How's this Anti-Christ thing gonna work?

Great Debates
1

I find it hard to believe that some false Messiah is going to come along and just about everybody is going to fall for it, precisely because it’s predicted in the Bible, and so many people will basically be waiting for it to happen.

If any of the stuff from Revelation started occurring (Any connection between a charismatic world leader and the number 666; this leader causing the citzenry to get any unusual marks on their right hand or forehead, etc.) Anti-Christ hunters would freak, and in this day of instantaneous worldwide information, everybody would know about it in short order.

In fact, to me it seems far more likely that a genuine Messiah would return and be instantly panned by skeptics as a heretic.

2

Having studied Revelations and the writings of modern interpreters (long story), I think you’re wrong, Milo. (At least, on the anti-Christ story. Second coming being portrayed as a hoax- well, that depends. Pre-rapture, definitely. Post 144,000 assumed instantly into heaven, well, we’ll see.)

The writings of Revelations are nearly entirely metaphorical, and as such, are open to great interpretation. If we assume that the apocalypse will occur as revealed to John, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll recognize the events when they occur.

Take the mark to do business. On face value, it sounds like everyone lines up for the torturer to brand a symbol on our hands in order to prove our ‘loyalty’ to our great leader Auntie Christ. In metaphorical terms, though, it could mean any number of things- ID tatoos implemented after cloning becomes a major facet of life; microcircuitry implanted (ala Neuromancer) that acts as a credit card and ID; etc.

So what happens? When the technology comes, then:

A) the general people don’t see it as evil; after all, technology is inherently neutral, not evil- it’s just who does what with it that places aspects of morality upon it.

B) the people who feel it is a sign of the coming apocalypse rail against in and refuse to get it, but given that nearly every new technology since the '50’s has resulted in some bizzarre church/cult claiming that the apocalypse is coming (“UPC codes are the mark of the Beast!” being one of my favorite warnings), they get ignored.

Goes the same way for nearly all of the ‘signs’. Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Lutheran churches all having serious talks about resolving their differences? A few fundies rail that it’s the coming of the one world religion which the anti-Christ will head; but most people (who give a damn) consider it a nice step towards peace and a breaking down of the boundaries of intolerance.

Ergo, the entire plan of Revelations can be carried out without people noticing; after all, those who cry out that it’s happening are the same people (in the general public’s mind) who have been claiming it’s been about to happen since 1843.

3

I respectfully beg to differ.

All of the following is prefaced with the following:

  1. As I understand it …,
  2. As it has been presented in the Bible …, and
  3. If I remember correctly …

Keep in mind that much of the controversy surrounding Jesus’ first time on earth was over whether or not he fulfilled prophecy. Every time he did something that exactly or even nearly fulfilled a prophecy, the Pharisees <sp?> said, “Oh, well, sure if you want to say that fulfills prophecy … but we all know the real prophecy we’re waiting to have fulfilled is the big one and until he does that, we ain’t buying it.” So, it is entirely possible that prophecy we are looking at now will:

  1. be fulfilled right in front of us, while we pay no attention,
  2. be fulfilled right in front of us, while we insist it’s not happening, or
  3. not be fulfilled at all (I don’t want to start a fight over that possibility!).

Now, on to the point of the Anti-Christ hunters freaking: For whom exactly is that a bad thing? Let’s take the obvious examples (forgive my judging-a-book-by-its-cover for a few minutes, please):

Say the Antichrist comes and all the Right Thinkers see it and swarm to the Dalai Lama, the Pope, and Billy Graham to denounce the Antichrist and show their loyalties. Do you really think all the child pornographers, heroin addicts, Goths, and general-purpose anti-establishment types are going to say, “Oooh, you know, this life of rebellion thing was swell while it was hypothetical, but now that I see the ovens heating up, I’d better get right with God.” No.

They’ll all sing out about how the Right Thinkers are oppressing the Antichrist and not giving it its day in court and not obeying the judge-not-that-ye-be-not-judged rule and they’ll swarm to its defense. And there you have it: sheep on one side, goats on the other. Just like prophecy says.

Now, please let me add the following for context:

I am a recovering Southern Baptist, in the slow process of becoming an Episcopalian. My respect for organized religion is just large enough that it outweighs my disrespect for it.

4

Suppose this happens:

He turns up, announces himself, does a few miracles, claims he’s really the good guy and God and Jesus were the bad guys trying to screw everything up for humankind. He points out that the Bible is full of nasty genocidal acts by God. And the God-based religions have caused little but strife and trouble through most of history.

He says that when the Serpent persuaded Eve to try the fruit from the tree of Knowledge, he had Man’s best interest at heart. But God threw Man out of Eden before he could also eat from the tree of Life and so become immortal. (Check out Genesis again!) Then he restricted Mans’ lifespan to 120 years. Then he mixed up all our languages so we couldn’t work together. In the Old Testament days, God did everything he could to keep us down and Lucifer was the only being to attempt to stand up to him.

He claims an affiliation with the Gnostics and Cathars, Christians who believed in two Gods, the Creator (the BAD one, also known as Rex Mundi) and the good one. That was the way the Church was supposed to develop, but the followers of evil God wiped them out and labelled them heretics.

He also claims an affiliation with the pagan gods Pan, Bacchus and Dionysus unfairly demonised by the Christian churches. Which would probably persuade a lot of Neo-pagans, Wiccans and New-age types.

What would YOU do then? You’ve got the Bible vs. a real life supernatural power. Is this the Prince of Lies, or is the Bible evil propaganda designed to trick you into backing the wrong team?

5

Assuming you’re not expecting a literal version of Revelations, I think John’s reasoning makes sense (for those who anticipate an end-times scenario). One could argue that there have been so many cries of “Wolf!” (or would that be “Beast!”?) that people would ignore it. (I remember that UPC code thing.)

As an aside: maybe it’s just me, but this grouping seems rather odd:

6

Part of my point, John, is that no one is ever going to get away with putting any currency or identifying chip or anything else in the right hands and/or foreheads of people, ever.

I don’t believe it would only be some religous extremists railing against it; I’m sure it would make a very large segment of the population uneasy.

7

According to the Bible, the Antichrist will be convincing enough to “if it were possible, deceive the very elect.” And my thought, backed by both Zion and, IIRC, Lib., is that this is most likely to be a charismatic (in the sense of having charisma, not tongues-speaking) religious leader who preaches a doctrine completely contradictory to Christ’s message, but cloaks it in religious language to mask its evilness. It’s an old trick, but he will be a consummate master of it.

8

Jeez. Are you sure there’s only going to be one??

9

Excellent flick that follows the anti christ and his rise to power. Really good. If you know anything about the book of Revelations the movie will be even better for you. If you believe in prophecy even a little the movie will spook you a bit. It came out on video a while ago, so it should be in the new releases section.

10

Well, I for one think he’ll be pretty easy to recognize, being 40 cubits tall and all…

11

I haven’t even looked in this forum in months. Have I been missing some good debates? Who knows. It’s probably the same old stuff as always.

Anyway, Poly and I do agree on what the anti-Christ will represent. Even the “anti-Christ hunters” will be deceived by him. His power and influence will be unmatched, even surpassing that of Jesus, and Paul in their day, because of the way the world is linked through computers, TV, etc. As I’ve said before, the person who the world least believes is this man, will be the a.C.

12

Zion, based on your description, I can only conclude that the antiChrist is, in fact . . . Aaron Spelling.

13

While channel surfing late the other night, I stopped on the religious channel, and heard a TV preacher who put forth the interesting theory that the Anti-Christ will be the first cloned human being. His reasoning behind this is that God created all life, and cloning is man daring to take it upon himself to, in essence, create life.

14

I’m just waiting for people to actually start getting lives instead of looking for some mythical being. The extreme fundamentalists will bring about their own end when they finally annoy someone who really does not like them. I can easily imagine the SBC and the like being bombed out by extremists of a different stripe not too long from now. There will never be a ‘grand religious war’ unless the fundies start one. They may well do just that. Can you imagine Falwell and his ilk leading an army of idiotic zealots against the US Armed Forces? The US would win, but the war would resemble countless civil wars: Untrained personnel with small arms fighting pitched and protracted battles in rural and semi-urban zones against better-trained regulars with much better weapons desperately trying to stay on top of an enemy that vastly outnumbers them. I just hope it never happens.

15

In case you don’t know the anti-Christ is among us now. Last week on C-SPAN a called stated Hillary Clinton is the ant-Christ.

16

There is a group (I won’t say who) that firmly believes the Beast to be the Roman Catholic Church. In the Bible (I forget where) it says the Beast receives a near fatal head wound, and loses all its power. Then after a “time, times, and time and a half” (please forgive my messed up Bible quote) the Beast will return.

This group believes the Roman Catholic Church to be integrally tied with the New World Order. And that it seeks the consolidation of the world with itself as the head once more.

Furthermore, it interprets the mark of the beast as a worldwide “Sunday Law.” The group believes that the Roman Catholic Church, once into power, will implement a law to force everyone to go to church on Sunday. Since the fourth commandment begins “Remember the Sabbath day…” anyone going to church on Sunday will have the mark of the beast (the Sabbath day being Saturday).

Pretty far off, and yet it kind of makes sense. Any feedback?

17

Another theory that seems theoretically possible would be if aliens ever landed here from another planet.

We would want to know as much as we could about their knowledge base, and their story would probably invalidate much or all of Christianity. And the majority of people would probably believe their story.

This would seem to follow Revelations.

Then, as mentioned earlier, the intellectual conflict becomes, did the authors of Revelations and the rest of the Bible somehow know this was going to come to pass? Were their writings intended as a preemptive strike against the truth, in order to perpetuate the power and control of their invented religion?

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

18

Well, as a former member of that unnamed group, I can tell you part of the history of that.
First off, the associating the Catholic church with the Antichrist is an old Protestant trick, along with accusations of global conspiracies. (for all I know, that last bit may be true :stuck_out_tongue: especially with their annoying conspiracy to fight global contraception efforts)
The Sunday law is the only really new bit,
http://www.ellenwhite.org/egw22.htm

Of course, now those “blue laws” have been removed in the name of church-state separation. Lurid tales of persecution in the workplace have mostly disappeared from Adventist publications, much to their disappointment, I’m sure.

The rest of the site is fairly revealing, despite its agenda. And they take pains to provide sources…

19

Based on my reading of the Bible and Bible prophecy writers, I humbly and respectfully offer these comments and suggestions. Please pardon the length of my post…

  1. Many have tried to add up the numeric values in various world leader names to make them add up to 666. This may not be necessary…The number 6 in the Bible is often used to signify man. Three sixes would be man trying to pass himself off as a God, just like the triune God, Son, and Holy Spirit.

  2. For the first time in history, with the advent of computerization, it is now possible for a world leader to try to enforce a “take this mark…or else you’ll be incapable of buying and selling” order. Many prophecy writers now say that the Mark of the Beast will involve some kind of tiny computer chip that will be implanted in the human body. Placed in the hand or forehead, with the hand being the first choice, for convenience. With the “mark”, you can try to go to a totally computerized, no cash, economic system.

If anyone is interested, a New Zealand prophecy lecturer I like has amusingly explained the advantages of such a system over the computer cards we use now…and I could pass along what he says.

  1. I think the fact that “666” is in the Bible may actually prove to be a selling point for the mark. The Antichrist could reason “And just to show how silly the Bible is, we’re going to include 3 sixes in the numbering system, to show how we’re not afraid of that stupid God who doesn’t exist anyways.”

    Given the historical phobia concerning the number 666, I think that this number sequence may not be used often in real life. It may not be used for anything important. Perhaps computer experts could correct me, but wouldn’t “666” be a rare enough and useful enough sequence to separate the number from any other computer sequence such as a zip code, or a Social Security Number, if you are using it on a form? The Antichrist’s bureacrats would say “This is the most useful, simple, short sequence to separate your number from anyone else’s, because everyone in the history of the world has been scared off from using it.”

    A possible example. Bureaucrats would say “Okay, this person’s form is filled out with a Antichrist World Registration Number (AWRN) starting with 666-… That means she hasn’t filled it out with the AWRN space having a phone number with a Mongolian area code, etc. It’s correct and we can process it. However, this other person in Manhattan filling out another form has put this 10 digit number starting with 212… in the space for the AntiChrist World registration number, and put this long number starting with three sixes where his phone number should be. Let’s fix it.”

4) The Bible does say that the Antichrist will be suave enough to fool "even the elect (the Christians on the earth at that time)...if it were possible.". That may mean that everyone will be fooled or be forced into the mark plan. But on the other hand, I do hope there will be some anti-Establishment types who will refuse the mark, as the Christians trying to hide will need their help and evading-the-government techniques to survive.

Thanks.
20

I don’t have the bible handy, but isn’t the mark purported to be a conscious choice – i.e. nobody would be able to take the mark without realizing what it is, and thus is would be the final division between the armies of good and evil?