 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Aagh, it's the Mark of the Beast again!
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
This story about a pupil losing a case against their school obliging them to wear an RFID tag has brought to the fore all sorts of nightmares about the Mark of the Beast of Revelation 13.
Now I know we've been here before. In my archives I have one of those 1970s books about bar codes, and I even have a letter dating back to before the Internet from some scientific body or other assuring me that nobody is going to implant chips into us for payment purchases any time soon.
So maybe it's just my vestigial dispensationalism kicking in, but I still find stories like this make me nervous. Not least because the advent of RFID tags and Near Field Communication have all been seized on by administrations as great ways to keep tabs - literally - on people, which doesn't seem inconsistent with the behaviour of the beast of Revelation or the characterisation of Babylon as the corrupt world system.
There's also all those worrying bits about those bearing the mark of the beast not making it into heaven.
Now all this is completely inconsistent of me, because I am generally quite pro-institution and not in the least inclined to survivalist, remnant, bug-out ways of thinking usually.
What's your take? Do you think these developments are just linked to Revelation by over-fertile 21st century minds in a tinfoil-hat, Late Great Planet Earth sort of a way, or is there a case to be made?
Would you stop short of getting a chip embedded in you to make payments? Of fitting your relative with dementia with one so they don't get lost? Or have we all been Left Behind™ by scanning the barcode on our groceries too many times already? ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
|
Posted
I think there are legitimate issues raised by the technology and it's enforced use.
But dragging Revelation into it will just make people think your a nutter, and won't IMHO, aid the discussion.
--------------------
Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
This story about a pupil losing a case against their school obliging them to wear an RFID tag has brought to the fore all sorts of nightmares about the Mark of the Beast of Revelation 13.
Now I know we've been here before. In my archives I have one of those 1970s books about bar codes, and I even have a letter dating back to before the Internet from some scientific body or other assuring me that nobody is going to implant chips into us for payment purchases any time soon.
So maybe it's just my vestigial dispensationalism kicking in, but I still find stories like this make me nervous. Not least because the advent of RFID tags and Near Field Communication have all been seized on by administrations as great ways to keep tabs - literally - on people, which doesn't seem inconsistent with the behaviour of the beast of Revelation or the characterisation of Babylon as the corrupt world system.
There's also all those worrying bits about those bearing the mark of the beast not making it into heaven.
Now all this is completely inconsistent of me, because I am generally quite pro-institution and not in the least inclined to survivalist, remnant, bug-out ways of thinking usually.
What's your take? Do you think these developments are just linked to Revelation by over-fertile 21st century minds in a tinfoil-hat, Late Great Planet Earth sort of a way, or is there a case to be made?
Would you stop short of getting a chip embedded in you to make payments? Of fitting your relative with dementia with one so they don't get lost? Or have we all been Left Behind™ by scanning the barcode on our groceries too many times already?
Whilst being sort of behind the idea for those with dementia - a relative of mine used to suffer very badly and would go out walking at all random hours which could cause a lot of concern.
However, I would not for a moment condone the idea of using it to monitor school attendance (whatever happened to the trusty register?) as in the case of the article. Not being entirely clear (nor able to get onto the NISD website to find out) what the deal is entirely (do kids have to have this from home to school and back again etc. or do they pick it up from school in the morning and then return it at the end of the day?) It raises up a lot of issues about trust and snooping i nmy mind.
As for it's links to the end-times etc. I just think it is over-fertilisation and is probably more a sign of an increasing state encroachment on liberties rather than anything else...
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
|
Posted
From what I recall (and I'm really digging up stuff from childhood here) the infamous Mark was something that could not be eradicated or removed. That rather makes the badge ineligible.
Of course I could be wrong--in which case, yes, I think the poor child is the victim of religious paranoia.
--------------------
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
I think there are legitimate issues raised by the technology and it's enforced use.
But dragging Revelation into it will just make people think your a nutter, and won't IMHO, aid the discussion.
If there are indeed 'legitimate issues raised by the technology and its enforced use', they why on earth should revelation NOT contain a legitimate reference to it? The whole point about 666 is not actually the 666 (and to whom t may refer) but the description of the mark being a 'technological' method of trading and purchasing.
I have yet to hear a convincing explanation of this mark that, rather than wittering on about the Pope/Napoleon/Hitler/Thatcher/Saddam, actually addresses this personal 'economic facilitator' and why it's there in the pages of Revelation in the first place.
I mean, will there indeed come a point when people without electronic ID will not be able to buy groceries or access their band account...?
...now where is my debit card?
--------------------
"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I mean, will there indeed come a point when people without electronic ID will not be able to buy groceries or access their band account...?
...now where is my debit card?
Yes, I reckon there will. Probably payment by mobile phone will usurp cash.
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
|
Posted
I think (like many Biblical scholars) that the Mark of the Beast was a reference to Nero, not about using technology to possibly track control people.
(Besides, we crossed that bridge a long time ago. Try buying or renting a house, gaining employment without a national ID# and credit dossier.)
--------------------
"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The whole point about 666 is not actually the 666 (and to whom t may refer) but the description of the mark being a 'technological' method of trading and purchasing.
I have yet to hear a convincing explanation of this mark that, rather than wittering on about the Pope/Napoleon/Hitler/Thatcher/Saddam, actually addresses this personal 'economic facilitator' and why it's there in the pages of Revelation in the first place.
The least romantic interpretation I have ever heard suggested that the mark and the passage referring to buying and selling was talking about the impressed coinage with the face of the Roman Emperor on it. Obviously, you couldn't buy or sell without it...
The Jewish nation had lost the right to issue their own coinage, which was undoubtedly part of the list of carefully nursed grudges against the Romans at the time Revelation was recorded. I suspect this would have been a very clearly understood passage to those early Christians who first read it.
As a result, I tend to have problems with a lot of the more fanciful interpretations which find the roadmap of society's destruction in our own time laid out in these passages.
--------------------
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
I think (like many Biblical scholars) that the Mark of the Beast was a reference to Nero, not about using technology to possibly track control people.
Yeah, thing is, like Organ Builder, I'm of the "both and" school.
I don't think Revelation is solely historicist. I fully agree caution needs to be taken when interpreting it, witness the centuries' worth of now clearly batty takes on the book.
That said, we are now in a globalised world where apocalyptic phrases like "one third of the earth" or "the whole world" actually have a literal meaning we can grasp, and the great powers we see so luridly depicted in Revelation seem to be alive and well.
Would there be too much social reluctance to make widespread implanted chips a reality? Or would people simply be happy not to have to worry about where they'd put their Oyster card? And would it be misguided to see that as at least one outworking of all those scary bits?
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Drifting Star
Drifting against the wind
# 12799
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Would there be too much social reluctance to make widespread implanted chips a reality?
Over my cold, dead body... but not for any reason other than my overwhelming need to believe that I can be truly alone and unconnected to anyone or anything.
--------------------
The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Heraclitus
Posts: 3126 | From: A thin place. | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Would there be too much social reluctance to make widespread implanted chips a reality?
I think there would be too much social reluctance to make it mandatory, but I could see people doing it if it made certain things more convenient. We already micro-chip our pets.
For that matter, we already undergo procedures which are much more invasive from a "bodily integrity" point of view (which is on my mind because I expect to have a knee replacement in April). There are also pacemakers, and perhaps some sort of "artificial pancreas" soon for diabetics.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated...
(I probably shouldn't be so flippant, since I know there are those who take these things seriously but I can't help it).
That's not to say I necessarily think all these things are good things, but (to take one example mentioned in the OP which I also remember) I was never able to see any theological reason why God would have a problem with bar code scanners.
--------------------
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
I don't think Revelation has anything to do with this, and nor should it. But my knee-jerk reaction to radio-tagging school population is 'What?!'
Apparently they need to be tagged to track their attendance. Don't attendance registers and teachers do that? I appreciate that pupils can mitch off after registration, but even in the stone age we usually got rumbled pretty quickly when each class teacher took the roll. If we had absented, no-one was going to track us down - which is the only use I can think of for the radio tag. Is that how it's going to be used?
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Yeah, thing is, like Organ Builder, I'm of the "both and" school.
Whoops! I missed this before. I don't think I really am of the "both and" school.
My view of Revelation is that it made perfect sense to the audience for whom it was written--namely, early Christians facing Roman persecutions. I suspect it was kept in the canon (barely) primarily because of the apostolic connection, because of the comfort it offered and because it has some really killer poetry in it.
--------------------
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Yeah, thing is, like Organ Builder, I'm of the "both and" school.
Whoops! I missed this before. I don't think I really am of the "both and" school.
My view of Revelation is that it made perfect sense to the audience for whom it was written--namely, early Christians facing Roman persecutions. I suspect it was kept in the canon (barely) primarily because of the apostolic connection, because of the comfort it offered and because it has some really killer poetry in it.
I would agree with this. I just don't see it as predictive of future events in any way.
--------------------
"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
|
Posted
Revelation 18 v 11-15:
"The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore - cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones etc...the merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her (Babylon) will stand far off, terrified at her torment."
It seems to me that the fall of Babylon describes the end of an economic system. revelation does seem to hint at some kind of financial event.
I see the mark of the beast as somehow tied in with this.
We cannot dismiss Revelation and say that it does not contain predictive elements. It does call itself a prophecy after all - and it does say these things will happen.
it's not all mere apocalyptic literature for the contemporary reader of Asia Minor.
--------------------
"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
|
Posted
I think that usage of RFID tracking at schools could be a very good thing for four purposes...
1. Applied selectively, it would be a godsend for staff searching for a student with a low-functioning autism spectrum disorder who has bolted away while a classroom door was open and hidden somewhere. This happens often enough at schools which are forced into mainstreaming that it's worth considering.
2. Applied selectively, students who have been caught truanting or making other major disciplinary breaches (e.g. damaging property etc) could be forced to wear one as a result of them breaching the trust (i.e. not wearing a badge) which the school placed in them previously. This goes both ways, it would be just as useful for exonerating them from accusations made purely on the basis of previous form.
3. Applied selectively, senior students who don't have to keep 'traditional' hours of attendance (studying part-time, taking some course/s externally, permitted to leave during non-scheduled time etc) could have one of these to streamline the process of signing in and out.
4. Applied across the board, it would be great for emergency evacuation/invacuation procedures when an attendance roll accurate up to the minute could be used. This doesn't really require RFID, as a good joined up system of tracking confirmed absences and movements in/out would (combined with class teachers doing a manual roll call) accomplish the same end, just a bit slower. The power of the RFID system there would be to identify any anomalies near-instantly, and also to account for senior students who may be present but not scheduled to be in any particular class at the time.
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
I don't think Revelation has anything to do with this, and nor should it. But my knee-jerk reaction to radio-tagging school population is 'What?!'
Apparently they need to be tagged to track their attendance. Don't attendance registers and teachers do that? I appreciate that pupils can mitch off after registration, but even in the stone age we usually got rumbled pretty quickly when each class teacher took the roll. If we had absented, no-one was going to track us down - which is the only use I can think of for the radio tag. Is that how it's going to be used?
Well yes, the issue is not that there's anything wrong with a traditional roll call. The issue is that there is something right with seeking to innovate and improve things instead of just accepting "it ain't broken" as a reason to not bother. One would presume that this is why, in the case from the USA linked in the OP, there are just a couple of schools trialling it to see if it makes things better or worse.
Practically speaking, I think for general use it would work best with just logging students in/out of building entrances (and the entrance gates of the campus itself) rather than tracking precise locations on a normal basis. Staff could have access to portable readers which would be used to track a particular student to a specific location if there was good reason that they needed to be found, see my points 1, 2 and 4 above.
--------------------
If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Yeah, thing is, like Organ Builder, I'm of the "both and" school.
Whoops! I missed this before. I don't think I really am of the "both and" school.
Sorry, my mistake and your peace of mind! Just have pity on us neurotic types.
Roger Forster's typically idiosyncratic take on Revelation is that it is like a pregnancy, with successive contractions (and perhaps several false starts) finally giving rise to the actual thing. Nero, Hitler and co. are so many contractions, or repetitions of the same theme, that will nevertheless have a fully-fledged outworking some day.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
What's your take?
If folks don't want to wear the chips then they shouldn't have to. It is being appealed.
--------------------
"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
We cannot dismiss Revelation and say that it does not contain predictive elements. It does call itself a prophecy after all - and it does say these things will happen.
it's not all mere apocalyptic literature for the contemporary reader of Asia Minor.
I don't dismiss it. It's part of the canon.
Though it may have been predictive for those to whom it was written, but not necessarily for us. The problem is that no one can agree on what it's predicting, which makes it rather useless for predicting things.
--------------------
"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Revelation 18 v 11-15:
"The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore - cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones etc...the merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her (Babylon) will stand far off, terrified at her torment."
It seems to me that the fall of Babylon describes the end of an economic system. revelation does seem to hint at some kind of financial event.
I see the mark of the beast as somehow tied in with this.
We cannot dismiss Revelation and say that it does not contain predictive elements. It does call itself a prophecy after all - and it does say these things will happen.
Many an economic system has ended since Revelation was written, and the Fall of the Roman Empire would seem to fit the prophecy pretty well.
One does not have to view it as being unprophetic to believe it has no predictive elements for our own age--unless one chooses to believe that prophecy is never fulfilled completely, and keeps fulfilling itself over and over. If that were the case, the church would be faithfully awaiting the next Messiah, as well as the second coming of Jesus.
Part of my problem with viewing it as the Key to (our) End Times is that there seems to be no evidence it was ever viewed that way for most of the history of the church--all these various interpretations and re-interpretations seem first to have burst on the scene in the 18th-19th century (and every few years someone comes up with a new one, giving rise to another wave of fascination).
--------------------
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
We do use parts of our body for identification, however -- fingerprints, eye scans, voice, etc. You can ditch a badge or remove a chip. You can't change your fingerprints.
I think the movement to eliminate cash is being driven by a number of factors, such as security, convenience, and reducing illegal activities and tax evasion. Honestly, though, I think those pale in comparison to the insatiable appetite for consumer data.
People worry about government surveillance, but corporations have invested far more money than any government to monitor our locations, our spending, our activities, our media choices, our relationships, with the sole goal of increasing their profits. Honestly, Big Brother's got nothing on corporations when it comes to knowing the most intimate details of our lives. If you use a drugstore loyalty card, "they" know how many condoms you go through in a year. If you pay by credit card at the liquor store, "they" know what and how much you drink.
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Niteowl
Hopeless Insomniac
# 15841
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
4. Applied across the board, it would be great for emergency evacuation/invacuation procedures when an attendance roll accurate up to the minute could be used. This doesn't really require RFID, as a good joined up system of tracking confirmed absences and movements in/out would (combined with class teachers doing a manual roll call) accomplish the same end, just a bit slower. The power of the RFID system there would be to identify any anomalies near-instantly, and also to account for senior students who may be present but not scheduled to be in any particular class at the time.
Reading this paragraph I couldn't help but think of all the school shootings here where manual roll call is tedious and doesn't really provide a means to track students who are missing and would also provide identification for students in critical condition and unconscious who are taken to hospitals before they have been identified or who have been disfigured to the point of making visual ID impossible. (6 year olds shot multiple times in the head with a military style weapon or disfigured in the event of a natural disaster) Should there be a natural disaster (earthquakes and tornados strike without warning in most cases) one needs to ascertain quickly who is is missing and RFID chips would provide that as well as identification for any found in a search.
As to Revelations, for some reason people have been obsessed in the last century with trying to tie everything in it to current events and in my lifetime I've heard several interpretations of the mark of the beast accompanied by an urgent "this is it". Hal Lindsey got way too much attention and was followed by too many who predicted we were in the end times and Jesus was going to come back by 1980, 1990, the new millennium, etc. The non believers have rightfully written most of it off as crazy - and as each decade comes and goes more Christians are finally writing it off. We need to live our lives as if Jesus is coming anytime, but the obsession with prophecies in Revelations is nuts.
--------------------
"love all, trust few, do wrong to no one"
Wm. Shakespeare
Posts: 2437 | From: U.S. | Registered: Aug 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
We already have electronic registers in school. So we know where every child is every lesson. If a child isn't in school, and we haven't been notified, an automatic text gets sent to their parents.
Not a big step to badges or cards imo.
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
Eutychus wrote:
quote:
Do you think these developments are just linked to Revelation by over-fertile 21st century minds in a tinfoil-hat
That's my take, 100%.
But it has to be said that every once in a while, the powers-that-be do something so seemingly calculated to confirm everything that Hal Lindsey and his ilk have been telling people, it beggars belief.
For instance, check out the seal of George W. Bush's Information Awareness Office. I suspect the only reason this didn't provoke more panic is because most of the people who would normally get their hackles up about something like that were big-time supporters of George W. Bush.
And just for fun, I did a google on "iao", and found this.
Wake up, sheeple!!
[ 09. January 2013, 18:24: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
We do use parts of our body for identification, however -- fingerprints, eye scans, voice, etc. You can ditch a badge or remove a chip. You can't change your fingerprints.
I think the movement to eliminate cash is being driven by a number of factors, such as security, convenience, and reducing illegal activities and tax evasion. Honestly, though, I think those pale in comparison to the insatiable appetite for consumer data.
People worry about government surveillance, but corporations have invested far more money than any government to monitor our locations, our spending, our activities, our media choices, our relationships, with the sole goal of increasing their profits. Honestly, Big Brother's got nothing on corporations when it comes to knowing the most intimate details of our lives. If you use a drugstore loyalty card, "they" know how many condoms you go through in a year. If you pay by credit card at the liquor store, "they" know what and how much you drink.
Exactly. We crossed this bridge long ago.
Our cellphones track our location. It's increasingly difficult to carry on modern life without them (though I know a few hold outs). They are linked to our credit cards, which are linked to our Social Security/Social Insurance/National ID#. Those are also used to catalogue our credit dossier which is checked (in the US at least) if you apply for a job or rent a flat.
It IS possible to live life "off the grid" but increasingly difficult. Those who scream "mark of the beast" now are about 30 years too late.
I don't, however, think the writer(s) of the Book of Revelation had this in mind though.
--------------------
"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Niteowl
Hopeless Insomniac
# 15841
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
We already have electronic registers in school. So we know where every child is every lesson. If a child isn't in school, and we haven't been notified, an automatic text gets sent to their parents.
Not a big step to badges or cards imo.
A natural disaster or a horrific mass shooting may render those nice orderly systems unusable, whereas handheld RFID readers will still operate. I'm not advocating using them just for regular attendance purposes.
As referenced above, in some respects parents have a somewhat better, but still faulty means of locating or ascertaining their child is ok in an emergency situation via the child's cell phone.
As to fingerprints or other identifiable body markings, in a fire or even a crushing injury, those also may not be visually discernable. This would merely be a back up system in disasters. Especially when time is of the essence.
[ 09. January 2013, 18:36: Message edited by: Niteowl ]
--------------------
"love all, trust few, do wrong to no one"
Wm. Shakespeare
Posts: 2437 | From: U.S. | Registered: Aug 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
|
Posted
A slight tangent--when I was trying to use Google as an aid to ancient memories, I discovered you can find some really scary sites if you google "Mark of the Beast".
--------------------
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
|
Posted
Posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
It seems to me that the fall of Babylon describes the end of an economic system, revelation does seem to hint at some kind of financial event.
The end of an economic system? Or the beginning of something new? Whether or not this sort of thing is connected to the Mark of the Beast, it already has a commercial home at Walt Disney World, along with Goofy, Pluto, Mr. and Ms. Mouse, and other assorted ... er ... beasts.
From the NY Times a couple of days ago:
At Disney Parks, a Bracelet Meant to Build Loyalty (and Sales)
[ 09. January 2013, 19:33: Message edited by: roybart ]
--------------------
"The consolations of the imaginary are not imaginary consolations."
-- Roger Scruton
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Saul the Apostle
Shipmate
# 13808
|
Posted
A couple of thoughts.
iris and fingerprint recognition is widely used today. Implants on or in the person are another thing altogether IMHO.
A lot of hot air has got talked about ''the beast'' of revelation etc etc etc. As many of us know who are from an evangelical background.
In the UK some legislation recently has been well meaning but knee jerk, things that aim to help avoid tragic shooting like Dunblane effectively stopped target pistol shooting in the UK dead (pistol shooters have to travel to france to practice these days). It was sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut IMHO.
Perhaps, and I realise any future scenario speculations can be dodgy, is a future series of awful major terrorist attacks. The government will surf on a tide of public revulsion (like 9/11) and then possibly harsh measures, including implant metrics could be introduced.
This is purely speculation. But if you look at post 9/11 and how we were willing to sacrifice the rule of law to achieve a ''result'', well, look what happened; torture, invasion, war, colossal spending of billions of £ and $, indiscriminate bombings of civilians the list could go on and here in the UK I believe we do not have a free press because if we did the Afghanistan war would be seen for what it is - a war of occupation and pseudo colonialism - IMHO.
So, who knows?
Saul
--------------------
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
Posts: 1772 | From: unsure | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
|
Posted
This again ? I had a friend who went squirrely evry time he saw a bar code that had 666 in it. I have listened to preachers who see manny things as 'the mark of the beast' try our social insurance numbers. By that standard I took it 44 years ago when I went to work.
I think it is more a metaphore that a real
mark. OK I know I well could be wrong but
over focusing on this can lead to mental damage . ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
--------------------
"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
Posts: 873 | From: Victoria B.C. Canada | Registered: May 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
I think (like many Biblical scholars) that the Mark of the Beast was a reference to Nero, not about using technology to possibly track control people.
Yeah, thing is, like Organ Builder, I'm of the "both and" school.
I don't think Revelation is solely historicist. I fully agree caution needs to be taken when interpreting it, witness the centuries' worth of now clearly batty takes on the book.
That said, we are now in a globalised world where apocalyptic phrases like "one third of the earth" or "the whole world" actually have a literal meaning we can grasp, and the great powers we see so luridly depicted in Revelation seem to be alive and well.
That's just the thing, though. Revelation is giving us insight into the structures of demonic (I use that word metaphorically here) power. It doesn't make sense to interpret it as having a symbolic meaning in its own day and a more literal meaning in ours.
Some of the symbolism re: the mark of the beast involves its placement on the hand/arm or forehead - right where a faithful Jew would place a tefillin, as a reminder of Torah. In other words, this mark is something that takes the place of God's covenant and commandment. So perhaps the author is talking about not being able to buy or sell unless you switch your loyalties from God to the gods of this world. THAT sounds pretty familiar. It would be highly unlikely, given the structures of demonic power we see in our world (as the Revelator also saw in his) that this would be something so easily identifiable as an object literally placed on or in one's body. The powers that be are much to insidious for that.
--------------------
I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
quote:
I had a friend who went squirrely evry time he saw a bar code that had 666 in it. I have listened to preachers who see manny things as 'the mark of the beast' try our social insurance numbers
You know how in horror-movies, ghosts are always sending urgent messages from the afterlife, which are incomplete and/or shrouded in mysterious symbolism? So the protagonists have to spend the whole movie trying to decipher the message upon which their life or death depends.
Some dispensationalists seem to think that's the way God gets messages to his followers. Instead of just describing bar-codes, ankle bracelets, social-insurance numbers etc, he describes it as a particular number, marked on the hand or forehead. I guess he thinks if you're not smart enough to figure out the puzzle, you don't deserve eternal life.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
What's your take? Do you think these developments are just linked to Revelation by over-fertile 21st century minds in a tinfoil-hat, Late Great Planet Earth sort of a way, or is there a case to be made?
Whilst I take your point - and also believe Revelation to be more than just historical - it would seem that taking the 'mark' has to have more than just physical consequences.
So whilst there may be some running in the many mini-antichrists theory, I don't think that having an RFID chip implanted is necessarily a denial of the Gospel.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
|
Posted
Having grown up in a denomination that had more than its fair share of Revelation-induced paranoia, I can say that my understanding of it was always that any sort of "mark" that would involve electronic identification would mean that if civil authorities ever chose to engage in widespread religious persecution, electronic IDs would make it very easy to single out people who were seen as "undesirables" and make it impossible for them to buy and sell.
Given our dependence on debit, credit, smartphones etc etc, I think we are probably there or nearly there already.
--------------------
Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
....Apparently they need to be tagged to track their attendance. Don't attendance registers and teachers do that? I appreciate that pupils can mitch off after registration, but even in the stone age we usually got rumbled pretty quickly when each class teacher took the roll. If we had absented, no-one was going to track us down - which is the only use I can think of for the radio tag. Is that how it's going to be used?
This is a trial of a system that might go authority wide. Could it possibly be that, since these schools collect central finance based on attendance levels, someone has woken up to the fact that schools might be less than accurate in the attendance figures they choose to submit?
--------------------
The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
Odd thought. One factor making it extremely difficult for most of us to live off the grid is population. The more people, the more resources need to be concentrated, the more efficient production needs to be. Technology is an outgrowth of population density. So, "be fruitful and multiply" is at odds with technological marks of the beast.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
I would have thought a resourceful child could just clip their ID to the inside of someone else's school bag and retrieve it later - if they wanted to bunk off.
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Could it possibly be that, since these schools collect central finance based on attendance levels, someone has woken up to the fact that schools might be less than accurate in the attendance figures they choose to submit?
Well, I kind of assumed that it was probably a mainly finance-driven thing, in the sense that either savings or gains of some sort were hoped to be made. And I think The Giant Cheeseburger makes some good points about selective tagging. Additionally, if authorities are anticipating that crisis situations in schools are to become common enough - or at least feared enough - to warrent tagging everyone for the purposes stated in another post then I suppose that's the way to go.
I'm just being an old reactionary. No doubt many parents would be very pleased and relieved to know that their kids are trackable in this way, once the child has been dropped off at school. And no doubt the addition of radio tagging need not mean a relaxation of personal responsibility and vigilance on the part of the school and staff/parents etc.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
|
Posted
Oh man I used to love all those 70's books about the rapture. Nothing beats a good Christian future apocalyptic horror story. Makes a lot of sense really. Freddy Kruger and Jason can only kill you once after all but God can allow eternal torment. (Settle down guys I mean in the context of these books ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif) ) It's like the authors allowed themselves to be as ghastly and graphic as they liked because they were going to scare people into the kingdom. Left behind has nothing on some of the older stuff. I still have some in a box somewhere and I even quoted some on the ship once in a very old thread. Something about the anti Christ’s plan for getting rid of rebellious church leaders. He had a load of bibles printed and used special exploding ink on one specific verse then forbade anyone to read that verse in church.
Some of the ways they tried to twist the already twisted revelations to fit modern day understanding was truly ingenious. Plagues of stinging locusts became troops with jet packs that spray horrific torture viruses onto the public. And sometimes the Antichrist himself would turn out to be a super computer. Has anyone seen any of the Thief in the night movies? The first one at least was often brought out at Christian revival missions and shown to the unsuspecting public at roughly the same time as The cross and the switch blade was. Ah good times.
http://religionandpolitics.org/2012/11/09/the-end-is-always-with-us-the-40th-anniversary-of-a-thief-in-the-night/
Warning: This is a horror movie review site. If you are still wondering what christian movies are doing on a horror site then check out the clips.
--------------------
C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
|
Posted
A musing of mine, probably not a very coherent one, but I'll do my best…
Electronic means of payment (card, smartphone, wire the money from your internet account etc.) are increasingly popular for certain kinds of transactions, especially since the downfall of the cheque.* The people who are excluded from them are generally on the vulnerable end of the spectrum - either because they are too poor, or too old, or both, to get hold of them. My 90 year-old Grandad, for instance, wouldn't recognise a smartphone if it waltzed up to him wearing a tutu and singing "I'm a smartphone". Unlike many people of his age, he's still got the overwhelming majority of his marbles, but still...
In large parts of the developing world, most people don't even have a bank account.
And I can imagine a nightmarish future world where people can't buy stuff they need, not because they have a religious objection to the means of payment, but because they're just too damn poor to get hold of them.
And the rich screwing the poor does seem to me to be quite a theme in the Bible.
*FWIW, cheques are still widely used in France
------------------------
Unrelated tangent:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
And sometimes the Antichrist himself would turn out to be a super computer.
That is a blockbusting Sci-fi novel someone needs to write. It sounds AWESOME (in a freaky sort of way).
--------------------
Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
George:
Thanks for the Thief In The Night blog link. I had my sadly belated first screening of that just a few months back, via You Tube.
And here are some extended exceprts from Al Hartley's Revelation comic There's A New World Coming.
Old Hal really hit a new low for misogyny with this panel...
"God's judgement is so poetic!!"
Blonde Guy really seems to be savouring that. Interesting how Lindsey and Hartley avoided making the traditional association between the Scarlet Woman and Roman Catholicism. Apparently, the Antichrist is going to form a political alliance with Astrology.
You can see a picture of the locust helicopters there as well.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
la vie en rouge wrote:
quote:
Unrelated tangent:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by George Spigot:
And sometimes the Antichrist himself would turn out to be a super computer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is a blockbusting Sci-fi novel someone needs to write. It sounds AWESOME (in a freaky sort of way).
I believe that's the idea behind This Perfect Day, one of the few Ira Levin novels that he didn't manage to pawn into a Hollywood film.
Though in that novel, they worshipped Christ, along with Karl Marx and a couple of other made-up guys.
[ 10. January 2013, 13:26: Message edited by: Stetson ]
--------------------
I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
And here are some extended exceprts from Al Hartley's Revelation comic There's A New World Coming.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Thanks for the comedy to get me through the rest of my working day!
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I would have thought a resourceful child could just clip their ID to the inside of someone else's school bag and retrieve it later - if they wanted to bunk off.
That's the least of it. Swap chips to cheat exams? Bullies steal cards from victims? The social engineering opportunities are endless.
As for the crazy idea that this would help in evacuation, well, that's crazy. Just think about it.
Also RFID is near-contact tech. You need something else to work at a distance. And if you have that, someone will hack it. Stalker's paradise. (As are mobile phones under some circumstances)
Embedded chips? So the mad shooter can find you hiding in the broom cupboard?
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
busyknitter
Shipmate
# 2501
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
1. Applied selectively, it would be a godsend for staff searching for a student with a low-functioning autism spectrum disorder who has bolted away while a classroom door was open and hidden somewhere. This happens often enough at schools which are forced into mainstreaming that it's worth considering.
[/QB]
As the parent of a low-functioning autistic kid, over my cold, dead body, no.
And what ken said.
Posts: 903 | From: The Wool Basket | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Starbug
Shipmate
# 15917
|
Posted
I remember those Thief in the Night films. I worked as a volunteer in a Christian video library and they were some of our most frequently borrowed tapes. I saw them several times and they freaked me out. 'Scaring people into the kingdom' is right - I can completely understand why they're mentioned on a horror movie site!
We also stocked videos by a preacher/teacher from New Zealand called Barry Smith. He made several tapes about the Mark of the Beast, a global financial collapse etc. He also talked about the New World Order and masonic symbols on the US dollar bills.
On one tape, he had a map of Washington DC, with certain streets highlighted to show how the masonic compass and other symbols had been deliberately designed into the grid system by members of the Order.
--------------------
“Oh the pointing again. They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?” ― The Day of the Doctor
Posts: 1189 | From: West of the New Forest | Registered: Sep 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
|
Posted
There are parents who insist on their kids having locator apps on their cellphones so that the parents know where the kids are at all times (knowing that the phone might as well be implanted on the kid!). So schools using similar techmology isn't a total surprise.
Just think how certain religionists could kepp their kids from mixing with the "wrong" religionists or any other undesirable social group. A guarantee of truly messed-up young adults out on their own in a strange (to them) world for the first time. Helicopter parents? More like killer-drone parents.
But the probability for the schools is that, as described above, the RFIDs would be misused/misplaced/misunderstood so often that they would be more trouble than they are worth UNLESS they are actually implanted or otherwise unremovable. THEN we have 1984.
--------------------
It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
deano
princess
# 12063
|
Posted
I don't understand why everyone is so bothered about the number 616.
It comes before 617, which is the "Dambusters" squadron number.
--------------------
"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Pages in this thread: 1 2
|
Contact us | Ship of Fools | Privacy statement
© Ship of Fools 2016
UBB.classicTM
6.5.0
|
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
