Riddle

[Chewey]

Eighty percent of Kindergartners solved this riddle, but only 5% of Stanford graduates figured it out!

Can you answer the following question? in one word?

1. The word has seven letters...
2. Preceded God...
3. Greater than God...
4. More Evil than the devil...
5. All poor people have it...
6. Wealthy people need it...
7. If you eat it, you will die.

Did you figure it out?

[Eliath]

The answer is: NOTHING!

[Aquinas]

Greater than God? Yep, sounds like something in the public schools

[spiderbite]

I did't get it. Is it wrong to feel ashamed. Really, 80% of these kids know that. Thanks for driving my self-esteem into the ground. This, in no way, means I'm untelligent though. Silly riddle.

[Trent Lawless]

Resident Snopes guy here.

While this Snopes article doesn't directly deal with this riddle, it does mention it near the bottom, not entirely uncomplimentary:

www.snopes.com/glurge/wishfor.asp

[spiderbite]

markcpc said:

Resident Snopes guy here.

While this Snopes article doesn't directly deal with this riddle, it does mention it near the bottom, not entirely uncomplimentary:

www.snopes.com/glurge/wishfor.asp

Ha! Read that and read it good. You see, I merely tripped a little in self-doubt. It happens to the best of us every once in a while, a great while. I knew there wasn't a single kindergarten kid smarter than the R Rated One.

[Chewey]

eliath said:

The answer is: NOTHING!

Congratulations. While one may point out that you solved a riddle that 95% of Stanford students could not, I would rather point out that you have shown that your intelligence is on par with 80% of kindergartners.



Just kidding, bro.

[Eliath]

So lets see here, two riddles on the board that I answered...this is what we now know about Eliath:

His mind works like that of serial killer
That same mind is on par with 80% of 5 year olds.

Scary ;D

[darkrider]

guess you'll never be on are you smarter then a fifth grader eh ?

[Avarice]

So Eliath > God and Stanford students?

[Eliath]

I would so love to reply to that...but I am struggling to refrain. ;D

[Chewey]

If Eliath > God,


then according to the riddle


Eliath = Nothing.

Plain and simple. ;D

[Eliath]

aaron168 said:

If Eliath > God,


then according to the riddle


Eliath = Nothing.

Plain and simple. ;D

Being a Taoist...This is a very good thing.

[Chewey]

hmm...

Dao ke dao, feichang dao,
Ming ke ming, feichang ming,
Wu ming, tiandi zhi shi
You ming, wan wu zhi mu.

I think somewhere in there (it's the first book of the Dao De Jing), it says that it's in the Nameless that is the start of the Heavens, and the Named that is the mother of all other things. But then, my classical Chinese sucks (the classical language is like Latin to English).

[Eliath]

Before the World exists
There is mystery:
Silent, depthless,
Alone, unchanging,
Ubiquitous and ever moving,
The mother of the World.
I do not know its name, so I call it Tao;
I do not know its limit, so I call it infinite.
Being infinite, it flows away forever
Flowing away forever, it returns to the Self.
The Self follows the way of the World;
The World follows the way of Nature;
Nature follows the way of Tao;
Tao is the way.
Tao is infinite,
Therefore Nature is infinite,
Therefore the World is infinite,
Therefore the Self is infinite.
There are four infinities,
And the Self is one of them.

[Splattercat]

<raises glass>

To infinity....And Beyond..!!

[MikeMcKinney]

I was wrong....That was tough.

[Chewey]

eliath said:

Before the World exists
There is mystery:
Silent, depthless,
Alone, unchanging,
Ubiquitous and ever moving,
The mother of the World.
I do not know its name, so I call it Tao;
I do not know its limit, so I call it infinite.
Being infinite, it flows away forever
Flowing away forever, it returns to the Self.
The Self follows the way of the World;
The World follows the way of Nature;
Nature follows the way of Tao;
Tao is the way.
Tao is infinite,
Therefore Nature is infinite,
Therefore the World is infinite,
Therefore the Self is infinite.
There are four infinities,
And the Self is one of them.

Okay, that is definitely not a direct translation from the Chinese. Parts of it I can see in the Chinese text, but a lot of it is interpretative from whoever translated it. But of course, if it retains the spirit of the original text, it still works.

[Eliath]

Well the story of how I came by that segment of the Dao is humorous...I don't speak Chinese (other than to order Chinese food ) & an influential teacher in my history was speaking of the Dao & its various meanings to different people around the world. How it differs from translation to translation depending upon what the translator needed from it at the time of translation. Anyway...that translation is actually pieced together from four different variations into "my" translation. ;D