No, I'm not going to change my opinion on something that is clearly wrong and out of line with both God's character and his moral commands.  References to God's mystery were meant to give us a glimpse of his greater being, just as Moses received a glimpse in Exodus 33.  They were never meant as a license to go looking for secret codes.

First of all, there is a huge difference between the Nazi's efforts to conceal instructions using unintelligible text which could only be understood using their enigma machine, and the Bible,

The difference is that the Nazi machine had a purpose, while Bible codes are nothing more than a means of soothsaying.

Why the hostility?

What part of Deuteronomy 18:10-11 didn't you understand?  The Bible codes are nothing more than an attempt to integrate mysticism and divination into Christianity.  The method is man-made and used to gather information, however shady, about events using supposedly spiritual means.  It is similar in form to divination using stars, other texts, or anything else.  The fact that the Bible is the source of the "codes" is irrelevant.

The statisticians calculated that the odds against these five names occuring in this passage in the exact, chronological order they lived, are more than eight hundred thousand to one against this happening by chance.

So what?  These kind of statistics can be conjured up for all kinds of circumstances.  What are the chances I'll visit such-and-such gas station tomorrow: gee, 8,000,000 to 1.  That doesn't mean that if I do it's a divinely inspired event.

You know, you really should read in some detail on the subject before you start throwing out the "BS" bomb.

I know plenty of the subject, and also plenty on what God commands for our lives.  It is BS.

These are not just meaningless, random equal distant words in the Bible, they are detailed, relavent and complicated beyond imagination and mathematical probabillity.

You write like someone who has no concept of mathematics.  They are not "complicated beyond imagination and mathematical probability," they are the product of imagination combined with mathematics.  I've done my fair share of Fourier transforms and statistical data analysis, and I have seen what people can do when they try to apply mathematics to meet their own end.  They are less awe inspiring when you see that this is nothing more than people trying to assign meaning to patterns that may or may not exist.

The Bible is important because of what's on the lines, not what's between them.  While there might be more to it than is seen, since this is God's word of instruction to man the obvious conclusion is that what is not seen is not important.  God's plan for humans has always been one of redemption, not to have us wasting our time trying to look for hints of future events by assigning numbers to text.  Maybe if He wanted us to look for secret codes He would have packaged the Bible with a decoder ring.

Why bring up Bible Codes if there wasn't any significance to it?

Gee, maybe to make modern soothsayers a bit of money and earn them the awe of people who apparently never learned what the definition of divination is.

This algorithm is man-made, and not that complex from what I've seen.  The Nazis had a far more complicated method of ciphering in their enigma machine, yet you guys are ready to bend over backwards to call this two-bit method of divination a work of God.  Deuteronomy 18:10-11 shows exactly what God's opinion of this sort of nonsense is.

The Bible codes could only have been placed there by God. Therefore, it does serve a purpose in that, it shows the scriptures are truely inspired by God.

That's BS Bronzesnake.  The algorithm was developed by a man, and could probably be developed for any number of books.  That is hardly evidence of messages being placed there by God.  If one was so inclined I'm sure you could find secret messages in the works of Tolkien, Lovecraft, or probably Playboy magazine.

The beauty of the Bible is that the concepts within are made plain to all people, not that there are secret codes for the mystics and academic elites.  

You mean he developed an algorithm 90 years ago.  That doesn't mean that he had prophesy 90 years ago, or what was to come would have been prophesied.  I have looked at some of these so-called prophesies and they are nothing of the sort.  Often times they are so vague they can mean any number of things or match multiple events, without ever relaying God' motivations or desires (as was done in the OT and Revelations).  Other times the "prophecy" came about after the fact, like with the twin towers.

Jews have often mixed mysticism with God's commands, as unfortunately have Christians.  That doesn't mean that it is correct to pursue such things.  God's desire for man is revealed by the commands of the text, not by assigning numerical values to writing and applying an algorithm.  Looking past the text for secret codes is the most wasteful thing you can do with the Bible.  You'd be better off burning it for heat in winter.

Looking for Bible codes is paganism, pure and simple.  You might as well read the zodiac or believe in crystals, as those were made by God too and might have meaning hidden in them (that's sarcasm, btw).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Christian artists weren't doing much complaining about their songs being downloaded.

Not that they have a big problem with that.  Honestly, I don't think your hardcore digital pirate gives a rats rear end about Michael W. Smith.

The Bible codes are a bunch of nonsense.  They are nothing more than numerology repackaged with Judeo/Christian wrapping.  As for all the "prophecies,"  note how they are all discovered after the fact.  Prophecies, by definition, should come before the actual event.  This means they are nothing more than a baseless searching for patterns in the Bible that are more the product of someones imagination than divine inspiration.

The only people who are picked on are the people who bring in on themselves.

That's crap.  Do you honestly believe that those who do not follow that which is popular are asking to be maligned for it?

A place where you are forced to go, do nothing useful while you are there, and learn material that is largely irrelevant; High school is highly socially stratified by its very nature.  Unless someone wants to spend the majority of their time and energy pursuing popularity they will more often than not find themselves on the lower end of the social pecking order.  If you don't believe me about the existence of said pecking order, contact your local sociologist or read up on it.  It is there.  Perhaps you were at the top of the heap and never bothered to look down on those below you.  If that's so, I suggest you open your eyes.

. . . kids in high school have a choice wither or not to be picked on. I feel no pity for them.

That is completely incorrect.  Everyone does not have a choice of whether they are picked on or not, just as those who were shot at Columbine did not have the choice of whether they were shot or not.  The whole concept behind the idea of shooting at schools is to take power away from those who use it against you, and use what power you have to bring revenge.

There are only two major commandments that we have to follow, and that sum up the whole of the Law of Moses.  Our duties as Christians do not revolve around churches, missions, bake sales, memorizing every little verse, putting a fish on our car, or any other such nonsense pushed by popular Christian culture in this nation.  What we are to do is to love our neighbor as ourselves, and part of that is to not judge them by the standards of this world.  Now your little statement gives the impression that you feel no pity for those who do not throw themselves into the pursuit of popularity.  Is that your idea of how to love our neighbors as ourselves?

So, what does everyone think about the new T3 movie? I'm going to see it out of respectfor Aronld, but as for the movie it self...

I have great faith that James Cameron will make a good movie out of it, more than I do in Arnold's ability to act.  I have liked just about every James Cameron movie I have seen: Titanic, Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, and True Lies.  If anyone knows how to make an action scene, its Cameron.

On a side note, I heard an interesting tidbit today. They were considering O.J. Simpson for the role in the first one, but desided agaisnt it. When asked why, James Cameron said, and I quote "People wouldn't have believed a nice guy like O.J. playing a ruthless killer"

LOL.  Now that's funny!

Gangrene, "bottom of the social food chain".  Hehe, pretty funny gangrene.

Funny?  Eh, what do you mean?  High School can be a pretty mean place.

BTW, is your user name from II Timothy 2:17:  "...and their talk will eat its way like gangrene..."??

Honestly my reasons are not quite so deep.  Thanks for the verse, though.  I think I'll adopt it.

What does everyone think about the Matrix Trilogy thus far?

Matrix Reloaded has a decent story, nice visual effects, and a few great fight scenes.  The best portion of the movie is definitely the freeway fight scene, and the explanation for ghosts and UFO's is smart.  The twins are a nice touch.  However, the story is not nearly the level of quality as that of the first.  The philosophy drones on in anime fashion and the characters do not really develop IMO.  Some of the story elements are cheesey, such as the kiss scene, and Zion seemed to be little more than a big rave at the center of the Earth.  The sex scene was a big waste of time.

A question about the movie.

WWJD?

That question is overdone and a complete waste of time.  The simple answer is we just don't know.  As much as some would like to think He would spend 24-7 at his local church and give all his money to charities, given his choice of actions I think He would spend time with people other than Christians and would not be afraid of every piece of pop culture that came along.

The Bible is full of violence, and at times is a preferred method by God for dealing with humans.  Violence in the Bible is justified by the context of the story, and the same can be said for violence in movies.  If you're watching a movie about WWII it is unreasonable to want it to not have violence.  It is best, IMO, to question the context in which violence is framed, and not worry so much about violence itself.  While I do believe there is such a thing as gratuitous violence, the inappropriate context will probably be apparent.

But on the Matrix, and the gratuitous violence, as Corpus points out, wasn't that cited as part of the "inspiration" for the Columbine shootings?  I thought that was how they dressed.

The Matrix was not the inspiration for the Columbine shootings.  The kids did dress in similar clothing, but their plan had been in development before the Matrix was released.  The fact that they were the bottom of the social food chain was probabley a much greater factor for their actions than any game or movie.

But increasingly, Gangrene, (why THAT name?),

So people would ask me that question

Actually its just a name I have used for years since I started multiplayer gaming (back-in-the-day).  I adopted it for message boards a few years ago.  It seems to fit my personality well enough, as I can come off as abrasive online and in multiplayer gaming I don't have problems with using el-cheapo tactics.  That, and I just like the way it rolls off the tongue.

I steer clear of anything tainted with the copyright question.  I listen to the KimKomando radio computer program; she discourages it definitely, saying they're coming to get us, even with tech'y that will detect piracy(but violate one's privacy, too).

One would hope they would just evolve their busines model.  As long as songs are broadcast over the radio a diehard mp3 collector can always copy the song from analog and not worry about getting caught.  Sure, the quality would suck, but it would be free.

Where do you guys stand on digital "piracy"?  Is sharing files, despite any copyrights, perfectly acceptable use of digital technology?  Or is file sharing piracy, plain and simple?

I am torn on this issue.  I don't engage in rampant piracy myself.  I have bought, or was given as a gift, the majority of videogames and movies that I own.  But music, OTOH, I have no misgivings about downloading.  I have even gone out and boughten CD's based on what I heard on mp3's (its how I got into Newsboys).

I know Romans says we are to give everyone what we owe them.  But honestly I would never pay money for a lot of the songs I download.  So where do you guys stand on this issue?