Re: Fun Biblical Fact

On Fri, 5 Apr 2024 11:16:20 +0200, Arkalen <arkalen@proton.me> wrote:

On 25/03/2024 14:25, someone37 wrote:

Posting a fun biblical fact to support the idea that God exists. Because whether God is thought to exist or not
can be considered relevant to the talk.origins discussion.
 
The first verse of the Torah/Bible, Genesis 1:1 has seven words (in Hebrew).
 
Hebrew letters have number values. And the total number values when totalled for those 7 words is 2701. Which is
37 x 73. 37 and 73 both being prime numbers, and both being reversible pairs. That is the digit order of 73 is
the reverse order of the digits in 37. 37 is the 12th prime number, and 73 is the 21st prime number and 12 and 21
are also reversible pairs. Not only is the property of two prime numbers which are reversible pairs of each
other, and whose order numbers in the list of prime numbers are also reversible pairs, a rare property, it is a
property that as I understand it wasn't around in any humanly known number system at the time, and wasn't around
by even the 5th century.
 
Furthermore, with each word being included once or not at all, there are 127 possible combinations of those 7
words. And out of those 127 combinations 23 are divisible by 37. And when you tally up how in how many of those
23 combinations each of the 7 words appeared, the total for each is 12.
 
What is the atheist explanation? Chance?

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Yes. Numbers and sets of numbers have infinite amounts of properties,
and though the properties mathematicians find interesting are a
infinitesimal subset of those it's still a huge number, meaning any
process that generates large amounts of numbers will generate
interesting properties. Then one can reason backwards and prune the
process so that it generates *only* the numbers with the interested
properties; this gives them and it the appearance of significance but
not the reality.
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What is the theistic explanation? Like, did God choose the words so that
they'd have the mathematical property, or inspire the writer to choose
those words, or adjust the properties of Hebrew or of mathematics
themselves or of modern decimal notation to make it work out? And
whichever is the case - why?

This reminds me of the Bible Codes, the claims that the Bible contains
hidden messages in the text. Michael Drosnin published a best selling
book about them in which he showed the "prediction" of of Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin being assassinated. In response to critics, he
(in)famously said "When my critics find a message about the
assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe
them.". Several people took up his challenge using his methods to
analyse and guess what, not only did they find the prediction of
Rabin's death but also a heap of others including Abraham Lincoln,
JFK, Indira Ghandi, Leon Trotsky and even Princess Di.

Apparently there are some people who insist that these too are real
hidden codes but that just goes to show how insightful P. T. Barnum
actually  was!

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By the way, that and other "fun facts" can be found in an animated video series I've just completed. It is quite
long, and may be best enjoyed as a podcast (as you can get on with doing other things as you listen), with the
option of looking at the screen when it is discussing artwork, or issues like the "fun fact" (since there are
slides) etc. The series also contains issues for an atheist physicalist (a belief that all that exists is
physical)outlook. You can skip the first 7 minutes of "4. Belief" and jump in seven minutes in by following this
link: https://vimeo.com/921153137?#t=7m .
 
Would be interested in any that thought they had a comeback to the "Influence
Issue" and "Fine Tuning Of The Experience" raised there.
 
 
Wish you all well, and as a wise man might say:
  "Follow the loving selfless path".
 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/the-lottery-issue