The spell is broken. I am awake. As discussed in yesterday’s post, Debunking Myself, I can now see, understand, and explain the psychological forces and cognitive errors that led to my false belief in the Bible Wheel. This leaves me with the informative and entertaining task of debunking all the outrageous claims I made during my years as a believer.
Today’s project is to debunk the Bible Wheel Challenge which I believed was invincible proof of my claims. Here is how I stated it:
THE BIBLE WHEEL CHALLENGE asserts that the Christian canon is truly perfect in the twofold sense that 1) no rearrangement of its books would improve upon the patterns discovered on the Bible Wheel, and 2) any rearrangement would cause an obvious degradation of existing patterns. The challenge is for the opponent to suggest a rearrangement and present arguments for why such a change would produce patterns equal to or superior to those presently seen in the Bible Wheel. This challenge simultaneously proves the invincibility of the Bible Wheel even as it demonstrates the vacuity of the skeptic’s canard that “patterns mean nothing because they can be found in anything.” It is an extremely powerful challenge because it can not be refuted without interacting with the data, and the data is the touchstone that proves the Bible Wheel.
This challenge went unanswered for over a decade. No one ever responded to it even though I actively challenged critics on various forums. I interpreted their lack of response as confirmation that it was invincible. It now seems more likely that they didn’t want to waste their time playing my game. Whatever the reason, it was a fallacy to think that a lack of response could be any kind of confirmation, especially since I never actually took the challenge myself! I never doubted my claims were true because I was mesmerized by the mountain of the cherry picked “evidence” I had collected.
As it turns out, I could not have met my own challenge even if I wanted to. The challenge is blatantly absurd because it would be literally impossible to review anything but the tiniest fraction of possible arrangements of the books. This is because the number of possible arrangements is beyond human comprehension. Simple combinatorics tells us that there are 39! x 27! = 2.2 x 1074 possible arrangements (assuming we don’t mix Old and New Testament books). If we considered all possible arrangements, the answer is even larger: 66! = 5.4 x 1092. To get a perspective on the size of these numbers, the number of seconds since the Big Bang is about 4.3 x 1016 and the number of atoms in the observable universe is on the order of 1080.
The essence of my error was a failure to appreciate the magnitude of the numbers involved. It is a textbook case of the Law of Truly Large Numbers, which is one of the five mathematical laws explained by David Hand in his excellent book The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Here is a brief summation of the law:
A set of mathematical laws that I call the Improbability Principle tells us that we should not be surprised by coincidences. In fact, we should expect coincidences to happen. One of the key strands of the principle is the law of truly large numbers. This law says that given enough opportunities, we should expect a specified event to happen, no matter how unlikely it may be at each opportunity. Sometimes, though, when there are really many opportunities, it can look as if there are only relatively few. This misperception leads us to grossly underestimate the probability of an event: we think something is incredibly unlikely, when it’s actually very likely, perhaps almost certain.
The Improbability Principle explains common errors people make when estimating probabilities which create the illusion of miracles and “supernatural patterns” like the Bible Wheel. A thorough understanding of his book is all that is needed to debunk most of my claims.
The Battle of the Bible Wheels
There is yet another refutation of my Bible Wheel Challenge that is perhaps the most compelling of all, since a picture is, as they say, worth a thousand words. For years, I believed that the Bible Wheel was proof of the Protestant Canon, as opposed to that of the Roman Catholic Church. I just “knew” that the deuterocanonical books would “ruin the pattern.” You couldn’t even make a Bible Wheel since there were too many books! Or so I thought. I never actually analysed the data at all.
Much to my surprise, it is very easy to make a Roman Catholic Bible Wheel. I simply followed the order of books as listed in the Vulgate (same as the Douay-Rheims version), and followed the tradition of counting Jeremiah and Lamentations as one to give a total of 72 books. These books can then be displayed on a wheel of 24 spokes, corresponding to the 24 Greek letters. Thus, the Catholics can claim their Bible is “sealed from Alpha to Omega” just as I claimed that that Protestant canon was “sealed from Aleph to Tav.” Only their claim has a much better ring to it, given that the Alpha and Omega are descriptions of the divine found within the text itself and are ubiquitous in ancient Christian art and literature as seen, for example, in the Chi Rho I placed in the center:
I now have a foil against which to test my claims about the Bible Wheel. How would I have responded when I was a believer? To answer this, I’ll create a dialog between “Me now” and “Me then.” Note: PBW = Protestant Bible Wheel and CBW = Catholic Bible Wheel.
Me now: The PBW is meaningless. I can create the same kind of pattern with the Catholic Bible and the Greek alphabet.
Me then: Yeah, but the CBW doesn’t have a Canon Wheel.
Me now: Score one for the PBW. But the PBW doesn’t match the words of the Bible which speak explicitly of the Alpha and Omega which also have played a very important role in Christian art and literature. And the 24 spokes of the CBW correspond to very significant uses of the numbers 24 and 24/2 = 12 in the Bible, like the 24 elders around the thrown of God and the 144,000 = 24 x 6,000, etc. The number 22 doesn’t play any role in the symbolic numbers of the Bible as far as I know.
Me then: Score one for the CBW. But the number 22 does play an important role in the alphabetic verses which follow the pattern of the 22 letters. There are no alphabetic verses designed upon the Greek alphabet, so you can’t have any alphabetic KeyLinks like I have found in the PBW.
Me now: KeyLinks? There’s been a development in that area. Your claims relating to the Alphabetic KeyLinks collapsed like a house of cards the moment I examined them objectively. I proved that in a series of five posts on our forum (here, here, here, here, and here).
Me then: Oh my. That’s embarrassing. Let’s move on to another question.
Me now: OK. What’s the best spoke on your Bible Wheel?
Me then: The first spoke! It’s totally amazing! It consists of Genesis, Isaiah, and Romans, which are the first books of the Law, the Prophets, and the New Testament Epistles! And there is a strong theme of “creation” that unites them. It’s the best spoke on the PBW. The evidence is very strong.
Me now: I agree that’s pretty impressive. But not nearly as impressive as the first spoke of the CBW which consists of Genesis, Wisdom of Solomon, and the Gospel of John. Take a look at these correlations:
- Genesis: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
- Wisdom: O God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things with thy word, And ordained man through thy wisdom, that he should have dominion over the creatures which thou hast made,
- John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Look at that! The Wisdom of Solomon explicitly refers to the Logos by whom all things were made. It coheres perfectly with Genesis and John. I could go on …
Me then: No need. I see your point. There is no limit to the “connections” that can be found no matter how the books are arranged, and more importantly, there is no way to judge between the two Bible Wheels. I know I would have been very impressed by the Catholic Bible Wheel if I were a Catholic looking for “patterns” that proved divine inspiration. And that’s nothing confirmation bias. Thanks for helping me see the error of my ways. I think I’ll be going now. Bye bye.
Conclusion
People are pattern seeking animals. The mere fact that I could display the Bible on a circular matrix surrounded by the alphabet created a powerful illusion of design. It’s very hypnotic. Such patterns obviously connect with some deep psychology since people have been making similar “symbolic circles” for millennia.
When I was a believer, I thought that the probability of the Bible Wheel happening by chance was negligible, and so demanded an explanation (which obviously was God). I continued in this false belief for three full years after debunking the Bible and quitting Christianity. That shows how powerful such illusions can be.
This was a very funny and clever way to make a great point.
I disagree though. The one that drew me to your site was looking up Isaiah as a miniature Bible. I simply googled it as I noticed several of the connections and was hypnotized by them. Our thoughts aren’t original; it’s been noted several times before. Not to say that makes it meaningful – several random people looking at the Mars photo will say it looks like a face independently even though it’s not.
Being slow witted actually biases me views on this. When I glanced over the other components of your site at the time (the gematria and holograms), I concluded that I was too dumb to pore over Hebrew text, and that those studies were too occultic for me to have the time or ability to unravel.
But the Isaiah-Bible connection is particularly impressive. Just looking at the “terror, pit, and snare”, the “I am” verses, the song in Chapter 5, the change in tone in Chapter 40, the initial verses of chapter 1 … I find it all rather striking. I thought generally all the wheels on your site were fairly convincing.
Let’s say we discovered that a short piano piece of some famous composer had 138 measures, and several of the measures sounded like snippets from Beethoven’s corresponding opus numbers. They wouldn’t all have to be. If you just had 10 or 20 such connections, it would be rather obvious that it was intentional. I don’t believe we have to conclude that every book is perfectly linked. It may be that we can only use judgment, and it really seems like the Isaiah-Bible connection is meaningful in my own judgment – your mileage may vary.
I think to some extent, the work you are doing now falls under the same category of rationalizing that the Bible Wheel site creation did. It seems like you like to be all in on a belief and to iron out any uncomfortable wrinkles. Again, I’m biased by the fact that I enjoy cognitive dissonance and typically prefer things to be very complicated and impossible to pigeonhole. While I share your disgust with the lunatics that infest the religious world and with many aspects of the faith itself, I just can’t feel convinced that the Isaiah-Bible connection falls; it doesn’t pass the simple tried and true sniff test. I’d be open to any convincing!
I actually think there are reasons why the pattern could exist without it proving that the faith is true. For instance, a brain in a vat theory: it could be an elaborate test to see if people take a stand against apparently fascist beliefs even though they’ll face harsh punishment by doing so. If this theory were true, your particular brain in the vat would be providing information on this topic.
Anyway, no need to respond since I’m just haphazardly throwing some food for thought out there. I say any of this without malice; I just think as a relatively outside observer and somewhat of a fan, it’s interesting to see how hard you like to consolidate a belief – you go to the mat in on one side, take a 180 degree turn, and then go to the mat on the other. But is that whole middle ground really so uncomfortable?
And the gospels on that CBW – clean that up!! haha
Hey there David,
I really appreciate your thoughtful and challenging comments.
You suggest that the connections between the chapters of Isaiah and the 66 books of the Bible, though far from complete or perfect, are sufficient to imply a deliberate design by an omniscient and omnipotent God. To support this idea, you point out that we would conclude deliberate design if we found a musical composition in which “several of the measures sounded like snippets from Beethoven’s corresponding opus numbers.” Such a conclusion would be based on two factors. First, the degree of “sound alike.” We would have to have an objective measure of what we mean. For example, if all the “sound alike” portions were note-for-note identical, then we would be forced to conclude deliberate copying if a sufficient number were found. Of course, what would constitute a “sufficient number” would have to be established, but we don’t need to worry about that right now since this is just an analogy anyway.
The second point is more significant. Why would we conclude that the similarities implied deliberate design? Because we begin with the presupposition that the composition containing the “sound alikes” was itself designed. This exposes the fundamental presupposition underlying belief in the Isaiah-Bible Correlation: It could only have meaning if we began by presuming that both the Bible and Isaiah were designed by God. If we have no reason to believe this, then the coincidences would be far less convincing. For example, if you believed that God governed history and was interested in proving it by planting apparently random “coincidences” in the lives of historical persons, you would be strongly inclined to believe that God “obviously” designed the connections between the presidencies of Lincoln and Kennedy. Here is a brief sample:
Etc., etc., etc. The list goes on indefinitely.
So do you believe that those are “mere coincidences” or are they sufficient to convince you that some sort of supernatural agent designed them? If not, why not? How does that differ from the Isaiah-Bible Correlation?
Here are a few problems I have with it now that I’m viewing it from a skeptical point of view, without the presupposition that God did it. First, the connections are mostly subjective. Second, it is not nearly as good as it could be. I could have designed one a thousand times better and more convincing. The same idea is what woke me up from the Bible Wheel delusion. Third, connections could be found no matter what order was used. For example, here is a page that presents the Isaiah Bible Correlation as proof of divine design, but it is based on an entirely different order of the books. It follows the order of the Tanakh for the OT and the “manuscript order” of the NT. (This is this same order that E. L. Martin used to construct his symmetric sevenfold pattern based on 49 (=7 x 7) = 22 + 5 + 22 books discussed in my article Patternicity on Steroids). This shows how folks can find patterns in anything. How is anyone supposed to objectively judge between them? The “connections” are almost entirely subjective value judgments. And some of the patterns with the different order are much better than what we find in the order I used. For example, in the KJV order, the Book of Isaiah corresponds to Isaiah 23 which has no connections at all, whereas in the order of the Tanakh, it correspond to chapter 12 where we read:
That connects directly with the name Isaiah, which in Hebrew means YHVH has saved. It’s a much better fit. And we see the same thing with Jeremiah, which is book 13 in the Tanakh. It’s primary theme is the downfall of Babylon, which is the primary topic of Isaiah 13 which opens with the words “The burden of Babylon.”
Finally, we must ask why would God do such a thing? Why would he deliberately design a partial, fragmentary pattern that is fundamentally indistinguishable from random chance? Why would he choose to communicate through a method that mimics the results of cognitive bias? At best, there is a “hint” of design which is far from definitive since different orders create “hints” of similar strength.
When all is said and done, I see no reason to think that God designed the Isaiah-Bible Correlation.
I’ll answer you other points in another post. This one is long enough as it is.
Again, I really appreciate your thoughtful and challenging questions.
Richard
Hi again David,
Continuing with your comments:
I can see how you might get that impression, but I think it is because you have not walked in my shoes. I didn’t just “flip” from one belief to its opposite. On the contrary, it took me three years after debunking the Bible before I had the clarity of mind to debunk the Bible Wheel. I have given it a lot of thought. For three full years, I had a statement on my sidebar that said the evidence supporting the Bible Wheel appeared to remain valid despite the fact that the Bible itself was not true, and I was willing to live with that “cognitive dissonance” as long as those “facts” appeared to be valid.
I explored many possible explanations, from naturalistic ideas as such as an evolutionary explanation which seemed to make good sense of the Canon Wheel (though it did not explain the detailed correlations between the books with each other and the alphabet) to “woowoo” explanations based on Jungian psychology, as explored in The Bible Wheel as a Cosmic Mandala of Archetypal Wholeness. I remained quite open-minded until I reviewed my evidence for design and found it full of holes, as explained in my recent posts, especially Debunking Myself: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
I don’t know what makes you think I have trouble with ambiguity. The fact that I was willing to live with the profound inconsistency of a false Bible and true Bible Wheel for three years suggests quite the opposite. I thoroughly enjoyed my studies of quantum mechanics which contains fundamental ambiguities in its foundation (wave/particle duality, etc.). Like Schroedinger, I felt that such ambiguity was fundamental to reality, like the Yin/Yang. I have a strong dislike for “closed systems” that claim to account for all the data but actually fail.
Again, I really appreciate your comments, and hope the conversation continues.
Richard
The fact that there are two wheels, one based on the Hebrew alphabet and the other on the Greek, could be seen as evidence that the Bible was always conceived of as a scroll and that the two traditions split at some point in the past.
That’s all I got Richard! The ball is in my court – I’m going to keep exploring the idea and others such as Ezekiel’s temple, the Israel camps, and the cross. Or the cross-like form of the Lamentations book. I find all these very compelling. I remember how struck I was when I was studying Ezekiel’s temple trying to make sense of it and suddenly seeing the passage about the water running out of it. It had that electrifying effect that you must be all too familiar with; it’s hard to unthank those connections once you see them.
It seems I’ve mischaracterized your thinking a little. If I read correctly, you’re trying to find ways to test for cognitive bias … without being cognitively biased. Clearly very difficult – if one were to try to think of a litmus test for comparing presidents after reading your passage, it would be tempting to start with something like “What year did they die?” It truly is difficult to unsee patterns once you see them! But to that end, you’re reading books about cognitive bias and trying to apply philosophical concepts. A lot of work, but it seems pretty reasonable.
I remember at various points in my life, I’d tell people about what I considered to be radiant patterns in the Bible, and they didn’t seem at all interested. I would just tell myself it was because I had eyes to see and ears to hear (funny how it all combines)! But in reality, it’s largely because I’m an actuary, a musician, and a chess enthusiast. I am completely in love with patterns, and that predisposes me to seeing them whether they’re the signal or the noise. It would be no different from overthinking Eliot’s Waste Land or Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, seeing things the artists didn’t intend.
If it were all math, we could just do some sort of Bayesian analysis on it, expecting a certain amount of fake patterns to appear in a random walk. But it’s harder to do with text which largely isn’t random.
So a benefit of your site is it acts like a big diary or journal. You can get a sense for when you intellectually understood something to be true, and when your heart felt it was true. In many cases, the feeling came first, and sometimes it came second!
Best wishes,
David
And definitely when seeing this pattern, the first natural instinct is to head right to Isaiah 23 and it is indeed disappointing. It’s difficult to tell how much one-to-one relationship is needed before we can conclude it’s deliberate. At least it shouldn’t matter if you could have designed more correlation as long as there is sufficient correlation that it is extremely improbable it wasn’t deliberate.
I’m starting to think the answer is less important than the question itself. If it’s possible to deepen understanding of confirmation bias and testing for it, and this provides a vehicle for doing so, I can read your posts and have hope of somebody being as smart as the ‘idiots’ who were never impressed in the first place. 😉
>Merely rolling up the OT does not make the Bible Wheel.
That’s not true. It depends on the size. Genesis can be written on an egg:
google.com/search?q=genesis+written+on+egg
No, it could not, because there is no evidence that either group did any such thing. The fact that the wheels could be made is best explained by simply coincidence. The two canons just happened to have the right number of books. And if they didn’t, then we could make up reasons to change the count of books like Ernest L. Martin did when he created his novel sevenfold symmetric pattern by following the order of the Tanakh, renumbering the books to reduce them from 24 to the required 22, and then using the “manuscript order” for the NT to arrive at 49 (= 7 x 7) = 22 + 5 + 22 books.
Yes, I constantly experienced an “electrifying effect” when discovering coincidences that confirmed my beliefs. I called it “holy goosebumps” (a play on the Holy Ghost). This gives deep insight into how people get addicted to pattern finding. It’s like playing the slot machine. You spend hours tediously scanning scripture and then you find a HIT and you get goosebumps and feel like you are perceiving the truth of God. It’s the same kind of “pleasure response” drug addicts get. You get a dopamine rush. I just read an article that explains the same thing happens when people learn new words. Basically, “pattern finding” is like a drug, and gives the same kind of response. Here’s a snippet from the article (link):
I’ll answer more in another comment.
We already know how to avoid cognitive bias. It’s called the “scientific method.” You have to look at all the data. Folks who believe in numerology and patterns in the Bible almost never do that. Their primary methods are pure cherry picking and confirmation bias. They look for “hits” that fit a pattern they like and ignore and/or rationalize all the data that doesn’t fit.
I see no value in looking for patterns in sacred texts that are demonstrably fallacious on countless points. E.g. it’s obvious that the Bible is not true. There was no Adam and Eve. Creation did not happen six thousand years ago. Putting striped sticks in front of mating animals does not cause their offspring to be mottled. Etc., etc., etc. It’s time to toss that old book (as a source of authoritative truth) and move on. It’s a great resource to understand the history of human thoughts, hopes, dreams, and fears, just like this website is a great resource for showing how a person transforms from a believer to a freethinker. But it is worthless as a guide to truth.
But we’re not talking about random or arbitrary sets, were talking about the sacred holy scriptures of an entire nation. Literature is created by design, with care.
Out of all the verses in Shakespeare, there are some rhyming couplets. How do you know the rhymes aren’t a coincidence? Because you have better sense then that.
As explained in my latest article debunking the Isaiah-Bible Correlation, patterns as good as mine can be found using an entirely different sequence of books. Pay attention to the “disappointment” you felt when you tried to confirm the pattern and failed. That was evidence that the pattern does not actually exist. The “hits” strike you as very compelling because you are looking for them with a believing mind. Would you be impressed by such patterns if you found them in the Qur’an?
That’s how you free yourself from cognitive bias. Begin by admitting to yourself that you have a HUGE bias in favor of the Bible. That bias is skewing your judgment.
You digressed richard. Your story lnterested me, because you did ln reverse what l did. Well, sorta.
When l was a young cat l was turned off by the Christians who were supposed to represent the the
lntegrity of the word of God. this was a silly notion. Anyway as a result l got lnto the Qabalah and Magick. After many years l came back to Christianity after realising that the bible ltself proves lts
lntegrity. l encourage you to check out Bill Schneobelen first, then Chuck missler. just google away
my friend until you see the light. Happy trails lol.
Hey there Richard,
I’ve known about Chuck Missler for over 20 years. His book “Cosmic Codes” struck me as quite shallow. I can’t image he could teach me anything I haven’t already heard from him or learned on my own. As for Bill Schneobelen … WTF?!? He sounds worse than the fraud Mike Warnke. He claims to be a former freaking vampire! Real credible dude.
So how exactly does the Bible “prove its integrity”? I’m all ears.
I was comparing the Roman Catholic Bible Wheel with the Protestant Bible Wheel. Although you were able to come up with a diagram representing the Roman Catholic Bible canon, it does not have the symmetry of the Protestant canon wheel. It seems like you were forced to give up all of the compelling symmetry in the original canon wheel. In the RCBW (roman catholic bible wheel), NT history (John and Acts) is grouped with the NT epistles. OT history (1and 2 Mac) is grouped with NT history (John and Acts). Wisdom literature (Wis and Sir) is grouped with the major prophets. The Major prophet/Daniel is grouped with minor prophets.
ok. thanks. i’m still reading and enjoying all the research you have done.
I’m not going to say much. This is something I’ve mostly kept to myself and family. Honestly, I got tired of people looking at me as if I had 2 heads. Ok, hear goes. In 2007, I was taking a nap then woke up. After a moment, I turned to get out of bed. What I saw at the foot of my bed was life changing. There was a man , facing the wall, so I was seeing him from his side. He was dressed in garb from the days of Christ. He turned his head and looked at me. At that moment a feeling came over me. I felt that I knew him and that I was home, really home where I belonged. I noticed his hair had a few dreadlocks or something that looked like dreadlocks. He truly was beautiful. I blinked and he was gone. The really surprising thing was that I never felt afraid. Afterward, I did get worried. I thought I was going to die soon because I saw God. Well I’m still here. I did find out a couple weeks later when I was cleaning my walls that he was looking at a picture of Jesus that I had hanging up before he turned and looked at me. I’ve racked my brain over the years trying to figure out why he let me see him or if there was another explanation for my experience. I’m far from perfect. I’ve come to the conclusion that I saw Jesus that day and feel very humbled. I decided to tell my story so maybe it could give someone hope that God is real and He loves us.
Thank you for your time,
Ann McG
error
A multitude of patterns does not disprove the pattern.
To truly debunk the Bible wheel, one probably has to give all the connections in all the patterns and compare the connections. One must also add an error checker, such as an extra book or subtract a book (say, making it 65 or 67 books and see if it messes up or more connections can be made)
The fact that there is connections with multiple things does not disprove it, just means that the book has a lot of words and a long enough number set (in this case, 66), where you can argue for a pattern.
Hey there Sam,
Glad you joined the conversation. I agree that merely finding alternate patterns does not “truly debunk” any one of them. But it does support the primary criticism against such “pattern finding” which is that people are able to find patterns in pretty much any data set of sufficient complexity. And I have found it very helpful as a way to free myself from the strong bias for my own patterns engendered by the sense that they were just “too unlikely to be by chance.” The fact that I could create an alternate “Bible Wheel” from the Roman Catholic Canon with some strong connections was a real eye-opener.
Now as for how to really “debunk” such patterns – that’s not really as difficult as it first seems. Like you, I used to think I would have to make an exhaustive list of all the “connections” found using alternate patterns and then somehow compare which had more hits vs. misses. That was the basis of my Bible Wheel Challenge. The problem, as stated in my article above, was that there are 66 factorial = 66! = 5.44 x 10^92 possible arrangements of the 66 books on the Bible Wheel, so it would be quite impossible for anyone to actually count and compare all the hits in all possible patterns. And that doesn’t even account for alternate patterns based on a different number of books, different geometric patterns, different alphabets, etc., etc., etc. And this problem is compounded by the lack of an objective standard of what constitutes a “connection” let alone how to compare the “strength” of contrary connections. In retrospect, I now see my challenge seemed “invincible” because it was literally impossible to actually execute. It was an illusory standard. I had no evidence that my pattern was the “best” of all possible patterns, which is exactly what I was claiming. I then put the burden of proof on the opponent, and demanded that they do the impossible before I would admit defeat.
So how then do we “debunk” claims like mine? Simple! We use the scientific method. We put the burden of proof on the person making the claim, not those who reject the claim. In other words, we begin with the null hypothesis and demand evidence to think otherwise. And we demand that the claim be scientific, in the sense that it is systematic, repeatable, falsifiable, and based on objective verifiable evidence. This was the problem with my Bible Wheel Challenge. It was was an untestable assertion that “the Christian canon is truly perfect in the twofold sense that 1) no rearrangement of its books would improve upon the patterns discovered on the Bible Wheel, and 2) any rearrangement would cause an obvious degradation of existing patterns.” Does that sound like a “scientific claim”? LOL
Bottom line: Before “debunking” any patterns we need to ask “What is being claimed?” and “Is the claim scientific?” If not, what is there to debunk? Most proponents merely assert that their patterns are “evidence of divine design” of their preferred book and they present no evidence other than a list of cherry picked coincidences. This is the antithesis of scientific evidence, which is supposed to be an unbiased, systematic, repeatable sample of all available data. And this brings us to the primary error common to all such “pattern finding” – I have never seen a pattern that was actually consistent throughout the text. They are all fragmentary with many inconsistencies. This really drove me nuts when I was working on the Bible Wheel because I would consistently find really good “connections” that did not align on the spokes. This should have been sufficient to free me from my delusion but I was blinded by my bias. I can’t believe how long it took for me to wake up and see how absurd it is to think that an infinitely wise God would give “proof” of his book by designing fragmented inconsistent “patterns” that can be believed only when embracing the twin cognitive errors of selection bias and confirmation bias.
It has indeed been a long strange trip! 😉
Well, as a Catholic I appreciate the attempted debunking of the truncated Protestant Bible and Wheel by creating a Catholic version, but the Catholic Bible has 73 books. You left out Lamentations. Not that it really matters though!
Your primary error was attempting to take secondary or tertiary patterns (which turned out to be imaginary) and elevating them to the point of no return. The pattern soon became the reason you believed, not because of anything plainly spoken by Christ or his great miracles. You believed only as far as it complemented your intelligence and that was the mistake the fallen angels first made. There’s a pattern for you! The Holy Ghost could very well have inspired the Bible in such a way that anyone who sought Him unworthily might be lost in the imagination of their hearts. The Protestants fall for it all the time. Just because you can read the Bible, doesn’t make you qualified to start teaching it. The ego trip becomes more evident as time rolls on. I hope you find a way out of your darkness before it’s too late to correct.
If you ever do come around, make sure you do it right and be Catholic. You cannot please God without being a member of His true Church. Learn obedience, seek the Sacraments.