Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
From: Brendan McKay
Subject: When St Catherine says NO, she means NO!
One of the problems faced by anyone who examines the claims of
numerical patterns in Quran or Bible, is that when presented
cleverly the patterns appear quite remarkable. A part of the
reason is that variations in text or counting method are sometimes
used. However, even if the text and counting method is given
precisely in advance, a diligent worker can usually find patterns
that look remarkable to someone not experienced in the method.
In a further article I am going to explain how it is done; it
is not just a matter of trying lots of possibilities. In this
first article I will get your attention by displaying an example.
When Shawki declined my invitation to send some text, I asked
our moderators to send some. The choice of what to send was left
entirely to them. Both of them sent me their files of form letters,
and Ahmad also send a Unix shell script. From the material sent,
I decided to analyse two subsets:
1. The full set of five rejection letters used by Catherine.
2. Ahmad's shell script.
This article shows the results of the first analysis. I used the
number 19, for obvious reasons, and the numerical values which I
had earlier promised to use. Please enjoy the fruits of my labour.
Brendan.
----------------------------------------------------------
Numerical report on rejection letters of Catherine Hampton.
----------------------------------------------------------
The full set of five form letters used by Catherine Hampton to reject
articles sent to soc.culture.islam will be analysed for patterns of 19.
They are attached at the end, in the order received.
To save typing, # means "the number of them is" and V means "the
total numerical value of them is". For example "words have #38=19*2"
means there are 38=19*2 words. Numerical values are computed from
the following:
a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4, e=5, f=6, g=7, h=8, i=9,
j=10, k=20, l=30, m=40, n=50, o=60, p=70, q=80, r=90,
s=100, t=200, u=300, v=400, w=500, x=600, y=700, z=800.
These numbers are chosen to make the comparison with Hebrew, Greek
and Arabic as realistic as possible.
Some definitions: a "word" is one or more letters in a row, not
counting hyphens and apostrophes. The newsgroup name
"soc.culture.islam" is counted as three words. Classification of
parts of speech follows The Macquarie Dictionary.
A note on the presentation: The general pattern is to take some
feature showing 19, then to subdivide it into parts which also
show 19. Those parts may then be further subdivided into smaller
parts, and so on. The form "X has n of which Y has m" means that
Y is a subdivision of X. I have tried to use consistent indentation
to emphasise this structure.
A. THE SIGNATURE.
-----------------
Each of the letters ends thus:
Catherine Hampton
Interim Moderator, soc.culture.islam
A1. The complete signature has V2356=19*124,
A2. of which the first and last words have V551=19*29,
A3. and the others have V1805=19*19*5,
A4. of which the first letters have V247=19*13.
A5. The first and last letters of the first and last words have V57=19*3.
Note that A1=A2+A3. However, for A3 we have 19*19, so we can
reasonably count it as one additional feature.
B. THE REJECTION NOTES WITHOUT SIGNATURES.
-----------------------------------------
B1. There are #475=19*25 words,
B2. of which #209=19*11 have even length,
B3. of which #152=19*8 end in a consonant.
and #57=19*3 end in a vowel.
and #266=19*14 have odd length.
Feature B3 suggests there is something significant about ending
with a consonant. We will specifically explore this phenomenon
for both words and sentences, and also consider the property of
starting with a consonant.
For words starting with a consonant, we have:
B4. The total is #1596=19*84 letters.
For words ending with a consonant, we have:
B5/6. Those in odd sentences have V92777=19*19*257,
B7. of which the first characters of those sentences give V57=19*3.
For words starting and ending with consonants, we have:
B8. The total has V126920=19*6680,
B9/10. of which the words in even position give V59926=19*19*166.
and the words in odd position give V66994=19*3526.
For sentences starting with a consonant, we have:
B11. The total has V92549=19*4871,
B12. of which even letter positions give V46341=19*2439,
B13. and odd letter positions give V46208=19*19*128.
B14. including V893=19*47 from the first letters of sentences;
B15. The first letters of the words give V26923=19*1417.
B16. The first and last letters of the words give V50977=19*2683,
B17. of which the consonants give V48564=19*2556,
and the vowels give V2413=19*127.
B18. The first and last words of sentences give V7296=19*384,
B19. of which the last sentence gives V589=19*31,
B20. the even sentences give 19*173,
the odd sentences give 4009=19*211,
B21. the even length sentences (in words) give V3420=19*180,
and the odd length sentences give V3876=19*204.
For sentences ending with a consonant, we have:
B22/23. The total has #2166=19*19*6 letters,
B24. of which #342=19*18 are in sentences of even length,
B25. of which #133=19*7 appear in nouns,
B26. and #133=19*7 are vowels;
and #1824=19*96 are in sentences of odd length,
B27. of which #608=19*32 appear in nouns.
B28. Of the total, #741=19*39 letters appear in nouns.
B29. of which #285=19*15 are vowels.
Every sentence starting with a consonant also ends with a consonant,
so it would be redundant to consider both properties together.
Here are some miscellaneous features involving 19*19:
B30/31. The first and last letters of the words in even sentences
have V43320=19*19*120,
B32. of which first words in sentences give V912=19*48,
B33. and last words in sentences give V2147=19*113.
B34/35. The odd characters in the words of odd-length sentences
(in words) have V47291=19*19*131,
B36. of which the last words in sentences give V2546=19*134.
C. THE FIRST AND LAST SENTENCES.
-------------------------------
For the first sentence:
C1. There are 19 words.
C2. The first letters of each word have V1159=19*61,
C3. The last letters of each word have V1786=19*94,
C4/5. of which those in odd position have V1083=19*19*3,
and those in even position have V703=19*37.
C6. Words ending in vowels have V1691=19*89,
C7. of which those also starting in vowels have V817=19*43,
and those starting with consonants have V874=19*46.
C8. Everything except the two verbs has V6479=19*341.
C9. of which those ending in vowels have V1691=19*89,
and those ending in consonants have V4788=19*252.
For the first and last sentences together:
C10/11. The odd words in each sentence total V9386=19*19*26,
C12. of which the nouns give V3648=19*192,
C13. including V2318=19*122 from the first sentence.
C14. The first letters of each sentence total V209=19*11.
D. THE REPEATED PARAGRAPH.
-------------------------
An evident property of the rejection notes is that three of them
repeat this paragraph:
The moderators are preparing a weekly report on rejected posts, which
will contain the title (edited if it is obscene), author name, email
address, and reason for rejection for any post whose author wants it
included. Readers may then email the author directly if they would
like to see the post. If you would like to have your post included in
this report, please let me know.
D1/2. The vowels have V4693=19*19*13,
D3. of which those in the 19 words that end in a vowel
D4/5. give V722=19*19*2.
E. THE REJECTION NOTES WITH SIGNATURES INCLUDED.
-----------------------------------------------
In part C we analysed the rejection notes without signatures, which
is justified since the signature alone shows strong patterns.
If we include the signatures as well (as an extra sentence on
the end of each rejection note) we find no decrease in the number
of patterns to find. Rather than showing a large number of features
again, I will concentrate on a few examples.
For the sentences starting with consonants (compare B11-21):
E1/2. The total is V104329=19*19*289,
E3. of which the first and last words of each sentence give V10051=19*529,
E4. of which the even length sentences (in words) give V3420=19*180,
E5. of which the last letters of the words give V266=19*14,
E6. and the first and last letters of sentences give V1045=19*55;
and the odd length sentences give V6631=19*349.
E7-9. The first and last letters of the even words that end in consonants
total V20577=19*19*19*3!
Such subdivisions can be continued to many levels.
Considering the nouns only:
E10. The total is V66158=19*3482,
E11 of which the first letters give V8379=19*441,
E12 of which letters first in sentences give V285=19*15;
E13. and the last letters give V12407=19*653,
E14. There are 19 nouns ending sentences,
E15. with altogether #342=19*18 letters.
A few other features:
E16/17. The even characters in the first words of each sentence
total V2527=19*19*7,
E18. of which those in odd-length sentences (in words) give V1862=19*98,
and those in even length sentences give V665=19*35.
E19/20. The #703=19*37 vowels in words that end in consonants
E21. total V29241=19*19*81,
E22. of which the last words in each sentence give V1824=19*96.
E23-24. Omitting articles (a, the), the vowels in words starting with
consonants total V27436=19*19*19*4!
The 74 features presented here are but a few of countless thousands
of features that saturate this text.
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Here are Catherine's rejection notes as provided, in the order provided.
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I'm sorry, but the guidelines to soc.religion.islam forbid posts
that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks. In my opinion,
your post contains one of these, so I cannot approve it for posting.
The moderators are preparing a weekly report on rejected posts, which
will contain the title (edited if it is obscene), author name, email
address, and reason for rejection for any post whose author wants it
included. Readers may then email the author directly if they would
like to see the post. If you would like to have your post included in
this report, please let me know.
Catherine Hampton
Interim Moderator, soc.religion.islam
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I'm sorry, but the guidelines to soc.religion.islam require that posts
be relevant to Islam. In my opinion, your post is not relevant to
Islam, so I cannot approve it. If you want to reword your post to
make the connection to Islam clear, I will be glad to review a revised
post.
The moderators are preparing a weekly report on rejected posts, which
will contain the title (edited if it is obscene), author name, email
address, and reason for rejection for any post whose author wants it
included. Readers may then email the author directly if they would
like to see the post. If you would like to have your post included in
this report, please let me know.
Catherine Hampton
Interim Moderator, soc.religion.islam
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I'm sorry, but my news posting software rejects articles that are more
than 50% quoted text. Could you cut down on the quoted text in your
article or add to your own comments so that the quoted text does not
comprise more than 50% of the total? I apologize for the inconvenience.
Catherine Hampton
Interim Moderator, soc.religion.islam
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I'm sorry, but your post appears to contain verbatim quotes from a
copyrighted news article or other copyrighted document in excess of
"fair use", and without the copyright holder's permission. Reposting
this material could expose the moderators to legal action if the
copyright holders sue for infringement. Therefore we will not post
it.
If you get permission from the copyright holders, delete the copyrighted
material, or paraphrase the copyrighted material in your own words,
I'll be glad to review a revised post.
The moderators are preparing a weekly report on rejected posts, which
will contain the title (edited if it is obscene), author name, email
address, and reason for rejection for any post whose author wants it
included. Readers may then email the author directly if they would
like to see the post. If you would like to have your post included in
this report, please let me know.
Catherine Hampton
Interim Moderator, soc.religion.islam
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I'm sorry, but this article or one substantially identical was posted
either by you or another poster sometime in the past month. The
moderators do not approve repostings of identical or almost identical
articles unless at least a month has passed, to prevent flooding the
newsgroup with multiple postings of the same material.
Catherine Hampton
Interim Moderator, soc.religion.islam
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