Ironic – I’m 73% inspired by the word of God (or something)
The practice of Gematria when applied to this blog, apparently produces this result;
I just wanted to check this out for a bit of a side-bar widget when I saw it over at Ninglun’s blog, Lines from a Floating Life. Currently Ninglun’s sidebar widget says 65%, giving me an 8% lead in godliness (or something-or-other according to Gematria). I decided to check just to see if Ninglun’s stats were legit…
Oh dear… Make that 12% more Godly (or something). Gematria is supposedly the study of some kind of cryptographic fingerprint God left on His word (in the Bible), devised by ex-hard-agnostic-ex-nihilist-ex-communist (eeek), Dr Ivan Panin. Apparently, and I say this without entire credulity, The Revival Fellowship put some degree of stock in Gematria, although the alleged article where it was lent credence no longer exists.
Now this is in-line with both false Internet rumors, and the time-worn fundamentalist Church practice of selecting (and retrospectively censoring) evidence to match established conclusions. And why wouldn’t they?
An atheist blog apparently with a higher relation to God’s cryptographic fingerprint than a Christian blog?
Of it’s that Panin is correct and The Revival Fellowship is a tad wayward. A case of “there is no God, just ask him”? 
~ Bruce
P.S. At 80%, Trent Reznor really does get you closer to God.
I have declined in godliness, it seems, since I started writing nasty things about Miranda Devine…
I guess she had a word to George, who had a word to Joe who had a word to God. The question is, where between George and God did I get off the hook?
Incidentally, I’m left wondering about something on a similar topic. Why would a very serious (albeit moderately progressive) young Catholic woman (and teacher of scripture) try to pursue a guy who she knew was an Atheist (who was pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and pro-this-that-and-whatever-else-is-verboten-especially-contraception)?
I can understand the whole non-judging, mixing-with-sinners thing but it wouldn’t/couldn’t have a future beyond a bit of a friendly fling.
I am holier and more good than thou! (and more humble)
76% Goodliness does my blog possess!
a guy who she knew was an Atheist etc. Some urge below the belt perhaps?
Needless to say I think Gematria is total crap; if I don’t believe God actually writes or dictates books (and I don’t) then I am even less likely to think he leaves cryptpgraphic footprints on blogs. I notice that it calculates from the front page only, which changes all the time on a blog. My current front page has words like China and communist on it; could that explain my fall from godliness?
I recall having that widget on an earlier incarnation of my own blog. I was deemed EEEEEEEEEEEVIL, of course.
Ninglun: a recent edition of the podcast/cable TV show “The Atheist Experience” examined various US presidential candidates on church-state separation. Republican Newt Gingrich, they noted, made no bones about the overtly religious purpose of inserting the words “Under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance: it was to distinguish what he termed a “free country” from “atheistic tyranny.” He was celebrating this, of course.
I’m wondering then when Newt Gingrich is going to bring about a theocratic embargo against dark-haired tyranny; Stalin, Mao, Hitler, they all had dark hair!
Newt Gingrich and Co. need to get over their cum hoc ergo propter hoc-correlation=causation fallacy. I would like to say that I wonder why these uber-conservative culture warriors are prone to inductive fallacies, but I think I know why already. With cum hoc ergo propter hoc you get to be entirely casual with causality, which basically means you can attribute blame according to prejudice.
David Stove’s inductivist rubbish is a classic example of this. Heck, the ignore causality “logic” he uses could even be given a David Irving kind of twist; a significant number of the Jewish population in World War II Europe died of bullet wounds, therefore Jews have an innate capacity to develop bullet wounds and die. Or a David Irving Cum Newt Gingrich twist; a significant number of the Jewish population of Europe ate Kosher, a significant number of the Jewish population of Europe died from bullet wounds, ergo eating Kosher leads to bullet wounds.
Of course, this is all quite stupid, but no less stupid than Gingrich et al’s “atheistic tyranny” fallacy. It’s true that atheism was the state religion of the Soviet state, however this was instrumental, not causal. When the Soviets bumped people off while citing the state religion, this was done as an attempt to rationalise what they did, it didn’t motivate what they did. They were going to kill these people anyway, they could have just as easily had a theistic Chicken-Poop-von-Weazle-Bum-The-Almighty as official state deity and pulled off the same scheme.
In any case, Newt should get his head out of his rear end and ask some American atheists a simple question; “what do you think of the idea of an official state religion?” I suspect it wouldn’t confirm his “atheistic tyranny” hypothesis (which I presume is why his type don’t ask these kinds of question).
Ninglun: If you scroll down after the Gematria calculation is made, it shows the details of how it is calculated. Looks like numerology to me.
I did afterwards, and you’re right.
LOL! Love the Reznor reference.