What’s really interesting about the posts in this thread is how strongly they show that theists will believe anything as long as it agrees with their point of view and totally disregard anything that questions it.

Smugg made several posts regarding the Moby Dick posts to show that “codes” is a lot of nonsense. “Codes” can be found in any large writing. It has also been pointed out that the Hebrew language lends itself to finding codes. Nonetheless, theists ignore this and just focus in on the “Biblical Codes”.

The Moby Dick codes remain horribly pathetic in their "codes" compared to the ones drawn from the Bible, and in order and sequence found there. The MD codes are very much inferior in what is taken out from them compared to the Bible Codes. That does not prove the Bible Codes true, but a number of secular mathematicians and staticians have recognized the possibility of specific BCodes being found highly improbable. It's a rather complicated matter however, so I am not putting any stake in the Codes myself, but they would be superior to the Moby Dick Codes or the War and Peace Codes regardless.

You're missing the point. I agree that 'codes' can be found in any text. Read the post by PhysicsGuy. The method he describes is very close to the method that statisticians and mathematicians use to determine the codes. I am not aware of any scientist who makes the claim that the specific codes found in the Bible can be found in any other text.

Puh-lease! Superior because your fire-god wrote them? I'd have to give Melville the advantage in narrative flow and moralistic consistency. I'm not sure about magic spells - maybe we should compare the books of Hebrew law to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or maybe the Upanishads.

As far as 'not putting any stake in the Codes,' I don't buy it -- why do you characterize the Moby Dick codes as pathetic while not recognizing the pathos of the Bible codes? Dispassionate? I think not.

Bottom line - you can't predict the future because it hasn't happened yet. Let's assume the codes are perfectly legit... How useful is it that they can't be interpreted correctly until after the events they describe? Sheer silliness.

What good is a bunch of codes that tell you that Hitler killed Jews? I'm pretty sure I already knew that. If it is so clear that this event was 'predicted' along with a bunch of names and so on, let's have some predictions that haven't happened yet?

Are the Bible Codes only useful in telling us something we already know and can search for or do they have any predictive value?

Why is evidence of supernatural always embedded in controversy and statistics? When the creator of the universe acts, I might think it would be obvious.

[This message has been edited by PhysicsGuy (edited February 28, 2001).]

Christians find codes in the Bible that prove their religion is true.

Jews find codes in the Torah that prove their religion is true.

Muslims find codes in the Koran that prove their religion is true.

Hmmm . . .

Please enlighten us on this one. I've never heard of the Koran codes before.

Ulrich

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by a_theistnotatheist:
[b] QURAN CODE: THE MIRACLE IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURE

The Quran code was apparently discovered before the Bible code, read the above link for details.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited March 01, 2001).]

First off, the Torah is just the Jewish name for the first 5 books of the Bible; their name for the Old Testament is the Tanakh. So a "Torah code" would essentially be a Bible code.

The Hebrew and Arabic alphabets have a feature that makes it easier to look for Tanakh/OT and Koran codes: they are alphabets of consonants, with the vowels treated as an afterthought. This makes it easier to find words that fit.

The New Testament was, of course, written with the Greek alphabet, which has the same problem as the Roman alphabet: it includes vowels. However, the success in finding Moby Dick codes indicates the feasibility of finding NT codes.

It might be interesting to find codes of other religions -- Homer codes? Edda codes? Veda codes? Ramayana codes? Mahabharata codes?