Bad Math: The True Bible Code Guys

Bad Math: The Bible Code Guys

Science – "The Lords Witnesses" believe that there is a secret code embedded in the bible that will predict terrorist attacks. Their code is a classic example of a human-created pattern. We're natural pattern-seekers and it's one of the innate skills of our brains. But like so many other things, it can go a bit overboard.

A little thing like complete and total failure will never keep a True Believer™ down. The fun folks that call themselves “The Lords’ Witnesses Bible Scholars” are back for more prophecy hijinks. You may recall that they were 85% sure a nuke would be set off at the U.N. Plaza in New York on May 25th. When that failed to occur they fudged things a bit and claimed it would be within a couple of days of May 25th and when it became clear that New York still hadn’t been nuked they fell back on the popular tactic of pushing the date back a month or so. Well that date is nearly upon us once more and so the good folks at TLWBS did what any good group of attention whoring Christian nutcases God-fearing people would do: They put out another press release that tries to paint themselves as less than completely crazy:

The reader might think that such an endeavour is the preserve of religious freaks or wacky bible fanatics. But the Bible Scholars point out that Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered half of Pure Mathematics (Calculus) and who invented the entire subject of Newtonian Dynamics and who discovered gravity and who 300 hundred years ago formulated the laws which enabled NASA to put a man on the moon in the last century, knew that the bible was written in a symbolic code. He spent much of his life trying to decode it and calculated that Armageddon would be in 1948 (it would have been difficult for him to verify that calculation and correct it accordingly as we can today!) Much of Newton’s scriptural work can be found in his book: Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, published presently by The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. ISBN 0-942487-02-8. Not quite as popular as the Da Vinci Code, but much more logical!

Yes it is true that Sir Isaac Newton did believe there were hidden codes to be unlocked in the Bible that would reveal the future, but that only proves that very intelligent people can believe very silly things. Newton also was a big believer in alchemy and we all know how well that line of scientific inquiry worked out. The fact that someone who made such a huge contribution to science in one area also believed in Bible codes and alchemy doesn’t grant those topics any real legitimacy nor does it grant any legitimacy to anyone who follows in his footsteps. What matters is whether your predictions pan out in reality and, so far, the predictions of the TLWBS have not. Of course if they were to turn out to be correct there probably wouldn’t be anyone around to gloat about it for long as they seem to think the Earth is in for a very nasty fate:

Ironically, applying the true bible code to the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, reveals that Armageddon occurs when mankind’s technology has abused the planet so badly that the planet finally hits back and erupts in a giant volcanic reaction to global warming and to nuclear warfare. This reaction covers the entire surface of the globe with molten lava, in much the same way as the flood of Noah covered it with water. This then is the end result of our manipulation of nature for what we misperceive to be our material benefit.

There are days, when confronted with idiotic press releases such as this one, when I wish the globe would suddenly be flooded with lava just to shut these people the hell up. Alas it’s not likely to happen soon enough to save us from even more press releases when they have to push the date back yet again instead of admitting they’re a bunch of fucking loonies. Oh, and they’ve updated their prediction once more: We are now 98% confident that the UN Plaza will be hit by a terrorist nuclear bomb between Thursday evening June 29th and Tuesday evening July 4th, 2006. 98% is an impressive statement of confidence to make when you’ve admitted to already being wrong three times before. It’s also a perfect example of the power of faith making one immune from reality.
Here’s my prediction: The Lords’ Witnesses Bible Scholars will be wrong, yet again, and nothing even close to a regular bomb, let alone a nuclear one, will go off at the U.N. Plaza by the deadline they’ve established. I further predict that this will in no way damage the TLWBS’s flawed belief in their own abilities to extract predictions from their “Bible code” and they will continue to run around claiming the sky is falling until something eventually happens that they can glom onto and claim as proof of their predictive powers no matter how much you have to stretch the event to make it fit their predictions. Most amazing of all is that I didn’t need to apply some cryptic and arcane mathematical formula to a 2,000 year old book to make this prediction. I merely applied what I know about the creeping credulity of unquestioning faith that invariably corrupts people’s ability to reason.