maybe not)...
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Awww....Home for good, or just a long visit?

hithere · Sep 25, 2005

home for good.. but then i'm not sure of the date...
i guess i won't be there in the next Idol thread..

StarBow1er · Sep 25, 2005

awww.....

ANHEDONIC · Oct 3, 2005

bump... there is one on right now about the Apocalypse =]

omnihilo · Oct 4, 2005

There's an interesting documentary coming out next month dealing with the apocalypse as well http://imdb.com/title/tt0371606/

</snark>

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