i’m wanting to know when the interpretation of the Book of Revelation in the bible to mean that we would receive a microchip implant in our hand/forehead to buy/sell goods was invented. i had heard this story since i was a kid and i’m 25 now. i don’t know if i can trust this interpretation to be true, so to give me a hint as to it’s accuracy i want to know how far back it was invented so i can see if it was forward-thinking on the part of the interpreter or maybe just an LSD trip someone had while watching 1984 or something. also any references to ideas in books or movies or whatever that have a similar concept that were floating around before this interpretation was known would be appreciated.
I am unsure of the answer to your question but I have heard the same for a while now as well. Reading the verse however, as you probably know, says nothing of any chip or the like. Could it be a chip though, yea I guess. Some believe the chips will be a precursor to a cashless society which would fit the passage in the text to a certain extent. As to who started all of this I would have to dig deeper than I have on the subject.
Um, before microchips it was the received wisdom in such circles that this passage referred to barcodes. Before that, social security numbers.
The kind of person who chooses to believe that this passage is to be interpreted as a literal prophecy of specific events also generally chooses to believe that those events must be contemporary to them. If I wanted to give everybody today an indentifying mark, how would I do it? Microchip them! So the passge must refer to microchips, mustn’t it?
FWIW, when I was growing up in the Southern Baptist Church (80’s), I always heard it as barcodes. I guess they just updated the story at some point.
I’m guessing the concept started around RFID’s media heyday, if not then certainly by '04 when the FDA approved RFID chips to be implanted in certain hospital patients.
I began to hear of the mark of the beast chip when “pet chips” became popular (1990, perhaps?), predating the human use of chips. Like others in this thread, my church/religious school claimed it would be a bar code before then, going so far as to claim standard US UPC bar codes were evil, all containing “666.”. (I’m ashamed to say that I sucked up and threw in references to the evil of bar codes when doing a science fair exhibit on computer technology, simply to get a good grade.)
The interpretation adjusts as technology grows. During the 1970s, I was hearing of ID (maybe SS) numbers in permanent ink readable by infra-red light. And through this, your movements & finances would be monitored by the BEAST three-story super-computer in Brussels. Then in the 1980’s, the bar code idea became popular, especially since the 12 digit version does seem to be bracket by three sixes. I think though it was the late 1980s that I started to hear about implanted microchips.
If indeed there is a future fulfillment to the Mark, I see no need for it to be any more technological that a physical mark indicating you’ve sold out to the Beast System.
I’m guessing they meant ‘ultra-violet’, because it seems like something trying to read IR-visible ink on a hot object like a living body would have a tough time of it.
Three-story supercomputer!? I suppose Satan can cure all your latency problems.
Seems to be, but isn’t. If you’re interpreting something like a barcode, taking things like framing into account is important and those supposed ‘sixes’ are just a framing device to delimit the beginning, middle, and end of each complete code. I understand where they’re coming from, but it’s still wrong.
Or it could be one of those allegories the Bible is well known for, like how Jesus doesn’t really expect us to rip our own eyes out.
Just for the record, it’s not. This claim is driven by misinterpretation of the coding and ignorance of the meaning of the width of the bars.
I said “seems”! To the untrained eye, the bracketing bars sure do look like the second set bars for 6.
Can someone break this down for me? I also heard this story that barcodes had the three 6’s thing. What’s the Straight Dope?
I think your first problem is trying to interpret a book of fiction as genuine prophecies (as if such a thing actually existed). But basically, believers are going to interpret prophecies in whatever form reality presents itself currently. Something as vague as the “mark of the beast” could seriously be anything, from a birthmark to a microchip to a tattoo, you name it.
Pet chips are “mark[s] of the beast,” so in a way, you could say it’s already come true.
I’ll have to tell my Southern Baptist friends that I’ve twice accepted a mark of the beast!
Back when I was a child, long before all this new fangled technology, I was told the mark of the beast would be a tatoo.
I’m by no means an expert, but if you look at a barcode, two narrow strips indicate a number 6 (if on the left side of the barcode). (To guess the meaning of the number look at the numbers printed below and to what bars they correspond)
There are three delimitator marks: at the beginning, in the middle and at the end. Those are two narrow strips (always).
However: a 6 in the second half isn’t represented the same way. And the code I’m referring to is by no means universal.
I usually tell the nuts who believe in this stuff and most likely are fundamentalists: Its a chip, not a mark. Until some guy in a black suit tries to write on your forehead with permanent marker, shut up
So the 6 and the delimiter are the same narrow strips, but the delimiter is slightly longer in length than the numeric value strips in the barcode?
Being raised in The Crazy of fundie belief system, I’m surprised no one pointed out to those developing barcodes that using 3 delimiters that are the same as the # 6 (but longer!) is going to feed The Crazies.
MeanJoe
As I began to lose my hair in my late 30s, I noticed a small birthmark/tattoo thingie on my scalp that read “665½”.
Huh?
It’s already here. Check this out and try it on for size:
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,520331,00.html