Self appointed “prophet” Hank Kunneman, who is famous for “predicting” a Trump win in 2020 and now doubles down on the “stolen election” lie to maintain his credibility, has a well-established reputation for offering up some truly wild stuff.
Here is Hemant’s tweet with Hank’s recent rather unique take on Climate Change …
Here is the transcript for the above …
… And there will be temperatures that will reach for a season in the hundreds. And it will be as though it would be 103, and you will say, “What is this?” And God says, “Do you not know Psalm 103? ‘Forget not my benefits.’”
And it will be 106 and 107. God says, “Do you not understand that the Lord is good and His mercy endures forever?”
And then they will say, “But God, what is this about 105?”
And God says, “Do you know that I led the people out with silver and gold, and there was not one feeble as I delivered a nation?”
And then they will say, ‘What is this, that has reached 118?”
And God says, “It is a sign! Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the Lord who comes to save, and I have come to save this nation at this time!”
God says they will be shaken, and some will even be removed, even as one called Tucker …
Is Hank the only guy who reads meaning into totally random numbers?
Nope, not at all.
Another self-appointed “prophet” who rolls this stuff out on a regular basis is Johnny Enlow. Again via Hemant we have this gem of pure insanity …
Er yes … basically grab any random number, find a random bible verse within any of the 66 books there, then interpret that verse to say whatever you wish to claim, and declare it to be a divine message from a God.
We all Have Questions
If you run with this “thinking” then some rather weird questions will drop out quite naturally.
So what happens when God wants to say something to some via Psalm 150?
Does Hank actually think a God picks specific temperatures in specific places to send a message via a specific Psalm?
Since everywhere at all times has a temperature, then does this mean that a God is continuously manipulating the weather to. say something specific, or does it only apply at certain times?
How exactly does this all work in the context of the Psalms having different numbering systems, for example there is both the Hebrew numbering and also the Greek numbering, so how does that work?
There are also different systems of recording temperature, Centigrade and of course Fahrenheit. 118 C is 244 F. If God wants to send a message via Psalm 118 in a nation that uses Centigrade, then you can be darn sure that there will be nobody left to correctly “interpret” it, so how does that work?
As for game scores, does every single NFL game relay a message from a God, and so God is rigging all games, so no talent is involved in any way at all?
In other words, when you start to think about what is being claimed, then it makes absolutely no logical sense at all.
Is Superstition just a religious thing?
Actually no.
We humans are quite a superstitious lot. You might even find yourself doing stuff like this …
- If I drive to work a specific way, then it will be a good day at work.
- If I play this game on my iPhone and I win then it is a good sign.
- Lucky socks, shirt, tie, etc…
- Lucky numbers, or avoiding some numbers.
Here for example are the options within a hotel elevator that I stayed in … no 13th floor …
I kind of get it in some ways. I can well imagine some guests choking on the idea of staying in a room on the 13th floor, and so to avoid all that fuss the hotel opted to not have a 13th floor.
Is there a magic air gap between floor 12 and 14 perhaps?
Soviet Superstition
Now here is a wild story.
Russian Cosmonauts all practise a good-luck ritual. When suited up and on the way to the launch pad located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, they all traditionally stop the bus so that each Cosmonaut can piss on rear right-hand tyre of the bus.
If you are wondering about female Cosmonauts, yes, them also. They traditionally bring a urine sample and just splash it on the tyre.
Why?
It’s a good luck ritual that started with Yuri Gagarin. On April 12, 1961. When he was on the bus on his way to his famous launch, he really did have to go and insisted that they stop the ****ing bus right now because he just had to go. So they did and he did. He then went on to make history in Vostok 1, hence we all know his name.
This then naturally developed into a tradition, a sort of good luck charm and also perhaps a bit of a salute to the guy who was first.
Is Superstitious behaviour just a human thing?
Actually no, animals also exhibit superstitious behaviour.
In 1948 Burrhus Frederic Skinner published his now famous paper titled “‘Superstition’ in the Pigeon“
The essence of that is what is now known as a “Skinner Box”.
Here is what he did.
He placed a collection of hungry pigeons in boxes, one per box. At totally random intervals an automated mechanism delivered food to the pigeon. What he observed is that whatever the pigeon just happened to be doing when the food arrived developed into a ritual that the pigeon then deployed to get more food …
One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a ‘tossing’ response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.
Religious pigeons.
Why are we Superstitious?
Sitting between your ears is an amazing pattern matching machine. It seeks out and identifies patterns because that is a distinct attribute that greatly improves our survival.
The price we pay for this also comes at a cost. We end up seeing patterns in random noise … conspiracies, rabbits in clouds, etc…
We might indeed logically know as individuals that a specific superstitious ritual we do is not really going to make any difference, but we might still cling to it anyway because it grants us emotional comfort via the illusion of control over quite random events.
If you find yourself doing stuff like this and are tempted to think, “Gosh, I must be a bit crazy”. Nope, you are not. All you are actually guilty of is being human. It’s a mechanism we use to handle inner tensions and anxieties.
It can of course, like many things, be taken to an extreme and manifest as OCD, but for most of us, that’s not the case.
It is all part of who we are and is just one part of the wider human experience.
Enjoy the ride.