Good Math, Bad Math might be in trouble later this week

I just received some email that would seriously worry me if it weren’t for the fact that I’m not an idiot.

WARNING!
TERRORISTS are going to ATTACK NEW YORK!
There is NO TIME to waste! Go read http://www.truebiblecode.com/nyc.html!!!!!!

Going there, I find:

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
It is certainly true that: No nukes is good nukes! But just because we got the date wrong (3 times) does not mean that the scriptural threat has evaporated. It is still there in black and white in bible symbolism. So we still have the almost impossible task of persuading a typical New Yorker with faith in God, that the Bible predicts the very day and place of the first terrorist nuke. There is obviously a massive credibility gap between: “Here endeth the lesson” and “Here endeth NYC”. But every journey, however long, begins with one small step. So here is our attempt to fill that gap.
Firstly we again strongly advise anyone in New York City with any faith in God, whatever his religion or whatever his distrust of organised religion, to take the last Thursday in June off and to get out of NYC for that weekend and not come back until the evening of July 4 if nothing happens.
You can then study this fascinating article outside NYC at your leisure, during that weekend or more to the point, after that weekend! It is going to be hard to find the necessary time during the next few days, given the busy schedule of every New Yorker, to sit down and fully analyze the fruits of 14 years of bible decoding and reach a rational decision about such a momentous prediction. So the sensible course of action might be to judge for yourself whether we are sincere in our efforts to decode the bible. And if you see that we are sincere, then rather than taking an intellectual walk from basic faith to accurate bible prophecy, just rely on all of the work that we have so far done and on the basis of your faith and our sincerity, take the weekend out of the city.

You gotta love this. Not only is it a splendid example of worse kind of pseudo-numerological gibberish, but they admit to having been wrong three times already. But this time, this time!, they’ve really got it right! We should trust them and get the hell of of NYC this weekend, no matter what it costs!

0 thoughts on “Good Math, Bad Math might be in trouble later this week

  1. Toddard

    I think this part is hilarious:
    “Firstly we again strongly advise anyone in New York City with any faith in God, whatever his religion or whatever his distrust of organised religion, to take the last Thursday in June off and to get out of NYC…”
    In other words, if you believe in God, even a little bit, protect yourself and leave the city. All you heathens, on the other hand, are invited to stay in NYC and get blown to hell.

    Reply
  2. Babbler

    Notice how they admit they maybe wrong (98% confident … if nothing happens). It allows them to continue pushing back the date. Methinks they will continue to issues these alerts for many years to come.

    Reply
  3. steve

    What makes this whole thing so absurd is that any proponent of bible codes will admit that it is possible to find purely random letter sequences (say you found “evolution is true” encoded in Genesis). That being admitted, then they have no way of knowing ex ante what is a true bible prophesy or a random letter sequence, therefore even if you believe secret prophesies are encoded in the bible, you have no way of knowing whether any particular letter sequence is a message from God or a random, coincidental letter sequence.

    Reply
  4. Brian Postow

    They also get the advantage of being able to say that millions of people will have taken their advice. I mean, imagine how many people will leave NYC for a 4 day weekend!
    Heck, if I was in NYC, I’d consider using that as an excuse (if my boss would believe it) to take an extra 2 days and make it a 6 day weekend… (Yes, I’d feel guilty about it, but feeling guilty on a beach is still on a beach…)

    Reply
  5. Mark Paris

    I think Brian is onto something. I think they are planning a holiday trip to NYC and want the city to be as uncrowded as possible.

    Reply
  6. Arunn

    I enjoyed this post as well as the other two in the numerology category. It is for this kind of thing that I have never gone to New York yet.
    As an aside, I am living with this perceived stigma of numerology with a name with 2 “n”s in it, provoking the only question from people that is it because of numerology that I have my name spelt that way.
    The question used to enrage me, but, nowadays I have a defence mechanism that it is not numerology but one of the “n” is silent while pronouncing and I don’t know which one it is so I am keeping both.

    Reply

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