Am I Evil?

June 25, 2004 7:05 AM

Coincidence or contortion? Ivan Panin deciphered a numeric code in the Bible. Known as Gematria, the 'code' implies the Bible could not have been written without Holy assistance. Panin offered an open challenge for someone to create text using a similar pattern, yet no one was able to create one(nor tried).

However many people doubt the authenticity of the code though. The code is found in the same verses using different translations. It is also claimed that Panin manufactured his own translations to create this mathematical phenomenon.

Whether or not you believe, you can determine how good or evil any text or website is.
posted by JakeEXTREME (30 comments total)

If we're going to keep having Bible-code threads, I'm going to keep adding Don Steinberg's shocking analysis of the Microsoft License-Agreement to them.

P.S. Gematriculator timed out on the sites I tried.
posted by soyjoy at 7:20 AM on June 25, 2004

Hmmm, let's see:

"www.drbronner.com/" translates to 1% Evil, 99% good.

Obviously, the gematriculator is a cruel hoax, dreamt up in someone's spare time. Everyone knows Pure-Castille soaps are All-Good, All-One!
posted by Smart Dalek at 7:21 AM on June 25, 2004

::cringe:: It's nuts like this that always make me (as a Christian) run for cover, for fear that I'll be associated with them. I could outline why this idea is so wacked out, but is it really necessary to do that?
posted by ChrisTN at 7:24 AM on June 25, 2004

http://metafilter.com is
25% evil, 75% good.

Well someone had to.
posted by etc at 7:28 AM on June 25, 2004

Your post, jakeEXTREME, is 52% evil, 48% good. Where as this post was 77% evil, 23% good.
posted by tomplus2 at 7:31 AM on June 25, 2004

Similar patterns have been found in neutral texts by mathematicians, to prove Panin and his ilk wrong -- you can find patterns in anything.
posted by Tlogmer at 7:39 AM on June 25, 2004

Smart Dalek - I always felt that Dr. Bronner's Soap was 99% pure. I must have read that somewhere, who knows. But now you've confirmed my suspicions. Plus, it pepperminty-fresh!

_____________________


Has anyone tried Googling for mathematical/statistical analyses of "impossible" patterns in non-Christian religious texts ?

I bet there are at least a few of those out there.

Or, is it just the Christians who are bent on mathematical "proofs" of their religion ?

Wasn't this sort of attempt very popular in the Middle Ages?
posted by troutfishing at 7:42 AM on June 25, 2004

http://www.metafilter.com is 50/50. If the address without the www. is 25/75, I doubt the calculation has much to do with the content on the site.

Just sayin'.
posted by emelenjr at 7:43 AM on June 25, 2004

Similar
patterns have been found in
neutral texts by
mathematicians, to prove
Panin and his ilk wrong -- you can find patterns in anything.

OMG Tlogmer, what are you REALLY saying!?!?
posted by jjray at 7:47 AM on June 25, 2004

emelenjr, it's not really the content per say, but the 'value' of the content. Just now I did 'http://metafilter.com' and it came up as 27% evil and 73% good. It's all determined based on the perceived numeric value of the words being displayed. Something such as adding a FPP would change the numeric value of the page.

That being said, this calculator does not help the idea of the Bible being unique in this sense, but shows how it is not. I doubt millions of people are keyed into this harmonious writing style, so it would lean towards coincidence over anything else.
posted by JakeEXTREME at 7:53 AM on June 25, 2004

emelenjr
Unless some post made between your two tests pushed the evil quotient of the site up considerably. the one by troutfishing possibly? (remember, he never actually denied that he is the Reverend Moon).
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:55 AM on June 25, 2004

I guess metafilter scores would also vary depending on how you default the number of days of posts on your front page.
posted by carter at 8:16 AM on June 25, 2004

troutfishing: Has anyone tried Googling for mathematical/statistical analyses of "impossible" patterns in non-Christian religious texts ?

One example: after the (equally loony) book on "The Bible Code" came out a few years ago, the author issued the challenge that "When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them." A response: Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick!
posted by ChrisTN at 8:29 AM on June 25, 2004

if you play MetaFilter backwards, you can hear the baby mathowie cry
posted by matteo at 8:49 AM on June 25, 2004

I don't care what anyone says. I love this thing. I scored 99% Goodness with "Satanism is the wave of the future".

I only scored 76% Goodness when I expanded on this with the following passage: "Often times, I find myself fantasizing about the immaculate conception of my mother's milky teats. It has become a common-enough occurence to the point in which I am finding Satanism to be appealing. Furthermore, I would like to point out that while I am not a Satanist per-se, I find it just as well-rounded as any established religion; the fact that I enjoy masticating the firm nipples of my mother's birth-sacks seems to have made all the difference."

Perhaps this is the machine's way of telling me "TMI, asshole."
posted by Potloaf at 8:53 AM on June 25, 2004

http://www.satan.org is
31% evil, 69% good
posted by th3ph17 at 8:53 AM on June 25, 2004

http://hell.com is
1% evil, 99% good
posted by kokogiak at 9:05 AM on June 25, 2004

The book of genesis is 43% evil, 57% good.
By way of comparison,
Simpsons episode 1 from season 2 ("Maggies Brain") is 26% evil, 74% good.

That sounds about right.
posted by tdismukes at 9:36 AM on June 25, 2004

My blog front page uses random text as my 'tagline', and my good/bad ratio varies from 50/50 to 68% good/32% bad. Still tresting; if I get over 51% evil, I'll be back to do a Michael Moore post.
posted by wendell at 9:52 AM on June 25, 2004

tresting? TESTING. I may not be over-all evil but I am a BAD speller.
posted by wendell at 9:53 AM on June 25, 2004

Caution: blasphemy and the f word ahead

My favorite blasphemous phrase get the heavenly green light.
"
Fuck the holy spirit": 14% evil, 86% good

Go forth and spread the good news.
posted by putzface_dickman at 9:54 AM on June 25, 2004

Fuck the holy spirit

Is that like Puff the Magic Dragon?
posted by Grangousier at 10:01 AM on June 25, 2004

Ivan Panin deciphered a numeric code in the Bible. Known as Gematria

Um, no?

Gematria is ancient. It is not the Bible Code. It has meaning, but only because this dude Ivan Panin isn't the first person to think about it, and earlier people used it as a way to compress extra thoughts into fewer words. Gematria is responsible for all the weird numbers used and repeated in the bible--those numbers can be factored out into letters, spelling, say, Adonai. Jewish scholars and mystics have used it for centuries. Little Jewish kids find out about it in Hebrew school as a sign of how God divinely inspired the Torah. It's just a way of writing things where there letters can be combined differently to give different meanings. The Greeks used it classically (where the Israelites prolly got the idea) and before them the Mesopotamians (IraqFilter!):

Georges Contenau (p. 166) cites evidence that isopsephia (the Greek word for gematria, which he uses) was widely used in Mesopotamia. In this case numerical values were assigned to the characters in their syllabary, and the numerical values of names were computed. (This also fits in with the general Mesopotamian reverence for numbers: all the Gods had numbers, which Simo Parpola has shown to be numerically related by the Assyrian Tree of Life.) For example, Sargon (d.705 BCE) states that the perimeter of his palace at Khorsabad (16283 cubits) was equal to his name.

The next datable source for gematria I know about comes from David Fideler's Jesus Christ: Sun of God. He argues that the standard spellings of the Gods' names were formulated according to isopsephic principles under the influence of the Pythagorean League c. 500 BCE (p. 75). So for example, Zeus is the Geometric Mean of Hermes and Apollo (p. 72). He further argues (pp. 216-9) that many Greek temples, such as the Parthenon (447 BCE) and Apollo's temple at Didyma (300 BCE), were constructed isopsephically.

This use of gematria in temples and other official buildings agrees with its only known etymology, from Greek geometria (earth-measures).

Given the early use of gematria in Babylonia (by the eigth century) and its apparent use in Greece (by the fifth), the general idea must have been widely known around the Mediterranean from an early date.

posted by jbrjake at 10:10 AM on June 25, 2004

After checking out my website:

Value of word "wonky"
1330 1330=7x190 1+3+3+0=7

I always wondered about the value of that word...
posted by jpburns at 11:15 AM on June 25, 2004

My blog (and thus I) is apparently 74% good.

Bless you, my children.

*adjusts halo*
posted by jonmc at 12:37 PM on June 25, 2004

For more Bible code craziness, watch Pi from Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream).
posted by Evstar at 1:04 PM on June 25, 2004

Hardcore Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction porn?

83% good!
posted by Katemonkey at 4:01 PM on June 25, 2004

http://crash_davis.blogspot.com is
54% evil, 46% good

Apparently I'm not trying hard enough.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:28 PM on June 25, 2004

I'm pleased to report that "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on" is 1% evil, 99% good.

I guess we're all a *little* bit evil.
posted by starkeffect at 9:40 PM on June 25, 2004

My site was 32% evil, until I added the link from the analysis as an entry - now it's 50% evil. I wonder if that means something?
posted by dg at 12:47 AM on June 26, 2004