Who's the Anti-Christ this time?

[s p a c e b o y]

On Sun, 12 Apr 1998, StanSquncr wrote: 

> The following is from an email which I received from a Christian group
> in Israel this morning. I think it makes for interesting reading ... 

I agree, completely ridiculous, but interesting nonetheless. The following
comments aren't directed at Stan, just statements on the body of the
forwarded email.

> IMPORTANT WARNING ABOUT PRINCE CHARLES 
>
> The following is a list of overwhelming evidence which supports the
> theory that Prince Charles is the biblical antichrist. Although at first
> glance, this claim may seem ridiculous, the facts speak for themselves. 

Yes, ridiculous at first glance, and second glance, and so on. What is
even more ridiculous is that these groups refer to these numerological
coincidences as "mathematical proofs" of the identity of an "antichrist".

Numerology only works if one sets up a favorable framework. Into this
framework one can place a theory or idea to be given significance,
something to be proven or believed. 

I concede that this antichrist framework is only somewhat interesting in
that it uses 'gematria' and the ancient Hebrew numeral system to "prove"
its case. Gematria is a strange sort of number magic which arose from the
fact that the numeral system was made up of the letters of the alphabet.
Early civilizations quickly realized the dangers this close relationship
of math and language could cause, and evidently is still causing to this
day. :) I'm sure the unfortunate ancient citizen whose name added to 666
would agree.

Mathematics would have moved forward much more quickly had early
mathematicians not been faced with this mixture of numbers and language.

Pat Hensley
Engineer, Mindspring Enterprises
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