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Okay, here's the deal about Nostradamus, in my opinion.

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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:05 AM
Original message
Okay, here's the deal about Nostradamus, in my opinion.
The History Channel has been running documentaries about so called psychic predictions all night (The Bible Code, Nostradamus, et cetera). But here's the thing about Nostradamus:

NOBODY FIGURES OUT WHAT THE HELL HE'S TALKING ABOUT (OR MIGHT BE TALKING ABOUT) UNTIL WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

That doesn't make him a psychic. That just makes him a goddamn tease.

Thanks for reading.
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Aftershock Donating Member (228 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:06 AM
Response to Original message
1. Amen.
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TlalocW Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:10 AM
Response to Original message
2. People have been assigning meanings
To his stupid quattrains ever since he wrote them. He wrote a bunch of vague crap that either referred to past events or could apply to just about anything if you understand history and human nature, and now there's a whole segment of society who make money off of writing books interpreting everything for modern times.

TlalocW
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opihimoimoi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:12 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. He was on that super grass Bush was talking about
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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:15 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. Exactly. Nostradamus is of no use to anyone
when it comes to figuring out what might happen in the future. People look at some vague thing he wrote, apply it to a current event (9-11 or something else) and say, "Nostradamus predicted this!"

But what damned good is a prediction of an event which has already happened? That's like Jeanne Dixon saying she predicted JFK's assassination. Well gee, Jeanne, would have been nice if you'd told somebody. "Hey, Mr. President. You might want to put the bubble top on just this once."
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DivinBreuvage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:14 AM
Response to Original message
4. Keep laffin'... it's all fun and games till the last Antichrist shows up
One or two of his predictions, such as the one about the noble who was killed fighting in a golden mask, are eerily precise, but a lot of them are so obscure it's hard even to figure out what he's trying to say, let alone decipher what he may be attempting to predict.

Another problem with them, IMO, is that they are too localised by place-names of European cities which may have been important at the time but are now non-entities on the world stage.
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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:17 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. I guarantee that we'll find out that Nostradamus predicted the Antichrist
the day after the Antichrist arrives. That means that it will be of no fucking use to anyone.
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DivinBreuvage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:36 AM
Response to Reply #6
12. There's a theory that he was writing contemporary political commentary
but had to disguise it so he didn't get thrown into the pokey, or worse. The same theory exists for the prophets Daniel and John. I'd do a quatrain for Bush if I weren't tired and working on getting drunk.
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TreasonousBastard Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:24 AM
Response to Original message
7. If he can't give me tomorrow's lottery numbers...
he's useless.

Just out of curiousity, were all the psychics taking the day off on 9/10?
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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:26 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. Excellent question.
MAD TV had a sketch about that a couple of years ago. Someone called Miss Cleo and asked her what she was doing on 10 September. "Couldn't you have said something, like, 'Get your American flags now while they're cheap'?"
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TreasonousBastard Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:30 AM
Response to Reply #8
10. Yeah, I saw that...
and almost peed my pants laughing.

I shamelessly steal the joke whenever I can.
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Commie Pinko Dirtbag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 12:35 PM
Response to Reply #7
17. Aaaaaand TreasonousBastard makes line #15!
See my huge and getting huger sig.
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pagerbear Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #17
19. Not that size matters
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Commie Pinko Dirtbag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. People with tiny sigs like yours often say that
:spank:
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pagerbear Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 09:51 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. It's not the size of the sig, it's the wisdom that's in it!
Edited on Sun Aug-15-04 09:52 PM by pagerbear
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WMliberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:30 AM
Response to Original message
9. the history channel has been doing a lot about UFOs too
i mean, what the hell. none of that shit is history... but at least it's a departure from WARWARWARWARWARWARWARWARWARWARGUNSGUNSGUNSGUNSGUNSGUNSGUNSGUNSGUNS I guess learning serious history on TV isn't even good enough for ratings at 2am.
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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:33 AM
Response to Reply #9
11. We call The History Channel "The Hitler Channel" around here,
because of their fondness for a certain one-nut Austrian tyrant. ;)
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DivinBreuvage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:39 AM
Response to Reply #11
13. I wish they were still the Hitler channel
I'll always watch the WWII shows. Now all I see is the modern "technical wonders", "technical wonders of the old west", "ex-marine huckster screaming about technical wonders" and "haunted history".

Haunted history would actually be right up my alley if it weren't so damned cheesy.
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WMliberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 12:10 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. the best one I saw recently was
about how white people stole Hawaii. Two hour show covering from Cook's landing to the early 20th century.
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zeemike Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:45 AM
Response to Original message
14. I don't suppose any of you have thought of this but
If someone had predicted 9/11 and we believed them do you think it would have happened, or would someone have prevented it?
A prophet can only be proved after the fact and only if he is not believed or understood.
There is a story in the bible where prophesy went wrong. The prophet was sent by God to the King of Nineveh to tell him that the city would be destroyed, but the King believed him and took actions to change and God did not destroy the city.
The prophet then was called a false prophet because nothing happened. and was unhappy with God. So it seems that a prophet can only be successful if he is not believed or understood.
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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:49 AM
Response to Reply #14
15. So, if a prophet is never believed until after an event has occurred,
what is the point of prophecy? So the prophet can say, "I told you so"?

And this doesn't change the fact that the works of Nostradamus are so vague that interpretations don't seem to come until after an event has occurred. Who could have looked at the quatrain which allegedly applies to 9-11 and seen the events of 9-11?
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zeemike Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-15-04 01:09 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. There is no point
A point is only necessary in a limited thought process that uses language.
What prophets taps into a realm that is much like the dream world we all experience. Have you ever had a clear dream?
If dreams exist why can there not be a dream world that has no time or space and one can glimpse, even with a lot of vagueness, the future?
Just as we don't live our lives based on what we dream, one should not base their3e lives on what the prophet dreams, it is only an interesting mystery if you have a mind that is open to all reality.
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