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Originally Posted by DaveMatrix
What does Christianity have to do with this thread??? So you're saying that stock market, weather, or population predictions are meaningless??? What about the fractals in the I Ching and the Bible Codes??? Thats not a cultural myth, thats a mathematical formula applied to an ancient book. What about the web bot project???
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We can make guesses about the near future, but those guesses are based on current trends. But they are only guesses. We can say that based on current consumer confidence, the latest quarterly reports of Fortune 500 companies and the current status of short term interest rates that the stock market will go up during the next quarter. But that data does not factor in unexpected events. We could all turn on our TVs next week to find that there has been a Coup d'état in China, and all the Asian stock markets take a nose dive causing a selloff on Wall Street bringing our market to the brink of a crash. We didn't foresee that from our economic trend data.
Weather predictions are the same way. We have instruments everywhere taking current atmospheric data and based on the trends from combining current data with past data to guess what will happen tomorrow. But perhaps overnight, Yellowstone goes ballistic and covers the entire North American continent in volcanic ash. Our atmospheric data couldn't tell us that.
Take for example one of the most famous prophets in the world, Nostradamus. Some read his work and see a quatrain like the one below and think he prophesied World War II and Hitler:
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Beasts wild with hunger will cross the rivers,
The greater part of the battle will be against Hister.
He will cause great men to be dragged in a cage of iron,
When the son of Germany obeys no law. (II.24)
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The first line could have referred to the start of World War II, because the German military had to cross the Oder river in the east to invade Poland, and the Rhine river in the west to invade France. The second line refers to a battle against "Hister" which isn't far off of the name Hitler. But it could also be referring to the ancient name of the Danube river region (Where Hitler was born), "Ister". However the last line is a little odd with the words, "the son of Germany obeys no law." Hitler was born in Austria, not Germany.
But on the other hand, Nostradamus has the following quatrain:
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The year 1999 seven months
From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
To resuscitate the great king of the Mongols.
Before and after Mars reigns by good luck. (X.72)
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So there was supposed to be a King of Terror in July 1999 (or August 1999, by the calendar used in Nostradamus' time). The great king of the Mongols could have implied Asia, and the reference to Mars reigning could have meant there there would be a lot of warfare. But oddly, I don't remember anything happening in July 1999 (or August 1999) involving a lot of war in Asia.
Also the prophecies of Nostradamus have another flaw. There is no record of anyone deciphering a prophecy before the event actually happened. It's only after something happens that we look at a quatrain and say that Nostradamus predicted it.
Predicting the future is about as possible as time travel, which I'm reasonably certain is impossible because there are no substantiated claims of people meeting other people on a vacation from the future.