Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Theo's Prophecies

As President of the Internet Infidels, I occasionally get some interesting email. Yesterday, a guy named Theo sent me a list of three prophecies which he claims will prove the existence of precognition. Here are his three prophecies:
1. Between September 7-9 (probably on the 8th) police make dramatic news of a crazy person doing something. Lots of drama. Alot of people die.

2. On September 17 someone of importance is assasinated in the middle east. This may be related to terrorism.

3. On September 26 thousands of people are forced to relocate due to either tornado or earthquake.
I objected that the first happens every day somewhere, and asked him to make it more specific--by "crazy person" did he mean someone who is mentally ill? Is the crazy person causally related to the people dying? How many people is "a lot" (at least give an order of magnitude).

On the second, again I said that is nearly a daily event. Could he narrow it down to a country, or the field in which the assassinated person is "someone of importance"?

On the third, I asked whether the date is the date of the event or the relocation, and whether he could be specific about the nature of the disaster and add a geographic location.

Theo also claims that he predicted Hurricane Katrina "right to the day" (but didn't say which day of the multi-day event he predicted), and in a later email said that he had made three similar prophecies (presumably one of them was about Katrina) last month, but he hasn't yet given me the specifics. I'll press him, and post here if I get the details. (Update: Theo says I can find the information in AOL's "Christian Living" chat room logs, but didn't provide them. In response to my request for specifics about what he said, he says "Several weeks ago I predicted that a major catastrophe would occur in this country and that thousands would be forced to relocate between August 29-30." What happened to a "right to the day" prediction of a hurricane?)

In my response, I asked him if he could be more specific, in which case I'd be willing to entertain a $500 wager on it with him (with proceeds donated to the charity of his choice if he gets all three right, and donated to the Internet Infidels otherwise). He told me that I don't understand how precognition works and that my demands are unrealistic.

2 comments:

Einzige said...

Did he bother to explain "how it works," yet?

Does the bet cause bad vibes, or something? Or is precognition necessarily so vague that it's open to interpretation? (Of course that second one, if he admits it, is obviously admission that "precognition" is worthless)

Lippard said...

Unfortunately, he hasn't responded to me at all since August 31. I guess we'll see how he does on his first prediction in the next couple of days.