777 And 666 Very Weird -please Read

[mick]

777 and 666

 

I am an ex-Christian, but want your thoughts on this strange thing…

 

Every word I am typing right now is true. I am going to share this because I find it startling for me, and frankly want insight. I no longer believe the Bible, I think it is ridiculous. I think Christianity is a delusion. The problem is something very strange keeps happening with me, and it feels like my own delusion. But it is real. I am not joking. I know, there is a new movie about “The number 23”. That is not the reason I am writing this. I want your comments, and please don’t make fun of me.

 

I keep seeing the numbers 777 and 666 and I have for many years. (The most common way was license plates, but I will demonstrate other more bizarre, and less easily dismissible manners this happens to me as well.)

 

It started with license plates years ago. I was a Christian, and I would think sinful thoughts while driving, and then I would see a 666 license plate. (I have since rationalized this by thinking “I’m always thinking sinful thoughts” so when I see one of those plates it means nothing, etc. But stranger things start happening) I also would see 777 license plates a lot. (I always 777 was a god thing)

 

This happened throughout my Christian life and it has increased since my deconversion. As a Christian I always assumed God was speaking to me when I saw 777 or 666 in some way. It happened a lot, over and over. I used to ask other Christians if they say these and they said they really did not notice.

 

Then one day it got weirder. One day I thinking very sinful thoughts and a car pulled right in front of me with a 666 license plate. In anger, I said it means nothing, almost immediately another car pulled right in front of me, also with 666 license plate. I repented immediately.

 

About a week later I was struggling with the same type of sinful thoughts, when a car pulled in front of my on an on-ramp with 666 license plate. I pulled out when off an exit and then I saw a 777 license plate. I became very mad, decided it was all bullshit and drove away and stopped behind a car at a red light, immediately after I had decided this all had to be Bull Shit. I was sitting there, sort of spacing out, and I noticed the license plate in front of me. It did not have a 777 or a 666, but it said something. It read “DY2SLF”. Die to Self! What the fuck? I felt some fear. I drove away and stopped behind ANOTHER car. I swear this is true, and I still am an EX-CHRISTIAN, but this license plate said “LIVIT”, and had Christian bumper stickers. Live it clearly meant live the Christian life.

 

I started to rationalize license plates as just bullshit still. After all they are just license plates, they are always there, someone else looks at them at some other point. Here is the problem; this is when mathematical oddities and other hard to dismiss things began to happen to me that produced 777 or 666.

The more intense ones started happening after I deconverted. I went to Borders bookstore with another Ex-Christian friend who recently deconverted. He bought a book with a gift card. The gift card was not enough for the book, so he gave them an additional 20-dollar bill. The change came to $7.77 cents. He laughed because he knew about all this stuff. I was kind of freaked. I am a computer consultant, and we bill our clients every day. We get judged based on how much we average per day. The other day I was trying to estimate how much I billed on average, just out of my head. I was putting in numbers like 850, 450, 330, 270, 1090, on and on, just thinking about the work I had done. All I wanted was an estimate. I divided by the number of days and it came to $777 per day.

 

The most intense one happened to me just the other day. You know how in Outlook (or any email) the number of UNREAD emails shows up next to “inbox”. Well, as a computer consultant, I get tons of alerts from servers all the time that I never read. That number is always high. Often I would open up and 777 or 666 or 1777 or 1666 unread emails, etc. It started to drive me crazy. The other day I opened it up and it was 1777 unread emails. I actually was pissed off and didn’t want to think about it. So I clicked and sorted my emails by who the came from (That way I could start blasting alerts). I had pages and pages of emails from “administrator” many show up as read, many show as unread. I just started deleting entire pages of them. I was in web access so I could only delete pages of 25 at a time. (25 total messages, remember only some of these are “unread” and hence contributing to the 1777 number in my inbox. I deleted through a bunch of pages of them, I don’t know how many. At one moment I figured “that’s enough” and stopped. The number of “unread” emails in my inbox was now 1666. I swear to you this keeps happening to me. I freaked out. There are actually many more examples.

 

Last year, one time while driving home from work I was thinking about God. It was during my deconversion process. I swear, I said out loud, if this is true show me a license plate right now, and a 666 license plate pulled right in front of me that second. (NOTE: I am not trying to say we should believe, I really am not, I am just freaked out by these thing. They are all totally true and really happened)

 

I am totally for real here. I am not being an ass. I do NOT believe in the Bible or Christianity any more. (I have not for a whole year)

 

If this is nothing but a lot of coincidence, you must admit it is pretty remarkable, no?

 

A couple others that keep happening:

-my new cell phone, when it loses it’s data connection, flashes dialing are code “777” all the time. I still don’t know what that is for. (Sure it has a rational explanation)

-I receive a lucky 777 winner thing in the mail the other day. (It was a stupid promotional thing.

 

Anyway I am interested in your comments on all this. My one friend, who is an ex-Christian as well, has admitted to me that it strikes him some as well. (He was with me when he got the $7.77 cents change.)

[HuaiDan]

If there's one thing that makes me want to reverse my outlook on the supernatural (there is no supernatural, only natural we don't understand yet that be fully rationally explained at an indefinite time in the future), it's the strange coincidences that keep happening in my life. Almost daily. things like making a purchase at a store, reaching into my pocket and grabbing all the change contained therein, only to find I have exactly enough change to buy the items and no more. Or walking down the street in a city of 20 million people, thinking about somebody, and right at that moment that person will come out of a storefront directly in front of me. Sometimes it's not so fortunate. I one time conducted an experiment on the probability I would be stopped at a red light while driving around town. Assuming conservatively that a traffic light is red 33% of the time, yellow 33% of the time, and green 33% of the time, I figured that approximately 1/3 of the number of times I approached a traffic light it would be red. After conducting this experiment a number of times on random drives through town, going different ways through large and small intersections, the number came to anywhere between 50 and 80% red lights.

I don't know what to make of it. But i must admit there do seem to be some things that occur that do not fit into the model of random chance that should.

[GreenXero]

Actually the red lights are not going to be an even 33% The lights are often timed to the traffic flow in certain directions. If you are going against the normal heavy flow of traffic or crossing these streets the lights might stay red longer and you will be more likely to hit a red light. If the light stays red for a minute green for a minute and yellow for a minute then you would be correct on 1/3 chance of hitting red. But, no light stays yellow for more than a few seconds, so that destroys your equation. you would be closer to 1/2 chance of red. If the light stays red for 1.5 minutes and green for 30 seconds(don't forget the times that turn lanes make you have a red light) then you end up with about 75% chance of getting red.

 

As for the license plates, are you seeing the same vehicles? On my way to and from work I often see the same vehicles because we tend to have the same schedules for work. If that is the case then you will see those numbered plates more often just because you are on the same driving schedule as those people. Also, if you live in a large city you will have quite a few plates that end in those numbers(approx. 1/500 will be 666 or 777) That doesn't sound like a lot, but if you are on the same schedule as someone withe those plate numbers and the fact that you are looking for those numbers and you are forgetting the hundreds of other numbered plates you ignore.

 

Just a few thoughts.

 

GreenXero

[HuaiDan]

Actually the red lights are not going to be an even 33% The lights are often timed to the traffic flow in certain directions. If you are going against the normal heavy flow of traffic or crossing these streets the lights might stay red longer and you will be more likely to hit a red light.

 

Yes, I know, I hear it every time I bring it up. That's why i say conservatively estimate. Consideing a light must be yellow for a least a few seconds, it would be impossible for a light to be red more than 50% of the time in an average of all 4 directions. That's why I would drive around in randoms directions, hitting large and small intersections from different directions ( I used to have a job where i drove a lot. This mental exercise helped pass the time). I think the only statistical error I've committed here is small sample size, since i didn't conduct this experiment a large number of times in different cities at different times.

[GreenXero]

Sorry I edited my post during your post I suppose. It could easily be red more than 50% of the time. Most lights that I have sat at are red a longer amount of time than they are green. It would be based upon the amount of time that the light is red verses the amount of time the light is green. Any light that has turn lanes will be red even longer due to the turn lanes having to go.

 

I a msure there are people here that would do better at the math than I, but rough guess of a large intersection would be.

red light 1.5 minutes

green 30 seconds

yellow 5 seconds

 

I throw out the yellow for ease of the math, but we could add it to red(if you are the type to slow down on yellow) or add it to green if you like to run it)

 

so 90seconds/30 seconds is 3/1 so you have a 3/1 chance of getting red to green which is far more than 50%

 

If my math is wrong please correct me.

[mick]

I have already kind of written off the 777 and 666 license plates in the manner you say. (Except for the serendiptious experinces. (like demanding one as proof, and having it happen immediately, or seeing plates with Christian messages like "DY2SLF" right after I saw 777 and 666 plates and angrily REJECTED them as cooincidences.

 

However, what did you think about the mathematically examples? or the number of unread emails in my inbox example?

 

Again,

I am an ex-Christian, just freaked out a bit.

 

 

Actually the red lights are not going to be an even 33% The lights are often timed to the traffic flow in certain directions. If you are going against the normal heavy flow of traffic or crossing these streets the lights might stay red longer and you will be more likely to hit a red light. If the light stays red for a minute green for a minute and yellow for a minute then you would be correct on 1/3 chance of hitting red. But, no light stays yellow for more than a few seconds, so that destroys your equation. you would be closer to 1/2 chance of red. If the light stays red for 1.5 minutes and green for 30 seconds(don't forget the times that turn lanes make you have a red light) then you end up with about 75% chance of getting red.

 

As for the license plates, are you seeing the same vehicles? On my way to and from work I often see the same vehicles because we tend to have the same schedules for work. If that is the case then you will see those numbered plates more often just because you are on the same driving schedule as those people. Also, if you live in a large city you will have quite a few plates that end in those numbers(approx. 1/500 will be 666 or 777) That doesn't sound like a lot, but if you are on the same schedule as someone withe those plate numbers and the fact that you are looking for those numbers and you are forgetting the hundreds of other numbered plates you ignore.

 

Just a few thoughts.

 

GreenXero

[LosingMyReligion]

I think the human mind if hardwired to recognize patterns. That could be why these coincidences keep occurring.

 

On that note while I don't believe in gods or goddesses I do think that there are psychic forces and energies abound in the universe. Like in moments where I get Deja Vu, that is so freaky. It is like I've been somewhere before when I haven't...

[GreenXero]

My wife is the psychology person, but I remember watching a show on numbers. Basically if you are looking for a number you tend to find it. If you changed the number you were looking for then you might be surprised at how often that came up. Our minds are interesting in the way they remember things. You may be forgetting all the times you opened your mail and had a totally unrelated number of emails.

 

The other day I was trying to estimate how much I billed on average, just out of my head. I was putting in numbers like 850, 450, 330, 270, 1090, on and on, just thinking about the work I had done. All I wanted was an estimate. I divided by the number of days and it came to $777 per day.

 

Did this number come out to exactly 777 or did you round it? If you start trying to find these numbers in other numbers then you add to your chances of finding them by quite a bit. I mean if you find something that is on sale at a store and it is 776.95 do you count that as 777? If so then you have increased your chances of finding the number. We need someone that knows more about statistics to get into it further.

 

Sorry it has been quite a while since I did some of this type math problems so I may be off. Time for me to take another math class.

[mick]

OK. This is really weird. I just now (just a minute ago) looked at someone's profile to see if they were on -line and it says they have 666 posts! I swear on my grave!!!!!!!!!!!

[mick]

The number was like $777.00 EXACTLY. I just posted this as well, but I just looked at someone's profile to see if they were on-line, and it said they had 666 posts!!! I'm serious.

 

My wife is the psychology person, but I remember watching a show on numbers. Basically if you are looking for a number you tend to find it. If you changed the number you were looking for then you might be surprised at how often that came up. Our minds are interesting in the way they remember things. You may be forgetting all the times you opened your mail and had a totally unrelated number of emails.

 

The other day I was trying to estimate how much I billed on average, just out of my head. I was putting in numbers like 850, 450, 330, 270, 1090, on and on, just thinking about the work I had done. All I wanted was an estimate. I divided by the number of days and it came to $777 per day.

 

Did this number come out to exactly 777 or did you round it? If you start trying to find these numbers in other numbers then you add to your chances of finding them by quite a bit. I mean if you find something that is on sale at a store and it is 776.95 do you count that as 777? If so then you have increased your chances of finding the number. We need someone that knows more about statistics to get into it further.

 

Sorry it has been quite a while since I did some of this type math problems so I may be off. Time for me to take another math class.

[PaulQ]

And yet, you are member number 1,271. At the time I wrote this message, you are nowhere near 666 or 777 posts (168 to be precise). You joined on the 15th of February 06, not June 6, 06 or July 7, 07.

 

What has happened is you have conditioned yourself to look for the numbers 666 and 777. In actual fact and statistically speaking, this sequence of repeating numbers occurring has no greater nor less chance of occurring than any other three number sequence. Take, for instance, a dice. Roll it three times. On the first roll, you have a one in six chance of rolling a six. What are the odds that six will come up a second time, or even a third time? Many people would think that rolling a six the second time would be unlikely, and rolling it again would be extremely unlikely; yet, the odds of rolling a six a second and third time are just as good as when you rolled the dice the first time. Each time you roll the dice, your odds of rolling a six are always one in six. So, if you rolled a six on the first toss of the dice, you have a one in six chance of rolling another six. The third time, your chances of rolling that third six are still just one in six. Not really bad odds at all.

 

As a computer consultant, it is likely that you would encounter many more number sequences in a given day than I would; yet my daily life is full of numbers. License plates, telephone numbers, license numbers, identification numbers, serial numbers, part numbers, bin numbers, employee numbers...using a computer exposes one to a multitude of numbers to measure memory, disk capacity, screen resolution, colours, framerates...modern day purchases are also full of numbers; just look at TV's, DVD players, video game systems; there are many, many sequences of numbers used to describe these products. How many transactions did you have to perform before you finally got $7.77 back in change? Considering the number of times we are exposed to number sequences each and every day, I would think it very unlikely that you wouldn't see 666 or 777 occurring at least once, just as it would be unlikely that you would never be exposed to 926 or 888.

 

Consider my license plate: ALJM066. My father-in-law's name is Alex, and my father's name is Jim. One might find it rather odd then that the letters are AL and JM. In fact, what I've done is associate my license plate with something I'm familiar with. It doesn't really spell out either of their names; just that elements of their names occur. Considering there are only 24 letters in the alphabet, and considering that the letters A, L, J, and M do occur more frequently in the names of people than, say, X or Z, we see that the odds of this happening are not as remote as we would like to believe. My wife's license plate contains the letters ANRE, but the closest association she can make is my sister's ex-husband (Andre) which is quite a reach, even though the vowels A and E are very common, as are the constanants N and R. Take any random combination of constinants and vowels, and you'll probably come up with something you can relate to something else if you try hard enough.

[mick]

Hi Digital.

 

Thanks for your post. You are right. I think about statistics related to this all the time. For example, how many license plates do I see per day, that are NOT 777 or 666. I have actually decided to count license plates one day to see how many. It is probably hundreds and hundres before 1 of these comes up. (and these are not miraculous at all - they just are what they are, and I'm sure I'm seeing them over and over again)

 

The freakiest one for me was the inbox example , (unread number of emails) I had to delete exactly the right amount of pages of alerts so that they added up to 111 unread messages that got deleted. ANd the number of unread messages per page deleted was totally random. Yes, it is a cooincidence. I am not denying that. I also agree that my mind is looking for this like Rain Man or something!!! LOL

 

And yet, you are member number 1,271. At the time I wrote this message, you are nowhere near 666 or 777 posts (168 to be precise). You joined on the 15th of February 06, not June 6, 06 or July 7, 07.

 

What has happened is you have conditioned yourself to look for the numbers 666 and 777. In actual fact and statistically speaking, this sequence of repeating numbers occurring has no greater nor less chance of occurring than any other three number sequence. Take, for instance, a dice. Roll it three times. On the first roll, you have a one in six chance of rolling a six. What are the odds that six will come up a second time, or even a third time? Many people would think that rolling a six the second time would be unlikely, and rolling it again would be extremely unlikely; yet, the odds of rolling a six a second and third time are just as good as when you rolled the dice the first time. Each time you roll the dice, your odds of rolling a six are always one in six. So, if you rolled a six on the first toss of the dice, you have a one in six chance of rolling another six. The third time, your chances of rolling that third six are still just one in six. Not really bad odds at all.

 

As a computer consultant, it is likely that you would encounter many more number sequences in a given day than I would; yet my daily life is full of numbers. License plates, telephone numbers, license numbers, identification numbers, serial numbers, part numbers, bin numbers, employee numbers...using a computer exposes one to a multitude of numbers to measure memory, disk capacity, screen resolution, colours, framerates...modern day purchases are also full of numbers; just look at TV's, DVD players, video game systems; there are many, many sequences of numbers used to describe these products. How many transactions did you have to perform before you finally got $7.77 back in change? Considering the number of times we are exposed to number sequences each and every day, I would think it very unlikely that you wouldn't see 666 or 777 occurring at least once, just as it would be unlikely that you would never be exposed to 926 or 888.

 

Consider my license plate: ALJM066. My father-in-law's name is Alex, and my father's name is Jim. One might find it rather odd then that the letters are AL and JM. In fact, what I've done is associate my license plate with something I'm familiar with. It doesn't really spell out either of their names; just that elements of their names occur. Considering there are only 24 letters in the alphabet, and considering that the letters A, L, J, and M do occur more frequently in the names of people than, say, X or Z, we see that the odds of this happening are not as remote as we would like to believe. My wife's license plate contains the letters ANRE, but the closest association she can make is my sister's ex-husband (Andre) which is quite a reach, even though the vowels A and E are very common, as are the constanants N and R. Take any random combination of constinants and vowels, and you'll probably come up with something you can relate to something else if you try hard enough.

[R. S. Martin]

I read all these posts. [EDIT: I see several posts went up while I was writing.] I am not a numbers person. My brain and numbers don't get along. But I know something about how the human mind functions, and also how superstition and religious belief can affect what we see and take note of. Whenever I want to know whether something is a fact of reality or an act of God, I tend to analyze the phenomenon under the microscope. In the case of license plates you would have to find out exactly how many cars pass through a specific intersection at a given time on a specific day of the week.

 

Find out what the license plates are on all of those cars. Then put all the numbers into categories. Since we have a limited number system this should be relatively easy. Put all the plates that have three consecutive digits of any number, i.e. three 1s (111), or three 4s (444), into separate lists. All the triple 1s go in one list, all the triple 2s go in another list, all the triple 3s go in yet another list. Do this for all the numbers from 0-9. Then do the math. For a more accurate conclusion, repeat this several times for one week or one month. See what this tells you.

 

Since god did not create license plates, nor number systems for that matter, I very much doubt that god is using numbers to convey secret messages to you. I am more inclined to think that there is a subconscious part of your psyche that is unsure that leaving Christianity was a safe thing to do. I say "safe" from the perspective that hell might be real after all. I struggled with that hell question for many years. I would say it took at least seven years for it to go away. Maybe more.

 

Be compassionate with your Self on this. After all, your Self has taken quite a beating. It might not be sure that the trauma is over yet. It takes TIME to get used to a whole new way of thinking. It has to happen on so many levels of the psyche. I suspect there are aspects that will never go away entirely. Recently I have had many incidents where I thought I saw a "black" person in the distance, meaning Old Order Mennonites in traditional black garb.

 

Since "black garb" has meant "my people" or "people like me" for so many years that vision is very deeply embedded in my very consciousness. At least, that is how I explain it to myself. Since I broke with tradition and consequently got crowded out of their community, they are suddenly The Enemy. I freeze when and if I see one of them in my territory. It seldom happens but it does happen perhaps once or twice a year.

 

Also, I often hear the clip-clop of horse's hooves in my subconscious mind. That is the sound I've listened for all my life because it indicated the approach of "one of my kind" as opposed to "just another car." Recently I became aware of the sound of cattle mooing. At least, so I thought. Upon investigation, it was the whine of a motor or engine somewhere. Maybe somebody was cutting down trees on an empty lot in preparation for building. I suspect that some vestiges of these sights and sounds will be with me for life. As also will some thought processes, esp. on the unconscious or subconscious levels.

 

I think the best I can do is accept that this is natural and not beat myself up over it. Beating myself up won't help at all, and it may serve to bring on paranoia. And if you can't do the detailed analysis of license plates I described above (who has time???), how about taking note of these things as you drive to or from work. Have a chart prepared and tick off the right square every time you see a certain number such as 111 or 444. Do this as often as you want to.

 

The more times you do it the more accurate your conclusion is likely to be. Keep all these records until you feel satisfied that there is no sinister message encoded from an invisible deity. OR until you know beyond a doubt that there is. In the latter case I would suggest you get another person (not a person who shares your fear) to count up the numbers and see whether there might possibly be another indication.

 

Why is it so important to rule out the secret messages? Because they are causing you significant destress. This is happening while you are driving on a very busy highway. This can spell D A N G E R. Even if god is trying to tell you something, if God is all-knowing he will eventually catch on that you respond best to English instructions. When and if he switches to legible English messages you will respond.

 

Letter-number combinations such as DY2SLF don't count. They are not "legible English instructions"; they are a weird combination of numbers and letters that someone perhaps imagined would have a secret message for a person just like yourself. Fact of the matter is, you have died to yourself. You have renounced the comforts of church fellowship and approval from dominant society for what you understand to be Truth. Regardless of what Christians think, THAT MESSAGE IS NOT FOR YOU. It may be for the owner of that car but he won't see it because it does not reflect the message of his well-churched society.

 

For the time being, mick, just focus on getting rid of this fear in the most gentle way possible, on driving safely, and on other similarly important life issues. Then you will be fit for heaven if there is an afterlife. If there is no afterlife, you will have had a high level of quality in the one life you know you have. That's my rationnal and I think it's solid.

[Vigile]

Thomas Gilovich does a great job at explaining these types of instances away in his book How We Know What Isn't So.

 

A lot of it is cognitive dissonance; you buy a new Honda and suddenly it seems as if everyone is now driving Hondas. A lot of it is a misapplication of probabilities; we tend to pay more attention to the positives and absentmindely dismiss the negatives, or the times it did not occur. And most of it is due to the fact that the human mind tends to create patterns where there really are none; this is why we see bunnies in the clouds and patterns in the white noise on the television screen. I suggest picking up a copy of his book at the library if this is really an interest for you.

 

I do believe that there are perfectly logical explanations for these things that you feel are somehow "weird" or unordinary.

[Shaman]

wow..so many scientific explanation that goes no where but no where are them religious explanation..

 

<<--- look left for an explanation and I had that before you made this post.

[ShackledNoMore]

I don't think what you are noticing is odd at all. As an ex-c (or a practicing xian, for that matter) the numbers 666 and possibly 777 as well would be very significant. Now anything of a sufficiently intense personal significance is going to literally LEAP out at a person.

 

All day, every day, we are bombarded with information, and fitting the current topic, we are bombarded with numbers. The 20 times a week when you are in a store and someone receives $2.58 in change, it's never going to register. On the other hand, even if you're not really paying attention the $6.66 or $7.77 will leap out at you. Moreover, you don't get the same exposure to all numbers, and triplicates are more likely to show up than non triplicates. The 777 you came up with from your calculations? I bet you averaged nine numbers or something: probably even numbers that would likely yield a result like this--making your figure far less coincidental in this instance. And 777 is a primo number for people to toss around for marketing, etc. In our culture it would be regarded as very lucky. Similarly, despite the press being negative, the attention 666 receives from xians would make it a lot more likely to be seen. And numbers that are NOT 666 or 777 but merely contain or imply 666 and 777 are popping out and also being counted, such as 1666 and 1777. And as I say, being attuned to the numbers, even if it's not really conscious, they'll be dramatically more likely to be noticed, I believe even to the degree you describe.

 

Hope that makes sense: it seems like a perfectly natural matter of perception to me.

[Piprus]

Man, I think if I were you I would be playing that number in the state lottery. It obviously likes you.

 

But seriously...a little obsession, a touch of anxiety, a dollop of fear and guilt, and... Voila! Your situation could be written up into a pretty good little yarn of a short story worthy of Stephen King.

[Shaman]

Guess what I did?

 

I went ahead to test out to see which numeric numbers are the most prodominant in nature so I uses my own computer to act like a random population to prove such findings..

 

I search for the number 1 - 9 in my computer's hard drive and it shows that the number 1 is king over the rest.

 

Try it out for yourself or if you're still paranoid, type in 666 or 777 and hit search

[Guest Mike]

Clearly, it's The LORD! Just kidding. I think there are a lot of good answers here - unless if there's no natural possible explanation for it, it's better to go with a natural explanation.

I also think we need to remember what we are. We are evolved beings that at an earlier stage of our development tended to more readily survive based on "false positive" assessments of threats. A primitive human is less likely to die of snakebite if they jump every time they're confronted by anything that's a bit like a snake BEFORE having a chance to evaluate carefully whether it's a snake or not. Similar traits help to account for our tendency to see gods or spirits where there are none. Reading on evolution and religion sheds a lot of light on this. These characteristics once helped us survive in situations when we were constantly in danger in the wild, and didn't have time to assess and rule out -

things are different for the modern western human now. But you still got wiring that's millions of years old. Hang in there.

[xandermac]

I've had some strange coincidenses in my life that I used to think was god. My husband and I have children from former marriages. When I met him 13 years ago we were both amazed to find out that he has 2 sons, Jesse and Matthew and I have 2 sons Jesse and Matthew and they are the same age! His ex wife's sister has my name and her father has my fathers name (Eugene). It's kind of hard on Our son Sam who has 2 brothers named Jesse and 2 named Matthew (my other brother Darrell) LoL. I do think you've trained your mind to be sensitive to those numbers. My son can find 4 leaf clovers like nobody I've ever seen. He found six one day in under 2 minutes! That may not be the same thing but I find it strange. He's trained himself to see them somehow. I don't know why weird things happen to us. I do know its not messages from any kind of spirit or god. Shit happens I guess.

[mwc]

777 and 666

Next time it bothers you just remind yourself that in the oldest texts we have the "bad" numbers are actually 665 and 616 (making "god's" numbers 776 and 727 I guess). 666 is perfectly safe.

 

mwc

[Fonkey]

After I bought a 1993 Chevrolet Cavalier, I started seeing them all over the place. After I watched a documentary about the Hagia Sofia, I started seeing pictures of it everywhere. A similar thing is happening to you. Your obsession (sorry to use so strong a word) over these numbers greatly increases their "salience", which basically means that you're more likely to notice them. Think of the "cocktail party effect": You're at a large social gathering, and hundreds of conversations are happening around you simultaneously, however, you manage to filter them out and focus on what one single person is saying. But as soon as someone mentions your name, your attention is suddenly drawn to what they're saying (and also what they just said).

 

What's happen to you is perfectly natural. How many license plates do you see everyday? If you commute for a long distance on a busy route, probably many hundreds. Of course, you don't pay attention when a plate says "325" or "112"

 

Red these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

 

As for the red lights... estimation of their probability are pointless because they are not independent events. Whether you get a red or a green light at the next intersection is at least partially dependent on what colour you got at the last intersection. Also, different intersections flash red for different amounts of time for different directions. If a small country road intersects a busy highway, the highway will get green for 90% of the time, while the country road will get it for 10%.

[Mythra]

I have the exact same thing happen. Every single day I see a license plate with 777. Very, very strange.

 

Oh, wait a minute. The license plate on my car is 777. (true story)

 

Nevermind.

[Mythra]

If this is nothing but a lot of coincidence, you must admit it is pretty remarkable, no?

 

I won't make fun of you, mick. And it is kind of strange, how you keep running into these same numbers. But, think it through. Let's just talk about the license plates for second.

 

Just how is it that God parades these particular license plates before your eyes? Does he lead you around like a puppet, making sure you drive in just the right places to see these numbers, or does he steer around other people who have these particular license plates?

 

You obviously look at license plate numbers a whole lot more than most people.

 

You should do an experiment. Pick a random number, like, say 834. See how many times you see this number, when you look at every license plate. You'll see it. Guaranteed.

 

It's all coincidence. Maybe the laws of probability are exceeded a little bit in your case. But, how many times do you see numbers that are not 666 or 777? Thousands of times. You take no note of those, however.

 

You're just a little fixated, dude. God isn't tweaking the universe sideways to try and get you to love him again.

[mick]

Thanks Mythra. I don't know about you, but CHristianity instilled in me deep, deep superstition. (more than alot of other Christians I knew) And also deep fear.

 

I had actually written the license plate thing off a while ago. I knew I was seeing the same ones over and over. The weird thing for me, were the other ways 777 and 666 started showing up for me, AFTER I decided that the license plate thing was silly.

 

I am a math and computer person. Perhaps my brain is wired into numbers more than some others? I KNOW that DEFINATELY actually LOOK for these numbers now. I anticipate what any given number might be. It just seems that often thingas have happend that are hard to explain.

 

I don't know if you read my whole post, but the one where I opened my email, there 1777 unread emails, I angrily started deleting them page after page, then just stopped, and it changed to 1666. The fact that this number represents "unread" emails. And that the amount of "unread" emails per deleted page were different and random for each page I deleted. I had to delete the exact right amount of pages, where the total random amount totaled up to 111 deleted to get to 1666.

 

That one, combined with the time where I actually demanded God to give a 666 license plate if he were true and it happened immediately, irk me some. (Yes, that really did happen, in a very striking way.

 

My friend thinks that the "Inbox" one could have been my human brain doing somethin "Rain Man" like in my sub conscious while I was deleting the pages. I thought that was nuts but interesting.

 

The biggest factor with the license plates for me is that 777 and 666 are very commonly requested vanity plates. I see thousands of thousands of license plates a week. I probably pick these up at least twice a day. In the past I was probably thinking bad thoughts or something and superstitiously thought God was coming to get me or something. Now, if it happens, because I have rejected the Bible and the Faith, the same superstition kicks in, I.e "God is really gobnna get me now." LOL

 

Thanks for all your replies. Thanks Mythra

 

If this is nothing but a lot of coincidence, you must admit it is pretty remarkable, no?

 

I won't make fun of you, mick. And it is kind of strange, how you keep running into these same numbers. But, think it through. Let's just talk about the license plates for second.

 

Just how is it that God parades these particular license plates before your eyes? Does he lead you around like a puppet, making sure you drive in just the right places to see these numbers, or does he steer around other people who have these particular license plates?

 

You obviously look at license plate numbers a whole lot more than most people.

 

You should do an experiment. Pick a random number, like, say 834. See how many times you see this number, when you look at every license plate. You'll see it. Guaranteed.

 

It's all coincidence. Maybe the laws of probability are exceeded a little bit in your case. But, how many times do you see numbers that are not 666 or 777? Thousands of times. You take no note of those, however.

 

You're just a little fixated, dude. God isn't tweaking the universe sideways to try and get you to love him again.