The "History" Channel?

[Elektrix]

I was channelsurfing and happened to come across a show about Nostradamus on the so-called History Channel.

It seems to be just the typical claptrap, with people interpreting various translations of Nostradamus "prophecies" and tying them to famous historical events.

The funniest bit I have to say was one quatrain supposedly about events of today referring to someone called "Mabus". Now, since none of these people could figure out what Mabus was supposed to mean, they explain that of course it's a combination of the names Osama and Bush, combined together and with parts removed..... supposedly Nostradamus couldn't tell them apart.

I'll give this thing credit for including at least some skeptics pointing out that he just made a bunch of vague prophecies that can be linked to just about anything (including Penn Jillette and Michael Schermer..... i.e. Penn Jillette bringing up that none of these Nostradamus people were able to use his predictions before the fact).

Actually, maybe I won't be so critical, as I'm continuing to watch this, and it seems to be getting better at picking the "prophecies" apart......

But it still seems like an awful lot of claptrap. I'm at least glad to see a healthy skeptical viewpoint (when I started writing this post it seemed like a typical Fox special)

EDIT: Penn just made a great point that if there really was anything in his prophecies that predicted 9/11, and if any of his followers could have used them to know about it, they should be brought to trial for not doing anything to warn anyone. Maybe a bit extreme, but a valid point.

I will say this program isn't nearly as bad as I thought...... it seems to basically have shifted much more into an exploration of why people want to believe in this stuff, but the woo-woos that seemed to be in the beginning were probably just there now to set things up.

-Elektrix

 

[mgidm86]

I just watched a replay of this show (only because it was mentioned here, othjerwise I wouldn't have even noticed it). I agree that it was more of a de-bunking of Nostro than anything else. Congrats to the History Channel, which, in my opinion, is slowly beginning to follow in the footsteps of the Discovery channel, which has become little more than a woo-woo channel.

 

[Iacchus]

I just watched a replay of this show (only because it was mentioned here, othjerwise I wouldn't have even noticed it). I agree that it was more of a de-bunking of Nostro than anything else. Congrats to the History Channel, which, in my opinion, is slowly beginning to follow in the footsteps of the Discovery channel, which has become little more than a woo-woo channel.

Yeah, but how about them "American Choppers!"

 

[Yahweh]

The History Channel and the rest of the "Science-y" Channels have a habit of doing that.

In fact, the other night there was a show on about Bible Code. The Narrator kept going on and on and on about all these codes that were "statistically unfathomably impossible". Predictions were made such as Kennedy's Asassination, World Wars, etc.

A Skeptic was given a few minutes. He found all sorts of predictions in the book Moby Dick. One prediction was the full name "Martin Luther King", the line below was the sequence of letters "HEWILLBEKILLED".

Of course, one might think the book Moby Dick was devinely inspired also... ... ... ???

 

[NightG1]

The History Channel and the rest of the "Science-y" Channels have a habit of doing that.

In fact, the other night there was a show on about Bible Code.

I really liked the "we can't predict the future until it happens" line of reasoning the Believers were using to explain why the bible code can't be used to predict unforeseen and random events.

 

[Elektrix]

I really liked the "we can't predict the future until it happens" line of reasoning the Believers were using to explain why the bible code can't be used to predict unforeseen and random events.

Not sure if you've seen this yet, but I was at the book store and noticed a new book that I guess is a sequel those guys wrote....... I believe it was called "The Bible Code 2" or something similarly clever.

Anyway, the cover blurb promised shocking revelations about what the Bible Code has in store for us.

I wish I could say what that was though..... I thumbed through the book and tried to get to the point where it was supposedly predicting new something happening..... and there was something there, but the reasoning was so bizarre (i.e. sometimes it was just a straight across group of letters.... other times it was a reverse diaganol featuring every other letter...... you'd think if God was going to bother to encode all this stuff in the Bible he would have had a more uniform way of doing it).

Anyway, they seemed to find various words and locations........ and I recall the big revelation being something about finding a golden key that will unlock.... something (my eyes were glazing over so I didn't catch it all).

So anyway, they at least don't seem to claim to not be able to predict the future........ at least the guys who wrote The Bible Code do now seem to be saying that whatever this event is they picked out in the sequel to the book is something real.

-Elektrix