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	<title>Comments on: Am I Evil?</title>
	<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil/</link>
	<description>Comments on MetaFilter post Am I Evil?</description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:20:35 -0800</pubDate>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:20:35 -0800</lastBuildDate>
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	<ttl>60</ttl>

	<item>
		<title>Am I Evil?</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil</link>	
		<description>Coincidence or contortion? &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wordworx.co.nz/panin.html&quot;&gt;Ivan Panin&lt;/a&gt; deciphered a numeric code in the Bible.  Known as &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yfiles.com/part1.html&quot;&gt;Gematria&lt;/a&gt;, the &apos;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.yfiles.com/seven.html&quot;&gt;code&lt;/a&gt;&apos; implies the Bible could not have been written without &lt;a href=&quot;http://members.cox.net/8thday/gematria.html&quot;&gt;Holy assistance&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://members.cox.net/8thday/panin.html&quot;&gt;Panin offered an open challenge&lt;/a&gt; for someone to create text using a similar pattern, yet no one was able to create one(nor tried).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;However many people doubt the &lt;a href=&quot;http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin.html&quot;&gt;authenticity&lt;/a&gt; of the code though.  The code is found in the same verses using &lt;a href=&quot;http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/mccormack.html&quot;&gt;different translations&lt;/a&gt;.  It is also claimed that Panin &lt;a href=&quot;http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin_mark.html&quot;&gt;manufactured his own translations&lt;/a&gt; to create this mathematical phenomenon.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Whether or not you believe, you can &lt;a href=&quot;http://homokaasu.org/gematriculator/&quot;&gt;determine how good or evil any text or website is&lt;/a&gt;.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">post:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:05:44 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JakeEXTREME</dc:creator>		<category>IvanPanin</category>		<category>God</category>		<category>religion</category>		<category>Bible</category>		<category>Gematria</category>		<category>math</category>		<category>mathematics</category>		<category>code</category>		<category>codes</category>		<category>good</category>		<category>evil</category>		<category>calculator</category>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: soyjoy</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691968</link>	
		<description>If we&apos;re going to keep having Bible-code threads, I&apos;m going to keep adding Don Steinberg&apos;s &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bluedonut.com/biblecode.htm&quot;&gt;shocking analysis&lt;/a&gt; of the Microsoft License-Agreement to them.

&lt;small&gt;P.S. Gematriculator timed out on the sites I tried.&lt;/small&gt;</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691968</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:20:35 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>soyjoy</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: Smart Dalek</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691969</link>	
		<description>Hmmm, let&apos;s see: 

&quot;www.drbronner.com/&quot; translates to 1% Evil, 99% good.

Obviously, the gematriculator is a cruel hoax, dreamt up in someone&apos;s spare time. Everyone knows Pure-Castille soaps are &lt;i&gt;All&lt;/i&gt;-Good, All-One!</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691969</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:21:24 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Smart Dalek</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: ChrisTN</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691973</link>	
		<description>::cringe::  It&apos;s nuts like this that always make me (as a Christian) run for cover, for fear that I&apos;ll be associated with them.  I could outline why this idea is so wacked out, but is it really necessary to do that?</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691973</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:24:01 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ChrisTN</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: etc</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691975</link>	
		<description>http://metafilter.com is 
25% evil, 75% good.

Well someone had to.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691975</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:28:32 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>etc</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: tomplus2</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691977</link>	
		<description>Your post,  jakeEXTREME, is 52% evil, 48% good.  Where as this post was 77% evil, 23% good.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691977</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:31:53 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>tomplus2</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: Tlogmer</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691985</link>	
		<description>Similar patterns &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; been found in neutral texts by mathematicians, to prove Panin and his ilk wrong -- you can find patterns in anything.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691985</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:39:34 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tlogmer</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: troutfishing</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691988</link>	
		<description>Smart Dalek - I always felt that Dr. Bronner&apos;s Soap was 99% pure. I must have read that somewhere, who knows. But now you&apos;ve confirmed my suspicions.  Plus, it pepperminty-fresh!

_____________________


Has anyone tried Googling for mathematical/statistical analyses of &quot;impossible&quot; 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 &quot;proofs&quot; of their religion ? 

Wasn&apos;t this sort of attempt very popular in the Middle Ages?</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691988</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:42:21 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>troutfishing</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: emelenjr</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691989</link>	
		<description>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&apos;.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691989</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:43:45 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>emelenjr</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: jjray</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691993</link>	
		<description>    &lt;strong&gt;S&lt;/strong&gt;imilar 
   p&lt;strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;tterns have been found in 
neu&lt;strong&gt;t&lt;/strong&gt;ral texts by 
       m&lt;strong&gt;a&lt;/strong&gt;thematicians, to prove 
  Pani&lt;strong&gt;n&lt;/strong&gt; and his ilk wrong -- you can find patterns in anything.

OMG Tlogmer, what are you REALLY saying!?!?</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691993</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:47:09 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>jjray</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: JakeEXTREME</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#691997</link>	
		<description>emelenjr, it&apos;s not really the content per say, but the &apos;value&apos; of the content.  Just now I did &apos;http://metafilter.com&apos; and it came up as 27% evil and 73% good.  It&apos;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.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-691997</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:53:01 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JakeEXTREME</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: thatwhichfalls</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692000</link>	
		<description>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 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/33888#691051 &quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;denied &lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;that he is the Reverend Moon).</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692000</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:55:10 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>thatwhichfalls</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: carter</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692010</link>	
		<description>I guess metafilter scores would also vary depending on how you default the number of days of posts on your front page.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692010</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 08:16:24 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>carter</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: ChrisTN</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692020</link>	
		<description>troutfishing: &lt;i&gt;Has anyone tried Googling for mathematical/statistical analyses of &quot;impossible&quot; patterns in non-Christian religious texts ?&lt;/i&gt;

One example:  after the (equally loony) book on &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.biblecodedigest.com/&quot;&gt;The Bible Code&lt;/a&gt;&quot; came out a few years ago, the author issued the challenge that &quot;When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I&apos;ll believe them.&quot;  A response: &lt;a href=&quot;http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html&quot;&gt;Assassinations Foretold in Moby Dick!&lt;/a&gt;</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692020</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 08:29:27 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ChrisTN</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: matteo</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692032</link>	
		<description>if you play MetaFilter backwards, you can hear the baby mathowie cry</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692032</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 08:49:17 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>matteo</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: Potloaf</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692035</link>	
		<description>I don&apos;t care what anyone says. I love this thing. I scored 99% Goodness with &quot;&lt;em&gt;Satanism is the wave of the future&lt;/em&gt;&quot;.

I only scored 76% Goodness when I expanded on this with the following passage: &quot;&lt;em&gt;Often times, I find myself fantasizing about the immaculate conception of my mother&apos;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&apos;s birth-sacks seems to have made all the difference.&lt;/em&gt;&quot;

Perhaps this is the machine&apos;s way of telling me &quot;TMI, asshole.&quot;</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692035</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 08:53:39 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Potloaf</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: th3ph17</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692036</link>	
		<description>&lt;em&gt;http://www.satan.org is 
31% evil, 69% good&lt;/em&gt;</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692036</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 08:53:52 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>th3ph17</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: kokogiak</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692043</link>	
		<description>&lt;em&gt;http://hell.com is 
1% evil, 99% good&lt;/em&gt;</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692043</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 09:05:28 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>kokogiak</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: tdismukes</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692054</link>	
		<description>The book of genesis is 43% evil, 57% good.
By way of comparison,
Simpsons episode 1 from season 2 (&quot;Maggies Brain&quot;) is 26% evil, 74% good.

That sounds about right.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692054</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 09:36:35 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>tdismukes</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: wendell</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692060</link>	
		<description>My blog front page uses random text as my &apos;tagline&apos;, and my good/bad ratio varies from 50/50 to 68% good/32% bad. Still tresting; if I get over 51% evil, I&apos;ll be back to do a Michael Moore post.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692060</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 09:52:19 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>wendell</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: wendell</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692062</link>	
		<description>tresting? TESTING. I may not be over-all evil but I am a BAD speller.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692062</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 09:53:35 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>wendell</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: putzface_dickman</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692063</link>	
		<description>Caution: blasphemy and the f word ahead

My favorite blasphemous phrase get the heavenly green light.
&lt;i&gt;&quot;
Fuck the holy spirit&quot;&lt;/i&gt;:  14% evil, 86% good

Go forth and spread the good news.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692063</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 09:54:22 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>putzface_dickman</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: Grangousier</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692064</link>	
		<description>&lt;i&gt;Fuck the holy spirit&lt;/i&gt;

Is that like Puff the Magic Dragon?</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692064</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 10:01:58 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Grangousier</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: jbrjake</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692070</link>	
		<description>&lt;i&gt; Ivan Panin deciphered a numeric code in the Bible. Known as Gematria&lt;/i&gt;

Um, no?

Gematria is ancient. It is not the Bible Code. It has meaning, but only because this dude Ivan Panin isn&apos;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&apos;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 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/SNHIG.html&quot;&gt;Mesopotamians&lt;/a&gt; (IraqFilter!):&lt;blockquote&gt;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&apos;s Jesus Christ: Sun of God. He argues that the standard spellings of the Gods&apos; 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&apos;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. &lt;/blockquote&gt;</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692070</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 10:10:03 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>jbrjake</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: jpburns</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692121</link>	
		<description>After checking out my website:

&lt;cite&gt;Value of word &quot;wonky&quot;
1330 1330=7x190 1+3+3+0=7&lt;/cite&gt;

I always wondered about the value of that word...</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692121</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 11:15:49 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>jpburns</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: jonmc</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692179</link>	
		<description>My blog (and thus I) is apparently 74% good.

Bless you, my children.

*adjusts halo*</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692179</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 12:37:29 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>jonmc</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: Evstar</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692196</link>	
		<description>For more Bible code craziness, watch &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Pi-1083613/reviews.php&quot;&gt;Pi&lt;/a&gt; from Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream).</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692196</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 13:04:38 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Evstar</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: Katemonkey</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692279</link>	
		<description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dymphna.net/fanfic/funtime.html&quot;&gt;Hardcore &lt;em&gt;Buffy the Vampire Slayer&lt;/em&gt; fanfiction porn&lt;/a&gt;?

83% good!</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692279</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 16:01:06 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Katemonkey</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: mr_crash_davis</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692286</link>	
		<description>http://crash_davis.blogspot.com is 
54% evil, 46% good

Apparently I&apos;m not trying hard enough.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692286</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 16:28:07 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>mr_crash_davis</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: starkeffect</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692377</link>	
		<description>I&apos;m pleased to report that &quot;Fuck you and the horse you rode in on&quot; is 1% evil, 99% good.

I guess we&apos;re all a *little* bit evil.</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692377</guid>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2004 21:40:16 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>starkeffect</dc:creator>
	</item>	<item>
		<title>By: dg</title>
		<link>http://www.metafilter.com/33944/Am-I-Evil#692416</link>	
		<description>My site was 32% evil, until I added the link from the analysis as an entry - now it&apos;s 50% evil.  I wonder if that means something?</description>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2004:site.33944-692416</guid>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Jun 2004 00:47:22 -0800</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>dg</dc:creator>
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