Tomorrow—6/6/06—Is Proudly Sponsored by the Antichrist!

Hey, if this blog is empty tomorrow, then the Rapture's here. (That, or the Reason staff is hung over again.)

The AP via the Wash Times asks, "Is tomorrow's date -- 6-6-6 -- merely a curious number, or could it mean our number is up?" Seth Borenstein runs through the basic millenarian math before concluding:

People have looked for -- and found -- 666 in all sorts of places. Believers in the number's power have used a biblical letter-numeric code to convert the names of countless political leaders, including many popes, to come out 666, marking them as that generation's Antichrist. That includes Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Really, can anyone disagree with that litany of Antichrists? Whole thing here.

Borenstein also points to Raptureready's version of the nuclear clock. The site's index of Rapture-nearness currently stands at 156. That's up a point from yesterday but well off the all-time high of 182, recorded on September 24, 2001.

One cheap Gog-Magog tie-in: The remake of The Omen opens tomorrow.

One actual sign the end-times are nigh: Tomorrow marks the offical release date of Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Judging from a pre-pub review in Human Events (tough crowd!), it sounds like La Coulter's steel-trap mind has yet to develop any rust whatsoever. A snippet:

Liberals weren't the first to use Darwinism to justify a political movement. After reading "The Origin of Species," Karl Marx wrote, "This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our views." Coulter writes, "While Marx saw the 'struggle' as among classes, Hitler conceived of the struggle as among the races. 'Mein Kampf' means 'My Struggle,' which Hitler described in unmistakably Darwinian terms."

From Darwinism to Nazism to Liberalism -- finally, some proof in favor of evolution!

Whole review here.

Comments

[Warren]

Has anyone made a serious investigation on why hollywood is making so many second rate remakes? Seems like almost every movie in the past five years was a, remake, old TV show, or comicbook. From what I can tell they've all been a dissappointment. So why do they keep doing it?

[Shirley Knott]

Given the popularity of this generation's female impersonator, the appaling Ann Coulter, why should they make anything better?
Crap sells.
Blonde crap with perfume applied conservatively sells mega-well.
You get what is being bought...

hugs,
Shirley Knott

[Brian]

Godless eh. Who buys these books? Are you going to read something you haven't already heard 1000 times before? Unlikely.

LIEbruls = teh evil. Give me $10 million.

[Postmodern Sleaze]

Warren:

While Hollywood is "liberal" in it's politics, their business sense these days is awfully "conservative"- they're afraid to do anything new or untried (even though, when they actually do take a gamble, it often turns to gold).

Three words for you- German tax shelter.

[Mo]

This line kills me "Given the increasingly explicit sex-education curriculum foisted on children and the incessant assurance from "experts" like Dr. Jocelyn Elders and U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop that it?s OK for children to be sexual beings."

I'm not condoning child molestation, but once you hit puberty, nature has made you a sexual being because you can reproduce. Conservatives, who seem to desire for the traditional years that weren't as rosy as they wish, seem to forget that hundreds of years ago, young teenagers were married and had kids.

[thoreau]

I'd just like to say that it's been nice knowing all of you, and tomorrow I'll be taken up into heaven to meet Richard Feynman, who is my personal Lord and Savior.

You guys will spend the next 7 years being tormented by the anti-physicists known as "string theorists." But, at the end of that torment, Feynman will come and just let all the survivors into heaven, because he's cool like that.

Well, except for the cargo cult scientists. Those guys are toast. See ya, Ron Bailey! 🙂

[Russ 2000]

thoreau,

If you're up there, you'll probably have to wait until my dad is done talking to him. Which means you'll be waiting for the rest of your natural after-life.

[mediageek]

"Three words for you- German tax shelter."

DAMN YOU UWE BOLL!

[joshua corning]

isn't 666 all about Nero and John's critisism as a greek of roman rule.

[76]

corning: I've heard about that, and how the roman system had numbers that were also letters so 666 = Nero, but I've also heard that the real number is 616, so who is that?

[Phileleutherus Lipsiensis]

That picture of Robert Novack is pure comedy gold.

[Justin Robert Young]

Here is a favorable evolutionary possibility.

The (shitty) Omen remake opens tomorrow and makes good money because no one else has anything to do on a Tuesday. Studios take notice and begin to roll back mega blockbusters, like Superman which just got bumped back to a Wednesday, to the Tuesday slot so as to get yet another day of sales in. This leads to the inevitable Midnight Movie on a Monday!

Can you imagine what this could do to a work week? And it all would come from the cheesy marketing of a (shitty) Omen remake.

All hail the mark of The Beast!

[JD]

Warren - Artistically disappointing or commercially disappointing? I've heard that part of the reason there are so many remakes and spinoffs is because it means half your marketing is already done for you - no need to try and convince people to see an unknown quantity when everybody already knows Miami Vice, Scooby-Doo, Mission:Impossible, The Omen, etc. etc.

[SR]

Maybe I'm completely wrong about history, but I could've sworn Koop was appointed to the Surgeon General's position by well-known conservative Ronald Reagan....

[zeiner]

I have on question about this 666 thing; what timezone is it going to be (GMT, eastern, central, pacific, mountain, etc.)? I think it is going to be based on U.S. eastern time because everybody knows that the PA. is at the center of the universe, and anybody that thinks different should be burned alive.

[lefinq]

thoreau, the spirit of feynman is still with us. and he is PISSED. If he ever met Chuck Norris, we're all doomed.

I love this quote from her/his new book: "Liberals prey on people at a time of extreme emotional vulnerability and offer them fame and fortune to be that month?s purveyor of hate." Cause neo-conservatives would never do that. Especially not with Terri Shiavo.

Also, more important than the Rapture, 6/6/06 is National Punch an Emo Kid in the Face Day. Please do your part, for all of us.

[lefinq]

thoreau, the spirit of feynman is still with us. and he is PISSED. If he ever met Chuck Norris, we're all doomed.

I love this quote from her/his new book: "Liberals prey on people at a time of extreme emotional vulnerability and offer them fame and fortune to be that month?s purveyor of hate." Cause neo-conservatives would never do that. Especially not with Terri Shiavo.

Also, more important than the Rapture, 6/6/06 is National Punch an Emo Kid in the Face Day. Please do your part, for all of us.

[Leonard Susskind]

thoreau, you fool! String theory is correct! Just wait until I renormalize one side of my equation while dividing by zero to get 17.314 dimensions [sound of maniacal laughter]!

See you in M-space hell!

[Mo]

By the way, when I clicked the Wash Times link, my computer froze. Freaky.

[Brian]

Based on something I vaguely remember reading on the internet, I think 616 was in earlier versions of the Apocalypse and was Caligula.

[Satan]

I'd just like to say that it's been nice knowing all of you, and tomorrow I'll be taken up into heaven to meet Richard Feynman, who is my personal Lord and Savior.

You are assuming a lot there, thoreau.

Heh heh. See you tomorrow.

[John DeWitt]

I've heard about that, and how the roman system had numbers that were also letters so 666 = Nero, but I've also heard that the real number is 616, so who is that?

Ann Coulter.

[mediageek]

Coulter is a nut.

That is all.

[BornAgainIconoclast]

"I've heard about that, and how the roman system had numbers that were also letters so 666 = Nero, but I've also heard that the real number is 616, so who is that?"

Yes, but scholars have known this forever. I first saw the "616" number in a used Dartmouth University edition of the Bible that I bought in college ... and that was twenty years ago!

That's what I love about Fundies and religious nuts, the duplicity and sheer stupidity they bring to literary and archeological examinations of ancient texts. Like some dude is really going to have bumps on his head with "6" on it. Do skin cells know how to translate numerals and quanitities from the ancient Greek, Latin, Aramaic and Hebrew texts?

I could go on, but religion just gives me a headache without the preceding altered state that alcohol at least offers.

[David]

but I've also heard that the real number is 616, so who is that?

Stan Lee.

[Timothy]

Coulter is a nut.

I would not be surprised to learn that Coulter has nuts, and that they are larger than mine.

[76]

geek: She's not a nut, her followers are. She just knows how to cash in on it.

That being said, she provides a valuable service to society-every time she has a 2 hour talk or what-have-you at the colleges, those are 2 hours that her followers are not in society and thus unable to hurt themselves or others.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm not going Godwin or making any comparisons at all, but I just had a vision of Hitler being an American author/talking head in the 21st Century. Kind of a Michael Savage with weird ideas about Germany's appropriate borders and role in the world.

Of course, he'd be a liberal today 🙂 Really, that's a joke. Please no more Nazis-were-liberals-no-they-were-conservatives threads. Really.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm not going Godwin or making any comparisons at all, but I just had a vision of Hitler being an American author/talking head in the 21st Century. Kind of a Michael Savage with weird ideas about Germany's appropriate borders and role in the world.

Of course, he'd be a liberal today 🙂 Really, that's a joke. Please no more Nazis-were-liberals-no-they-were-conservatives threads. Really.

[John DeWitt]

Coulter is a nut.

That is all.

Laugh it up, but you'll change your tune when she occupies Jerusalem with the dark forces of Hell and rebuilds the temple in three days. Yeah, you'll be sorry you didn't listen.

Seriously, if you read the entire Left Behind series backwards, copying down every 616th letter, it all becomes very clear.

If you read Aramaic, that is.

[Tymothi Loving]

Argh! That "Origin of the Species as the source of Communism" thing has always bugged me. I've always wondered how a Origin of the Species, published in 1859, influenced the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. And just 'cuz Marx and Hitler glommed onto Darwin later to add some scientific cachet to his non-reality based belief system, that doesn't have anything at all to do with the validity of Darwin's ideas.

[emme]

From Wikipedia:

There is no direct connection between Marxist thought and Natural Selection theory; they consider entirely different subject matters, the former is concerned with a supposedly superior form of social structure, the latter with the evolution of animal and animal genetics over time.

"There is no direct connection between Marxist thought and Natural Selection theory; they consider entirely different subject matters, the former is concerned with a supposedly superior form of social structure, the latter with the evolution of animal and animal genetics over time.

In the Soviet Union, the scientific theory of evolution was neglected in favor of Lysenkoism, a variant of Lamarckism, which says that acquired traits are inherited to the next generation. This abberation was eventually overcome, but not before significantly retarding development of Soviet agriculture and Soviet biological sciences before these disciplines were restored to a sound scientific footing."

[Brian Courts]

I'd just like to say that it's been nice knowing all of you, and tomorrow I'll be taken up into heaven to meet Richard Feynman, who is my personal Lord and Savior.

Sorry thoreau, but as an atheist Feynman's going to be hanging with the rest of us atheists where it's nice and warm year around. But don't feel too bad, at least you can go workout with Pat Robertson. 🙂

[Akira MacKenzie]

From Darwinism to Nazism to Liberalism -- finally, some proof in favor of evolution!

Ann... Ann... You could have at least come up with something better than warmed over Creationist strawmen fallacies, but I don't expect orginality from a conservative any more than I would expect intellegence from the same.

From http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_1.html

1. Hitler based his ideas not on Darwinism but on a "divine right" philosophy:

Thus, it [the folkish philosophy] by no means believes in an equality of races, but along with their difference it recognizes their higher or lesser value and feels itself obligated, through this knowledge, to promote the victory of the better and stronger, and demand the subordination of the inferior and weaker in accordance with the eternal will that dominates this universe. (Hitler 1943, 383)

The first edition of Mein Kampf suggests that Hitler may once have believed in a young earth: "this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men" (p. 65; the second edition substitutes "millions" for "thousands," and chapter 11 refers to "hundreds of thousands of years" of life in another context.) Other passages further support his creationist leanings:

The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the eyes of a folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. (Hitler 1943, 383)

and

What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, . . . so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. (Hitler 1943, 214)

Quotes from Hitler invoking Christianity as a basis for his actions could be multiplied ad nauseam. For example:

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord (Hitler 1943, 65).

"[T]he task of preserving and advancing the highest humanity, given to this earth by the benevolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission (Hitler 1943, 398).

A campaign against the "godless movement" and an appeal for Catholic support were launched Wednesday by Chancellor Adolf Hitler's forces (Associated Press 1933).

Of course, this does not mean that Hitler's ideas were based on creationism any more than they were based on evolution. Hitler's ideas were a perversion of both religion and biology.

2. Genocide and racism existed long before Darwin. Obviously, they did not need any contribution from Darwinism. In many instances, such as the Crusades and the Spanish conquest of Central America, religion was explicitly invoked to justify them.

3. Evolution does not promote social Darwinism or racism or eugenics.

Coulter is a nut.

No... she's something else, but you have three of the four letters there already. Just put a "c" at the begining, switch around the "u" and the "n" and you have a word that suits her just fine.

[Scott]

Do many right-wingers really buy Coulter's books? I had always thought that it was mostly bulk orders to PACs and other political groups that were handed out to the faithful at fund raisers, etc.

Why would anyone buy a book solely to reinforce what they already believe about the evil liberals? Conservatives buying Ann Coulter books looking for new insights on liberals make as much sense as someone rushing out to purchase their autobiography hoping for some fresh stories.

[The Gland Inquisitor]

Coulter is a nut.

That is all.

Comment by: mediageek at June 5, 2006 01:51 PM

And yet you still masturbate to her picture on a daily basis. Why is that?

[Iron Lungfish]

I've heard about that, and how the roman system had numbers that were also letters so 666 = Nero, but I've also heard that the real number is 616, so who is that?

That's Nero, too. 616 works out to "Nero Caesar"; 666 works out to "Neron Caesar." They both mean the same guy.

[Akira MacKenzie]

Why would anyone buy a book solely to reinforce what they already believe about the evil liberals? Conservatives buying Ann Coulter books looking for new insights on liberals make as much sense as someone rushing out to purchase their autobiography hoping for some fresh stories.

Because conservatives need constant validation of their beliefs in face of the massive liberal/atheist/homosexual/Islamofacist/Mexican corn-spiracy to destroy to America, Christianity, and traditional marriage.

Which speak volumes about the weakness of their philosophy and religion.

[Wintermute]

If the Rapture doesn't make it tomorrow, you can still buy the video game:
http://dailydocket.blogspot.com/2006/06/christian-video-game.html

[Akira MacKenzie]

Ahhh... yes, the Left Behind novels. What more can be said about this fundie equivelent to a snuff film?

[Shem]

Not to ruin you guys' fun, but it is 616. Archaelogists at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt found a partial copy of the Apocalypse of John that predates all the others by 100 years, and it gives the number as 616.

[kevrob]

666 works out to "Neron Caesar." They both mean the same guy.

..and in the comics, the demon Neron gave Aquaman foe The Fisherman a power upgrade!

Yarva Etrigan Daemonicus!

Kevin

[Akira MacKenzie]

Not to ruin you guys' fun, but it is 616. Archaelogists at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt found a partial copy of the Apocalypse of John that predates all the others by 100 years, and it gives the number as 616.

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH! No! The End Times are upon us! The streets will run with bloods and the four horseman are unleashed and the forces of Gog and Magog (Mexico and Canada?) marshal at our borders! REPENT, FOR THEIR IS NO HIDING PLACE!!!

Hey... wait a minute???

[Pro Libertate]

I am a genius. No, really. I've solved the 616 problem. The Bible is referring to Michigan. The Anti-Christ lives in Grand Rapids. It's so obvious, now that I think about.

Yep, there he is, right in the White Pages: Christ, Anti. Wow, that restores my faith.

[Jon H]

"corning: I've heard about that, and how the roman system had numbers that were also letters so 666 = Nero, but I've also heard that the real number is 616, so who is that?"

He was out, so the package was delivered next door.

All this could have been avoided if they'd used Fed Ex tracking.

[Jon H]

"From what I can tell they've all been a dissappointment. So why do they keep doing it?"

To save money by only having to hire the crappiest of writers?

Also, Uwe Boll.

Another possibility is maintenance of trademark, or some such.

[Shem]

Pro Lib- What's the prefix for Hell, Michigan?

[Matt]

"That includes Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton."

Don't forget David Hasselhoff.
http://www.esquilax.com/baywatch/

[joshua corning]

ann coulter is on to something although she goes to far...the left (hitler, marx, even joe without so much the killing but the same amount of stupid) tend to take fundementals of science then try to create moral pardyms out of them...or at least distort them to in ways that fit thier rational...ie jews are inferior and evolution proves it, and other such nonsense.

Dawin and later the chemistry work that explains natural selection are explinations of moroless matter bumping into itself. The left in its use of science to justify its actions are no different then the guy who points up to the sky and says look an eclipes, that proves i should sacrifice your virgin daughter.

[joshua corning]

Not to ruin you guys' fun, but it is 616. Archaelogists at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt found a partial copy of the Apocalypse of John that predates all the others by 100 years, and it gives the number as 616.

crap so the rapture was last thursday...well it sucks i didn't make it to heaven but am consoled that none of you assholes made it either.

[Son of a!]

Archaelogists at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt found a partial copy of the Apocalypse of John that predates all the others by 100 years...

I don't suppose you have a reference, do you? 100 years seems... improbable. My Oxford Study Bible says:

"Though there are symbolic images that seem to refer to Nero (54-68 C.E.) and parts may have been written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the book in its present form probably was written during the reign of Domitian (81-96 C.E.), a period when emperor worship was geographically extensive and coercive."

Since this version still says 666, predating it by 100 years would put it problematically far into the past.

[Rick Barton]

So was there concern that no one could buy or sell without Nero's mark?

[Shem]

We don't have a single copy of the book that dates to it's production. The oldest Greek copies we have are scraps that date to about the 5-6th centuries CE, and they are copies of the copies of the copies. The newfound scraps refer to the number as being 616, and their "parentage" and the fact that they were found in Egypt (where the scribes were professional) suggest that it's the more relaible copy. They are also 100 years older than the other copies, an important fact also.

Furthermore, we don't have any copies of the books of the New Testament that are original, or indeed even direct copies of the original. Any time you read the New Testament, even that Oxford Study Bible you have, what you're essentially reading is the result of the work of several scholars deciding which copy was relaiable in which parts and putting it together. The earliest copies we have of the original Greek date to about the same time as Revelations, that is the 5th or 6th centuries. They should really put a disclaimer on the Bible that says that nothing inside is an exact copy of what the writers produced.

A copy of an article about the subject can be found here. Unfotunately, like the New Testament, the original copy has fallen from the web, so a copy will have to do. As to the dates of the manuscrips, I don't have an online date, so you'll have to trust that me.

[Pro Libertate]

Shem, I believe Hell's area code is 517. Which is suspiciously close to 616. Both have digits that add together to equal 13, a Satanic number if I ever heard one, and if you add one to 5 and subtract one from seven. . .Egad.

Is it any surprise that the Anti-Christ lives near Hell?

[joe]

Akira,

"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH! No! The End Times are upon us! The streets will run with bloods and the four horseman are unleashed and the forces of Gog and Magog (Mexico and Canada?) marshal at our borders! REPENT, FOR THEIR IS NO HIDING PLACE!!!"

Actually, it's 2.7 horsemen. Sorry about that. Didn't carry the 2.

[SmokingPenguin]

Satan? Who cares? When is plush Cthulhu coming?

[Shem]

Warehouse 23 has an excellent selection of plush Cthulhu items, including, best of all, C'thulhu slippers. If the Great C'tulhu had feet, He'd definately buy a pair.

[James Kabala]

Of course, the number of the beast is not "666" but "six hundred sixty-six." The King James Version has the even less six-centric (sexocentric? hexocentric?) "six hundred and threescore and six." Arabic numerals did not exist when the Bible was written, and no modern translation uses them either. The sixth day (out of thirty) of the sixth month (out of twelve) of the two thousand sixth year (in a series of as-yet-unkown length) has nothing to do with "six HUNDRED sixTY six."

[Son of a!]

Don't know if anyone's still reading this thread, but: Thanks Shem for the info.

[joe]

Shem, if Cthlulhu had feet, he'd probably need more than a pair.