Irrational Fear of Numbers

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Since we all heard about weird stories of people avoiding anything with the "666" label, and other related ones, this is self-explanatory.

What is, exactly, the source of so much hysteria behind an innocent number? Nobody has ever died for writing "666", non-Christian cultures have no problem with it, and life has been normal as ever since the book of Revelation. It seems to me that the blind desire to follow everything what is written causes people to fear this, irrationally, inventing thousands of childish tales of terror to scare the naive and the believers.

Now, if people can explain the rationale behind fearing this specific number, apart from "it is written in the Revelation", and explain the controversy running around about the true "number of the beast", 616 or 666, and finally give a reasonable explanation of how people will die and squirm in stakes for writing this, then I might change my mind. It could be a different biblical interpretation, or so, something remotely valid as a reason to believe this number is bad. I suppose there won't be any, truly.

[Bokks]

You have 666 private messages in your inbox?!?
I have... 28.*
Granted I only been here since January 2007, but still...

Anyway, the real number is actually 999, explained (by all places) in popular culture by that wierd movie that the Governator Arnold was in (what, "End of Days"? I think that was it...) Although I fear 666 a lot more due to the fact that wierdos and sociopaths use it to their own dastardly ends. I fear what people are capable of far more than any devil, since Satan is--while far more evil--a heck of a lot easier to understand.

And it's really quite easy to understand why the number would be so feared. It's religious. And people have died over it. And it's an everlasting symbol of misfortune and evil for anyone who has studied with any shadow under Christendom. Plus it's a palendrome, I mean, that's frickin wierd!

Besides, why not point out triskaidekaphobia; the fear of the number 13? People are afraid of everything, and most people probably have no idea that 13 is an unlucky number due to the fact that the Templars were purged on that October Friday, 1307. Yet people have a phobia of it, and quite a few high rises skip 13 on the floor plan.

People fear everything. heck, there's a phobia for peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Even wierder, there's a phobia of the French...:hmmm:
But for devout Christians or anyone associated with that, fear of 666 really does make a lot of sense, since no matter what the number is, 666 is the infamous symbol of pure evil. Who's not afraid of that?

*not that I want people to PM me for just any reason. While I like the occassional message, quite truthfully I may have to kill someone if I suddenly get 638 PM's by tomorrow morning... or anytime...

[Zenith Darksea]

I don't actually know anybody who is afraid of the number per se, be they devout Christian or not. The number itself isn't going to do you any harm, and I don't think that any Christian has ever said it would (to my knowledge). It is only within certain contexts that the number 666 has any meaning, and even then the emphasis should be on the word 'meaning', not on any intrinsic substance.

[Fingon NL]

Superstition, that's it.

[Pyrebound]

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

Reminds me of hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, fear of long words. I wonder who was the guy who invented the name of that phobia

[chriscase]

If you are asking, in general, why people might get overly worked up about a number, consider the folklore that surrounds the discovery of the square root of two by the Pythagoreans. For a school - and perhaps, an entire culture - to discover their fundamental mathematical worldview is fatally flawed could be more than a little disturbing.

The effects of the Pythagoreans' problem with the square root of 2 can be seen all the way through medieval mathematics. It hindered the development of virtually any area of mathematics that required a correspondence between number and length. It was not until the development of rigorous, set-theoretic calculus that the matter was really settled.

So there it is - over 2 millenia of mathematical handicap, due to one little number - "irrational", indeed!

[Dayman]

Superstition, that's it.

Pretty much sums it up.

[MrMofo]

about 666, and this is just from me watching a show on A&E 3-4 years ago and so has degraded to the level of hearsay in my head really ... i heard that 666, if corresponded with letters in the hebrew alphabet, add up to a name, that of the anti-christ: Nero Caesar, lol.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

about 666, and this is just from me watching a show on A&E 3-4 years ago and so has degraded to the level of hearsay in my head really ... i heard that 666, if corresponded with letters in the hebrew alphabet, add up to a name, that of the anti-christ: Nero Caesar, lol.

Actually it does, but it also equals many other names too.

[MrMofo]

Actually it does, but it also equals many other names too.

is satan von antichrist one of them?

seriously tho, i only have a rudimentry understanding of the subject, but i assume you are referring to the leaving out of vowels (for what specific purpose i do not know atm), and hence the differing terms of Iejovah/jehovah & Yahweh from YHWH, for example. So it would be NRO CSR (sort of? heh).

[removeduser_426582376423734]

I'm more afraid of 23.

[gambit]

I'm more afraid of 23.

Ever since that movie, if I'm bored I have taken the time to try and figure out any deep 23 meanings in the words and numbers around me (counting the letters or doing some ridiculous matter of multiplying the first letter by the second then dividing...etc.) I've found the number 23 quite a few times actually, but nothing surprising.

As for 666, I'm not that worried about it. It's superstition that's been built up over the centuries, like Mr. Mofo said earlier about it meaning Nero Caesar in Hebrew, the terrible catastrophe it was supposed to warn of will never happen, or probably already has i.e. the fall of the Roman Empire or some such.

I do enjoy seeing peoples reactions whenever it pops up, specifically my friends who are those devout christians that believe it truly is the number of the beast and a sign of evil.

[different_13]

Why, were you a Knicks fan during the 90's?

But anyway, Voltaire - you answer your own thread: "Irrational Fear of Numbers".
By definition, there is no proper reason for an irrational fear..

As it is, there's probably historical reasons - holy numbers (which therefore become evil numbers to opposing religions, perhaps?), mathematics, noteworthy days...

[removeduser_426582376423734]

But so many people are irrational. How long does irrational have to be to become rational?

[MrMofo]

look out! here comes a 4! runnnnn!

[Kiljan Arslan]

I've read that 616 is what it actually is.

[DimondLight]

Cibophobia- Fear of food

That could be inconvenient.

I see how people that are religious might "fear" 666, but I think that fear of a number or other ridiculousness like that is kinda stupid.

[Thanatos]

I'm not afraid of the number 666, but still, I wouldn't sleep in a room that had it written all over the walls in red paint...

[gambit]

I'm not afraid of the number 666, but still, I wouldn't sleep in a room that had it written all over the walls in red paint...

I think rooms with anything written all over the walls in red paint is downright creepy.

[Seda]

I agree with what alot of people have said here: Most people aren't really scared of 666 any more than they are of 13 or Jinxing it, even among what most would consider to be the extremists. People might fear whatever it could represent, but no one's actually that concerned when it pops up randomly in stuff like post counts, random numbers in games (I mean like in RPGs when you hit someone and a damage number pops up.), etc. I'm a christain, and I'm certainly not remotely scared of a number.