^Thanks Batlord ;)

Thanks RVCA :)

My science education really had a profound effect on my beliefs and my approach/thoughts about things. I guess that's obvious though.

I know some about science but not through a formal college undercation as you did. I have my beliefs and whatever I learn about science never really undermines what I believe in, it might challenge my perception a bit but I don't see it refute anything I already believe.

Speaking of things in your head I was amused by news that 666 was a mistranslation and that the number of the beast is actually 616. Think of all the years of hysterical obsession surrounding any coincidental relationship with such an arbitrary number. Not that I'm saying the hysterical obsession was merely misplaced and they should have been obsessing over a different number.

The Gematrian number 616 refers to the Qabalistic demons of the Qliphoth.
The number 666 refers to the Beast, Satan-Typhon, Apophis, Jesus, and the spirit of the Sun.
The number 358 refers to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden (Lucifer) as well as the Messiah.

What's the relation between these things and these numbers? Like where does it say that 358 is a reference to the serpent and why is it that number? It seems strange in many ways that there would be numbers that reference such things.

This is revealed in Gematria, an ancient system of Numerology that is associated with the Qabalah (Judaic Kabbalah) and can be traced to Hellenistic Greece if not certainly the Tannaic period where it is mentioned.

^An answer, yet one that explains so little :p: I'm not asking what belief system it came from (although that's interesting, so thanks), but rather why numbers represent things and what specific texts refer to them. Why are there letters for such things?

I had a quick look at Wikipedia regarding the number of the beast, 666, and it seems in greek isopsephy and hewbrew gematria, every letter has a corresponding number. So, all our names have corresponding numbers. In the same way, I guess anything that has a word has a number. Then I guess the "point" of 666 is that it is the corresponding number to the name of the beast. You know this already I'm sure, but I didn't.

This bit of trivia was also interesting :

A rusty seaman with a pipe attached to his mouth?

12" pipe

The world was created in six days but then there was also a 7th day too. Actually it was two sets of three days, where a day in the second set of three days corresponded to a certain day in the first set of 3 - but that a whole other thing.

Really there are only four cardinal directions, not six. Cardinal direction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I can understand why someone might think that now, because we understand three dimensions of space so maybe 6 directions is a later developement but I think the four cardinal (NSEW) was more important, and more prevalent to the ancients , they had to travel by land or see to get where they were going so I don't think they would care too much about up/down especially because arial flight was not achieved.:p:

There will always be different interpretation that wat 666 means, but what I heard it means is a combination of two ideas. The thing is that there were no superlatives so something was repeat three times. 7 is the perfect number and 6 is just shy of 7 perfection, 6 is imperfect. So one interpretation is that it means the most imperfection.