And one more thing

Apparently the Bible Code predicts that 2006 is the year that we will come the closest to the end of days.

If you don't know what the Bible Code is, this guy found that if you arranged the Bible into one long string of Hebrew characters you could arrange the Bible into a grid that would help you find vertical occurences of words. And once you've arranged the Bible to find Rabin or Twin Towers or Arafat then you search around that word like a cross word puzzle and find that when you search for Rabin you find the word assassinate (or something like that). Or the words United and American and Bin Laden when you search for Twin Towers.

The problem, of course, is that first these words are not just like a cross word puzzle they are frequently very far apart. So Bin Laden is found diagonally, where each letter is two letters down and four letters over from the last. Because that's somehow supposed to mean something.

Not only that, but no one is searching for irrelevant words. So when you arrange the Bible around the words Twin Towers, you don't search for purple, mango, sunshine, poinsetta or teddy bear. So it's dumb. I hope. I'm not a mathematician, but it sounds dumb.

But it's hard to forget that the Bible Code says 2006 is going to be our worst crisis. Of course the author says that the Bible Code is a warning, which means that this crisis could be averted, which means that on January 1, 2007, he can thank all the world leaders for listening to him and averting the crisis. Again, it's dumb.

Anyway.

One word I am fascinated by is "eschatology" which means the study of the end of the world. This means, of course, than the eschatologist will have to live on Mars, but for now those who practice it are looking forward. I hear that the number of people who believe the world will end in our lifetime is higher than you would expect.

With crises like the tsunami, the earthquake, etc, it's not hard to see why someone might think this. Of course, Pat Robertson believes Ariel Sharon's stroke is punishment for dividing Israel, so who knows what people will choose to believe.