Nostradomus... the end days

[KafirChobee]

Does anyone here give any credance to this "hind-sight" crap? I mean, everything is after the fact - it is like "oh! now I understand!".

wELL, DO YOU?

[Samurai Waki]

what are you on?

[Lentonius]

hmm.

id guess he meant everyone uses pathetic language to simply say 'yes' or something with

[Prodigal]

Don't believe I must confess, although you have to give him his dues, he managed to write such ambiguous stuff that you could read almost anything into it.

[Ironside]

Well, there's some inconsistances with him.

For example, he was writing in code and random timeline so people wouldn't see his abilities and thus burn him on the stake. Why he then didn't stop writing the future after his death in code is a very good question.
And if he wanted everything in code because he didn't want to inform the people of the future, why did he even write the texts?

The only thing that makes "sence" is that someone is supposed to have use of this at some point in history to change something.

And I got a nice little book from 1981 about some guy trying to predict the future thruogh Nostradamus.

Basically a very important figure known as Henry V is going to take power 1990 in France, have a very dominant rule and lead France to greatness. He's supposed to replace Mitterand (that was supposted to banish the catholics BTW).
I mean it's a perfect description of Chirac isn't it? And as Chirac is going to be murdered after 15 years of rule, he'll die in 2010. And be replaced by 2 great rulers that will rule for a long time. Oh, and thursday will be a holy day for mr. Chirac (and even replacing sunday as the day off).

Then the Islamic hordes will come (starting around 2060). They will start invade Europe at 2080 and conquer most of Europe. But around 2250 a Nordic and (northen) German counter-attack will start liberate Europe, and does so 2264. At 2300 the Islamic horde is finally broken and a new golden age with the Germans as leaders will begin.

And after some political mess, GB lost Malta to arabs in 2005. Do you remember that?

Besides some funny stuff about historical "facts" he has done. Hitler (that seems to be refered with 3 different names ) was supposed to rule in 9 years of peace instead of the factual 6. That it went well for Hitler in an election 1930 doesn't mean that he ruled during those 3 years (1930-1933).

And another predictior predicts WWIII in 1985-1986, short but intence. He also predicts the fall of marxism in 1989, quite close (the fall of the Berlin wall), but ofcourse the unification of Germany happened before WWIII.
Regan got murdered and a female president took power after him.
He also predicts that after WWIII Europe will unite under French rule, mostly thanks to that Henry V.

But those predictions are very open to interpretation. The quote "human is fabricated by human" was interpreted together with some other stuff to a new energy source from water (oh look hydrogen cars, or maybe deuterium ), while I must say that it's obvious that he predicted human cloning

[Ludens]

The funny thing of Nostradomus is that most of his verses can actually be attributed to something that happened before or during Nostradomus lifetime. Apparently: if he had a message, it was that we should learn from the past.

But you can hardly blame the guy. He was of the wrong religion, so he needed a powerful protector, and his patron was fond of mystics. If she wanted incomprehensible verses that hinted of divination, who was Nostradomus to refuse her that?

[master of the puppets]

i personally think its a load o crapola, he made literally thousands of predictions and we call him a phycic cause about 10 have come to pass quite nicely and an additional 40 have been doubtful at best.

the only thing that worries me is that i know of 3 sources that say the world dies in 2012 , bible code, nostrodamus, and an old gypsie prediction all state that thats when the world ends, or so i've read .

[Byzantine Mercenary]

the aztecs said 2012 too!

[Ironside]

The funny thing of Nostradomus is that most of his verses can actually be attributed to something that happened before or during Nostradomus lifetime. Apparently: if he had a message, it was that we should learn from the past.

Lol, I was planning to suggest about a possible name for the defeat of the Islamic hordes:
Poitiers

And the true final date for his predictions is 2797 anyway
See, 2012 is dubious at best when it comes to Nostradamus.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I've heard a lot about Nostradamus and frankly believe it's a piece of BS, but some people have spoken excitedly about his predictions being correct and so on, so it would be interesting to actually read the verses and see what he says. Has anyone got a link to a place where you can read them?

[Rodion Romanovich]

the only thing that worries me is that i know of 3 sources that say the world dies in 2012 , bible code, nostrodamus, and an old gypsie prediction all state that thats when the world ends, or so i've read .

The obvious solution must then be to abandon the Gregorian calendar and start over from year 0

[Gregoshi]

The obvious solution must then be to abandon the Gregorian calendar and start over from year 0

I kinda like the Gregorian calendar...

[Rodion Romanovich]

Well, if we can get 2005 extra years, I can't see why editing the calendar wouldn't be a good thing. Besides, year 2005 was the year when EB released it's open beta, which makes it a logical start of a new calendar. Just imagine how wonderful it would be to say: that happened in 50 B.EB., or that happened in 1 Anno EBius

[Zalmoxis]

Yes, EB does seem good enough to start a new calendar. Now, in what year EB will the apocalypse be?

[Ludens]

And the true final date for his predictions is 2797 anyway
See, 2012 is dubious at best when it comes to Nostradamus.

Almost any poem of Nostradomus can interpreted in several ways. You just pick the one that suits your views. Probably that's their appeal.

I think the above applies to practically all forms of divination.

Master of the Puppets, don't worry. I recall a friend of mine claiming that the world was going to end in 2003 because several of the better-known prophets (IIRC also including Nostradomus) had predicted so. Apparently, they were wrong, or the apocalypse must have happened without anyone noticing. I sometimes think that mystics must be borrowing each other's predictions.

[master of the puppets]

lol, thats a relief.

have any of you heard about the bible code? saw a thing on the history channle about it, supposedly the bible in hebrew placed line after line after line gives descriptuions of things that have happened. like it talks about 9/11 by simply placing words on a page, one page had (if i can remember correctly) the twin towers, bin laden, 911, 2 planes, from the middle east, and stuff like that. i'll see if i can rustle up a link.

[Rodion Romanovich]

The problem is that you can create almost any complex algorithm system and use it to claim that any page in any book says anything you want it to. By a clever choice of "encryption key" you can make any message become anything, and if you can choose only a few pages and say that only those are part of the code, while others aren't, the choice of an appropriate key is facilitated a lot. Now if this bible code with the same key could be applied to other sections of the bible, and would yield a message that made sense but about the future and not the past, then it suggests there might be a code, and that the key used might be correct.

Some examples of how bible code can look is that you take a word, then for every letter you replace it by it's index in the alphabet, and sum the characters. Usually the result isn't what you want, so you use an alternative spelling of the word. Or in the case of the bible, many old hebreic texts ommitted the vowels, so in many cases you could read out different meanings. In those cases, the appropriate words needed could be picked. In other cases, a common misspelling or common variation of the word could be used. There's also the possibility of choosing whichever alphabet suits your needs. Hebreic, greek and latin are all possible.

By the same system, people have "shown" that Bill Gates would be the anti-christ, because the asci indices for the letters of his name, when added, yields the number of the beast.

I'd like to see a statistical analysis of how likely it is that a randomly written text can be "transformed into a code" by simply finding an appropriate key and algorithm (using only algorithms that don't seem overly far-fetched, i.e. containing only up to 5 different basic elements of the type rearranging letters, summing characters, changing spelling, choice of alphabet etc.) to solve it.

[Ironside]

lol, thats a relief.

have any of you heard about the bible code? saw a thing on the history channle about it, supposedly the bible in hebrew placed line after line after line gives descriptuions of things that have happened. like it talks about 9/11 by simply placing words on a page, one page had (if i can remember correctly) the twin towers, bin laden, 911, 2 planes, from the middle east, and stuff like that. i'll see if i can rustle up a link.

FYI the Hebrew bible lacks vovels so you can get quite a bit of interpretation with that.
Or the same as above but written in English, Hebrew style.

fthhbrwbbllcksvvlscnqtbtntrprttn.

Interpret

[Byzantine Mercenary]

its rubbish, ive read the book, any body of text will yields the results that Drosnin found, especialy if you are selective in what results you show

[InsaneApache]

Piffle. Tosh. Claptrap. Bobbins. Garbage. Crap. Rubbish. Balderdash. Baloney. Bilge. Bunkum. Hogwash. Trash. Nonsense. Eyewash. Flimflam. Hooey. Horsefeathers. Jazz. Poppycock. Rot. Tomfoolery.

[Ludens]

I'd like to see a statistical analysis of how likely it is that a randomly written text can be "transformed into a code" by simply finding an appropriate key and algorithm (using only algorithms that don't seem overly far-fetched, i.e. containing only up to 5 different basic elements of the type rearranging letters, summing characters, changing spelling, choice of alphabet etc.) to solve it.

Not exactly the same, but IIRC a Jewish researcher found that the Torah contained the names and the dates of birth and death of important Rabbis (and a formula that gave a rough indication of the distance between these two in the text) using the same liberties with translation and interpretation as you described. However, some else was able to get the same results with the Hebrew translation of War and Peace...

[Rodion Romanovich]

Here's a program where you can test this code:
http://rapidshare.de/files/10530345/Code.zip.html

Using scene I of Shakespeare's "As you like it", I found 31 occurencies of the word "Osama", 2 occurencies of the word "plane", 2 of "world", 2 of "trade" and 1 of "center" with the no-vowels code.

[Byzantine Mercenary]

Not exactly the same, but IIRC a Jewish researcher found that the Torah contained the names and the dates of birth and death of important Rabbis (and a formula that gave a rough indication of the distance between these two in the text) using the same liberties with translation and interpretation as you described. However, some else was able to get the same results with the Hebrew translation of War and Peace...

yes, this is what started off the whole bible code phenomonon

[BDC]

You can find anything if you want. Like all those Islamic scholars who claim you can find every discovery in the Koran. Maybe you can, although I then question why these scholars don't live forever and take day trips to the moon.

[Samurai Waki]

Yes, EB does seem good enough to start a new calendar. Now, in what year EB will the apocalypse be?

Apparently the end of the world is 14AD, thats why 20% of my games skip from 270BC to 14AD and then the game crashes...so techincally the end of the world was 1,992 years ago.

[KafirChobee]

its rubbish, ive read the book, any body of text will yields the results that Drosnin found, especialy if you are selective in what results you show

Point is, anyone in their right mind can.

However, it does not discount the willingness for some to believe in the predictions ... regardless of the absurdities. It is as now. One elects a president ... there then they feel an obligation to defend him. Regardless of right or wrong. See facts are immaterial - it is the belief that counts. Not the fact. Facts just get in the way of beliefs. Ya now?

But, on this issue - after the fact of a prediction can it be proven simply by its vague and implicative manner? Or should the source be enough? Should the manner in which it was given, or the circumstance be enough? Or?

"The commander that ends the all, will wear a 'blue turbin'." Oh! said the Republicans under Reagan - that must mean the guy lives in the MiddleEast - lets kill his family (oops ... only killed a little 3 year old girl). Still, we kept America safe by making some 3yr old girl the bad guy. WOW, that guy Reagan - what a guy.

Accepting that there was a prophet ... mnay someday be one? Allows the idea that others will followed, and their ideas be whispered in the ears of the true believers.

Could be. But, he has obviously been whispering in the wrong peoples ears.

That's all I am saying.