http://www.time-loops.net/nostradamus/Introduction1.htm

The prophecies of Nostradamus and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center- Hoax or not!

The first 911 hoax was circulating by email within hours of the WTC attack. It said:
In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb.
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning"
- Nostradamus 1654
Since Nostradamus died in 1566, it's rather unlikely he wrote this passage in 1654. The quatrain is not to be found in his published work. It isn't a question of whether or not it accurately predicts anything, he simply didn't write it.
In generally What bothers me about the hype around the predictions is the lack of self-criticism of the readers and followers. The renewed interest seems to be purely based only on the contents of the prophecies.
People reject or accept the prophecies of Nostradamus based on how they feel it relates to real events. What I don't understand however, is how people can accept the idea that someone from the 16th century could have been able to know our future, and the possible consequences that such a feat would have. Because some of the predictions might have become reality, many people seem to have accepted his work as something with value. The methods and techniques used, although not understood, are accepted as legitimate and genuine without any further questioning.
The public opinion about the work of Nostradamus appears to be divided in two camps: the believers and the non-believers. The first group bases their confidence on the 'eerie' coincidence of some main events which took place during the last centuries with some of the predictions in the quatrains. The none-believers revere to the complexity of the writing and feel that you can always match a quatrain with an existing event if you want to.
One of the main questions is whether Nostradamus was a charlatan, a gifted and talented cheat or was he really able to do something that no one has been able to repeat or explain.
If he was a cheat, then he was truly gifted and talented. He kept millions of people puzzled for many centuries and that is not a small feat.
Imagine creating prophetic quatrains with no more knowledge about the future than just the fact that 'history repeats it self', lots of fantasy and imagination and the desire of people to believe in true prophecy. By writing the way he did, believers can interpret the quatrains in many ways, allowing them to encounter and see in them wathever they look for.

NOSTRADAMUS AND THE GENUINITY OF HIS PROPHECIES

The title of this article is more a question which the writer answers throughout the article. The article’s is structurally divided into two parts. One is where the writer clears the air about irrational and emotionally driven rumours and the second is where he tries to prove how Nostradamus in total was a very clever cheat. The knowledge issue the article focuses on is the genuinely of Nostradamus’ predictions. Through the hoax after the September 11 attacks in New York the writer shows how when people are emotionally driven and reason is forced into the back seat people tend to believe a lot of things. They take the ambiguities in the writings of Nostradamus and make it mean sense to their brains. If they were being backed by reason then their brain would work in making them understand the prediction. This in TOK terms comes under fallacious reasoning where one plays on the ambiguities of language known as ‘Equivocation’ in TOK terms, manipulates it and presents it as if the other person is saying it. The writer through this understanding highlights how the gullible people believe this to be true without even questioning. He does say that people are divided in two groups, the believers and the non-believers and he does question again whether Nostradamus could be true, yet he is clearly biased for Nostradamus’ writings being a hoax and clearly states that it is impossible for a man to know the future. He also does not present proof for his belief. There are no scientific or historic facts. He just states his view point and deems it as obvious. His last paragraph ‘Imagine creating prophetic quatrains with no more knowledge about the future than just the fact that 'history repeats itself', lots of fantasy and imagination and the desire of people to believe in true prophecy’ is no more concrete as is the proof that Nostradamus’ prophesies are true. It is very hypothetical and the question that really comes to my mind is how does he know that Nostradamus had no knowledge of the future? He commits the reasoning fallacy of ‘circular reasoning’ as he believes it to be false and thus proves it as false by citing that it is false. Yet apart from this his argument about the emotional manipulation of the writings more than the actual sense flows logically. However to add his bias and thus the tone he uses is very convincing and makes the readers mood match his own.
Despite it there is a lot of logic in what he is saying. We humans in crisis immediately tend to switch off our reason and think emotionally. I truly believe that the writer’s argument is true because if I extrapolate it further myself, I see how language is manipulated by people. As shown in the movie Kuddha Ke Liye we are shown how the Mullah uses the ambiguities in language to manipulate innocent men into terrorism in the name of God. They use emotion and language to their advantage. This is parallel to what Nostradamus does as well. Thus people should care and be well informed about this trickery as it is one of man’s greatest flaws!

Knowledge At Work