Many fundamentalists believe that prophecies regarding ‘The Mark of the Beast’ are somewhat open to interpretation, that it might not necessarily be a mark or tattoo, possibly a computer chip.
The Antichrist is supposed to be very tricky and persuasive. He’s not going to let people know what the mark is.
What if ‘The Mark of the Beast’ is your social security number? Nearly everybody in the most powerful nation on Earth is required to have one, and you need it for just about everything in today’s society. Maybe it’s something different, though - maybe it’s a drivers license number, or an ‘Over 21’ stamp at a particular nightclub, or having your fingerprints on file. How do you know that you haven’t already received the Mark? It could be too later now for everybody except for a few people in isolated communities or those who have avoided getting a social security number all these years.
And even if you aren’t marked yet, how do you know you will be able to keep from being marked? Let’s say the Antichrist takes over and sets up a regime not unlike that of Nazi Germany, and requires that everybody get a certain tattoo or something similar. Do you think they will let people refuse? Ask concentration camp survivors if they were given a choice about their tattoos.
I personally believe these prophecies are just myths that are being misinterpreted to fit with modern times, but I know a lot of people truly believe them to be true. How do you deal with the possibility you might be marked? How do you plan on avoiding being marked if should this come to pass?
Some old theories about the “Mark of the Beast” (not my theories)…
Bar codes: Supposedly the three pairs of tall, thin lines were supposed to signify “666”.
AIDS: I remember this being bantered around when I was a tot… don’t remember how it was explained. Probably something stupid requiring a massive stretch of the imagination.
Some random shmoe living in Iran who was supposed to be born with “666” on his forehead: I think this started in the Enquirer (or some other tabloid), but then circulated for a while (again, when I was a tot). Don’t hear much about it now, though.
Television: I don’t know if this was regarded as the Mark of the Beast by a very large number of people, but again, I recall old sayings touting this.
Basically, just about anything that can be considered “negative” and “widespread” can be identified as the “Mark of the Beast”. However, I really doubt God would want us to get paranoid about it. My own personal theory is that the Mark is something that ISN’T physical… it’s a spiritual marking.
Hmm, looks like ‘Mark of the Beast’ get’s assigned to real-life objects when they are not universally used and if there is some twisted moral reason to be against said ‘Mark’. Anything truly useful and/or universal like social security cards can’t be the Mark of the Beast - how can you be a fine upstanding member of society when you are refusing to get a SSN?
Heh, I can see Fundamentalists in the future saying ‘Of course my B.E.A.S.T. v6.66 Debit Chip Implant isn’t the Mark of the Beast, my Preachers says it’s perfectly fine, and you can’t shop without one!’
I’ve always assumed, without really thinking about it, that the “witches teat” was the mark of the beast. Now I wonder.
Off to do a little research.
Peace,
mangeorge
He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no-one could buy or sell unless he had the mark which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
This calls for wisdom, if anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person and it’s number is 666.Rev. 13:16-18
So we have something to do with our economy. (Barcodes maybe? If so, then John got it wrong. The Mark actually goes on all the products ;))
And all this time I thought the mark of the Beast was the tatoo Roman conscripts got on their palm to prove they were serving/had served their time in the army. Silly me.
No, it seems that you can’t take the “mark” accidentally.
When you take it, you are stating that you will worship the antichrist; its a mark of allegiance.
Though I have heard the bar code story.
Hmm, while talk about the Mark of the Beast is all very well, fundies have a more serious theolgical basis ofr doubting their salvation.
John Calvin, adapting the views of St. Augustine that salvation comes from God’s grace alone, as opposed to the Pelagian view that Man could will himself to abstain from sin and earn salvation by merit, taught that God, being all-knowing, had already foreordained who would be saved and who would be damned, and nothing could be done to change one’s status.
From Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1537):
So, it is entirely posssible that the most annoying Fundamentalists might not be counted among the Elect and are thus left to their fallen natures, bereft of grace, and are damned for eternity. Hee, hee, hee!
I can’t speak for VISA, but anyone that says certain lines in a UPC barcode stand for 666 is simply unaware of how the data is coded. One bar (or space) in ANY barcode does not stand for a single number, and if 666 WERE part of the product number, the pattern formed would look different according to the position in the full number, anyway.
And no, they wouldn’t have little devil faces on them.:rolleyes:
Let’s not forget a very old idea about the mark of the Beast: the Stamp Act. Quite popular during colonial days. After all, one could not do commerce without the stamp, and king George III was subject to the occasional bout of madness. Clearly an instrument of Satan.
There is a small segment of the U.S. population who believes that Social Security Numbers are a big scam to fool us into voluntarily signing ourselves over to being the property of the Evil Federal Government.
I address one of these arguments [URL=]here. The people who believe these kinds of pseudo-legal arguments are variously known as “Patriots” or “Sovereign Citizens” or the “Posse Comitatus.” They have very twisted views of how the law operates in the U.S., but seriously believe with all their heart that their views are actually secret knowledge about how things “really” are.
This is probably the place for information, Badtz, but I doubt you’ll find much of a debate here. For that, I would suggest the Left Behind Message Board. Post this little sucker and watch the fur fly.
A while ago, I actually went so far as to register for the LBMB. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to post there. On the one hand, dropping my heathen self into a pot of fundamentalists would be vaguely trollish. More importantly, I just didn’t think it would be terribly rewarding.
– Jer
P.S. – On the off chance that you do post this question on the LBMB, be sure to provide a link.
Ooh, something I know about. Most people look at barcodes (not just UPCs, but other systems) and assume that numbers are represented by the actual bars of varying width. This is not true. discrete digits always contain both black and white space; however, there is no spacing between digits, so the overall appearance depends on the sequencing of the digits. If you look carefully at a UPC code, you’ll notice a “fence” character repeated three times, as a way of denoting the beginning middle (important) and end of the UPC. The character used for this happens to be identical to the one used for the digit “6”. However, it’s unlikely that it was intended to help out the antichrist. It’s much more likely that someone with an odd sense of humor managed to get it slipped in the original specification as a bit of an inside (or not so inside) joke, knowing that it would eventually be discovered. Note that many other barcode systems don’t have fence characters at all, since modern equipment can decode things without them.
Well, I’ll be damned. (So to speak.) There really is a “666” on every product sold in stores. And since UPC bar codes are required by government regulation to appear on all products sold in stores, you can’t buy or sell without it.
Too bad it ain’t printed on the forehead or the right hand, though.
Hmmm … I remember seeing something like that in the movie Gladiator. Russel Crowe’s character, who was a general in the Roman army, had a tattoo that read “SPQR” (a well-know abbreviation for Senatus PopolusQue Romani, the Senate and People of Rome).
Thing was, in the movie, the tattoo was on his upper arm, not his palm.
There used to be a credit card/electronic money scheme in the UK called ‘Mondus’ - the company logo was a swirly thing, but the TV advert used a sort of transition effect from three views of the globe into the swirly logo; the effect was that halfway through the transition, it looked very much like 666
