I feel kind of bad for Reverend Peter Anamo

Maybe he’s getting more press locally in Ghana, but there’s not a lot to be found online about him and his predictions for the end of the world this month. Harold Camping and his followers certainly knew how to stir the waters and got a hell of a lot more press. I can’t find much about Anamo’s predictions beyond this article from April.

Promising to do better than biblical men of steel, Prophet Anamo said he was relying on numerology to make his prediction. “Numerology is the mystery of numbers which the Church does not know but that is unfortunate because our divine God is God of numerology that is why the Bible has a whole book on numbers.”

“I am a prophet; my job is to make sure God is able to redeem a lot of people in November.” Grounding his argument, Prophet Anamo cited Japan which was hit by a disastrous earthquake on March 11 and also on April 11, and that that was a prelim to what will happen to the world on 11 November (the 11th month of 2011).

There is this interview, though.

He uses the Book of Daniel as the basis for all his goofy numerology math, and 5/6 minutes in he uses some other funky number trick on the woman doing the interview. She adds up 80 (1980 being the year she was born) and her age (31) and gets 111 for an answer. He tries to sell this as a sign the end is nigh because everyone who tries the same thing will get the exact same number and the longer he goes on, the more loony he starts to sound. I’m almost surprised he got to speak as long as he did but I suppose everyone’s allotted a certain number of minutes for their segment no matter how ridiculous they may get.

It’s stated in the article that he’ll turn himself in if his predication fails so I’ll make sure to check if anything gets written about him later on. Statistically speaking, he may wind up right by accident about an earthquake hitting this weekend, especially since he isn’t being very specific as to where it’ll be. The National Earthquake Information Center registers at least 50 a day with their sensitive equipment and it’s also noted that if it seems like we’re having more earthquakes these days, it’s mostly because we have a lot more equipment around the world tracking the earth’s constant shifting.

In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more that 4,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by telex, computer and satellite. This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years, and we are able to locate earthquakes more rapidly.

Another factor has to do with just how many humans are on this planet (we’re nearing or past the seven billion mark already) and the fact that some of us can’t help but live in regions where earthquakes have a higher probability of being large enough to be damaging. The site lists more explanations than these, too.

Bottom line, I think the bulk of us will be able to rest easy on Friday and spend the day however Remembrance Day tends to be spent. I expect mine will go quietly; I’ll be away to Dial Up Land for the weekend since it works out to be a long one. Aside from getting my fix of Canasta and Hoarders, I have no plans.