I am watching a History channel special about Nostradamus. There was a very interesting comment at the beginning of the show. Penn of Penn and Teller said something like
“If Nostradamus actually knew all of this stuff that happened was going to happen and didn’t clearly let us know it, he is the biggest evil that ever lived.”
That was a different viewpoint than I have heard or thought previously. Of course it means, if he knew this crap was going to happen (Hitler, etc) he is evil for not clearly telling us so we could do something about it so he basically ok’ed it to happen.
At first blush, you would think, oh yeah, no kidding. But then when you think about it, if he had spoken in very clear terms, would the predictions have lived to see the times in which they were for? I would think it was doubtful unless he actually stuck dates on everything. Then once the first one came true, what would happen? The text would become a state secret of whatever government could get a hold of the documents. If there were no dates, then it would all be laughed at and tossed in the fire on a cold night. There would be no mystery to solve in trying to translate them.
Of course whether or not what he wrote is glimpses of a future he was able to divine, I don’t know if we will ever know for sure. I can’t read the original and have a hard time trusting any translations of anything as they depend on the agenda of those doing the translations.
joe
Suppose that Nostradamus were able to divine future events, then whatever was going to happen must happen, because otherwise what he saw would not be a “future event”, which would mean that he could not have had prophetic talents. So, the future must either be absolute (fated, or sure to take place) or Nostradamus was not the biggest evil that ever lived, but the biggest liar that ever lived.
Excellent counterpoint. If true I don’t know if I would say he was the buggest liar though, lots of competition in that area. 🙂
It does illustrate one big issue I have with the stuff surrounding divination, fortune telling, prophecy, seeing the future, omniscience, forward and backward time travel, etc… The concept of free will. One seems to negate the possibility of the other. How can you know what will happen if the people who have free will haven’t made their decisions?
The time travel one may seem odd to add in there but you have the whole time travel paradox involved. If I travel back to meet my great grandparents and mickey them with birth control (my own free will) then I would never be born… Whoops. So how did I mickey them? Of course once something has occurred you could say it is “read only” but if that is so, how could you insert yourself into that stream to experience it? The going forward is obvious, how can you go forward into something that hasn’t been determined? That then brings up the whole topic of all times being equal and current and deviations in the stream spawn new streams which leads to a multiverse versus a universe. Complicate stuff.
On the email address needed but not displayed secret comment. It isn’t me, this software works that way. I am required to OK new respondees. That appears to all be managed by the email address. I didn’t figure it was worth writing my own blog software when there is good software out there already and it isn’t my focus, sort of like why I use MS Offfice.
Wow – those are deep thoughts from both of you. I was always under the impression that he kept his prophecies vague because he didn’t want to be accused of witchcraft/satanic rituals/blasphemy/etc.
And getting onto the whole time travel paradox, can something exist before its created?
There is that. 😉
Was this deliberate to see how close I was reading?
“Nostradamus, biggest evil that EVERY lived. Why did you add the Y on ever?? just to bug me?
By the way, I’m glad to share the “lime light” with you. after reading your acknowledgement I feel I’m an expert.
G-ma