Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: The microchip is the mark of the beast
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Over on Evensong's Best introduction to Christianity thread, the conversation has got round to the mark of the beast. Beeswax Altar (presumably tongue firmly in cheek) affirmed: quote: The microchip is the mark of the beast. Receiving the microchip is to sacrifice your very soul.
and Evensong responded quote: How do people dream up this shit?
I'm surely not the only person to have heard this kind of thing from the platform more than once over the years.
It would seem I'm not the only one to have gone on to comfortably dismiss it as scaremongering paranoia and simplistic interpretation.
But perhaps I'm not the only one left with a niggling worry about it, too?
Since the dim distant past of my childhood when I first heard of this sort of thing, the technology to make this sort of thing happen has been developed and apparently used (albeit for location purposes not banking purposes).
Not only that, current generations seem to be a lot less chary about technology that tracks them in general. A combination of the internet of things, wearable technology and contactless payment seem to be making the prospect of implantable banking more culturally and technologically acceptable than it ever has been before.
Despite having of course "put away childish things", I find this convergence between technocratic control that can extend means of payment to something that's physically implanted into me worryingly similar to the picture painted in Revelation and the opposition between God and Mammon.
Beeswax Altar, Evensong, are you secure enough in your dismissal of these fundie paranoid scenarios to offer up which ever bit of you is convenient to receive a transaction-enabled chip, or would you have some reservations all the same? Would anyone else?
-------------------- 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
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
It never went away. Offering incense to the God-Emperor to go in to the agora has always been with us.
-------------------- Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Eutychus:
Beeswax Altar, Evensong, are you secure enough in your dismissal of these fundie paranoid scenarios to offer up which ever bit of you is convenient to receive a transaction-enabled chip, or would you have some reservations all the same? Would anyone else?
I would rather these be opposed on purely civic grounds rather than via some kind of end-times scare. Because it's worrying on a purely civic level - and the religious applications could always be gained via other means anyway (see Martin above).
Plus it's all rather otherworldly - if we got a definitive prophecy to say that technology X wouldn't be used by The Beast it still wouldn't mean that that technology wouldn't have problematic effects. (I'm being tongue in cheek here - especially as a lot of the dispensationalists I've seen espousing such theories are normally hang-em/flog-em types on a bunch of social issues).
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
|
Posted
I remember being taught this in my fundy days. As corroborative evidence it was pointed out that 666 is encoded into the type of barcodes that are most often used by retailers. There are two groups of six numbers and six lines that are longer than all the others.
I have to admit that if such technology did become mandatory, that would be the point where I say "Argh! The fundies are right after all." But I don't think it would ever become mandatory, simply because, fundamentalists aside, the idea is just icky.
-------------------- Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
For me, personally, there is something a little bathetic about thinking the Christian theory of salvation(at least for those on Earth post-rapture) boils down to whether or not you make the correct choice about getting a tatto/implant/whatever, especially given that people in those days will supposedly be facing starvation without the Mark.
The whole concept just seems like a bad game-show.
GOD: Ooohhh, I'm sorry, Contestant, but feeding your family does NOT justify receiving the Mark Of The Beast on your forehead. That incorrect answer sends you down to Hell for all eternity. Sorry, no consolation prizes tonight.
But, to answer your question...
If everything else were unfolding according to the pre-millenial script(ie. rapture, rise of antichrist-type leader, etc), then I would conclude that Hal LIndsey etc were correct. In that case, I MIGHT refuse the Mark, if I thought taking it meant eternal damnation. But I'd also likely conclude that God was a deranged sadist, and that going along with his wishes was the equivalent of going along with someone who puts a gun up to your head. Something I'd be doing simply to save my own hide.
Apart from The Late Great Planet Earth coming to pass as reality, no, I don't think I'd have any relgiious fears about taking a micrchip in my hand. Though as a confirmed neo-luddite who doesn't even have a credit card, I'd proabbly resist as long as possible.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
|
Posted
Isn't the mark of the beast more to do with things like having to use the emperor's coin? In order to function, you have to become complicit...
In that sense, microchips are irrelevant. All of us who carry a driving license or a bank card have succumbed...
-------------------- "Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
quote: originally posted by Eutychus: But perhaps I'm not the only one left with a niggling worry about it, too?
Your are not the only one.
quote: originally posted by Eutcychus: Beeswax Altar, Evensong, are you secure enough in your dismissal of these fundie paranoid scenarios to offer up which ever bit of you is convenient to receive a transaction-enabled chip, or would you have some reservations all the same?
I would have some reservations.
The interesting thing about Evensong's student is that she apparently got it backwards. Her sect taught that she was supposed to receive the microchip. So, come the tribulation, she and hers would receive the mark of the beast thinking it was what God wanted them to do. Sort of a Left Behind meets the Twilight Zone scenario. If God's going to rapture anybody, it will be those poor people. [ 18. May 2014, 18:23: Message edited by: Beeswax Altar ]
-------------------- Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible. -Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
We won't need a chip. We will all do it voluntarily, just like we all do today. I carry a tracker and so do most of you. It is called, among other things, a cell phone, smart phone, mobile, or handy. I suspect we will voluntarily carry other ubiquitous devices to enhance our comsumerist, brandname lives with out being voluntold to do so.
-------------------- Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. \_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
|
Posted
I confess to being very wary about the Cashless Society that is supposed to be just around the corner and is heralded as the ultimate desirable by some. I guess that has something to do with having worked for a while at the Royal Mint (making coins) - a cashless society would have meant that I was redundant.
But, essentially, I am wary of anything that can, potentially, give government that much control over the individual. In a cashless society, your purchasing power resides only on a computer or computers. Presumably such computers would, at very least, be subject to government scrutiny. How long would it be before government awarded itself the power to deprive certain 'undesirables' of their power to buy and sell? Easily achieved if all of your 'cash' only exists on computer. One press of a button, and you have no money - in perpetuity.
I wonder who the 'undesirables' would be?
Not that I am paranoid, you understand!
-------------------- If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Ricardus: I don't think it would ever become mandatory, simply because, fundamentalists aside, the idea is just icky.
I would have thought so too, but as no prophet points out, we already embrace tracking voluntarily, and this is just a question of degree/culture.
I remember reading that if attempts are made to impose tracking, they are shouted down as totalitarian, but if you sell them to people as a feature (like London's Oyster travelcard or Google Glass) people will embrace them wholeheartedly. My son, who is 23, is of the opinion that it's too late to worry about being monitored in this way so we might as well not resist - and I think he's one of the more recalcitrant of his generation.
To pick up on Garasu and Martin's points, the big thing about the whole Mark of the Beast idea is that it indicates a clear watershed, unlike Jesus' instruction to us to be "in but not of" the world: it seems to be the point at which the faithful should say "this is where I get off".
And I agree with Stetson that it does seem rather oddly material and arbitrary.
-------------------- 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
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
IME, fundies now are much more concerned with fluoride...
-------------------- Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
i think it'll be made clear when/where we need to get off. but as for general principles, I detest being trackable and not on religious grounds, but because I don't trust anybody to have that kind of power over me. I mean, what if some day they decide to get rid of all the English majors? blackberry pie fanciers? American Indians?
Why make things easier for the next empowered asshole to come along?
-------------------- Er, this is what I've been up to (book). Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
All of this, prophesied by Jesus, was fulfilled from Nero through Domitian during the Apostles' lifetimes. Whatever else John was doing, he was speaking in apocalyptic code of what was going on around him.
As Rob Bell asks, who are our Domitians, the Sons of God explicit up to Genghis Khan since the pharaohs? Who demands that we pledge and swear allegiance, oaths, non-disclosure agreements, official secrets acts?
-------------------- Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Ah but you see Martin I have a lot of sympathy for "both-and" eschatology, which I think I have derived from Roger Forster: I'm sure John was writing in code for his own time, but also think there have been successive fulfilments of the same sort of thing at work. Rather like contractions during childbirth à la Romans 8, it would not surprise me if these contractions ended up producing the Real Thing™ eventually.
It struck me some years ago now that while the global nature of the language in Revelation was originally figurative ("one quarter of the world was this/that/etc.") today it can make actual factual sense to talk in such terms.
-------------------- 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
|
|
Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Boogie: My beast has been implanted with a microchip
I was about to post the same thing!
-------------------- "...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe." ~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Eutychus: Ah but you see Martin I have a lot of sympathy for "both-and" eschatology, ...I'm sure John was writing in code for his own time, but also think there have been successive fulfilments of the same sort of thing at work. Rather like contractions during childbirth à la Romans 8, it would not surprise me if these contractions ended up producing the Real Thing™ eventually.
I have no idea if there is a specific ultimate beast, but there sure have been a lot of beasts along the way.
When I discovered the Book of Revelation I was all excited and exclaimed to Mom "there's going to be this beast and all these things happening" and she said "sit down let me tell you something." And then she talked about Hitler, unstoppable, tyrant, gobbling up countries, endless war. "We knew he was the beast, it was the end, our children would never grow up."
(TEC all her life, if that matters.)
She was right, wasn't she. Hitler was the beast. Pot Pol was the beast. Stalin, and so many more. 25 deadly dictators And many smaller scale beasts, like thousands of slave capturers/traders/abusers and sex slavers who were/are beasts to the extent their limited territory allowed/allows.
But if there is a 666 tattooed on the forehead or implanted in the arm, my ignorant reading says it's always a knowing intentional endorsement of a clear value system that anyone who even pretends to believe in a loving God says is wrong, deadly wrong, soul-destroyingly wrong, kill your neighbor's baby to feed to the pigs wrong.
It won't be a puzzling issue of "feeding my family is good so I guess I have to do it even though I'm a little disturbed about what it all means." That's just daily life on many jobs in the corporate world.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
|
Posted
I've obviously led a pleasantly sheltered orthodox existence.
What the hell are we talking about? Where are you lot getting these crazy ideas from? Which particular bit of Revelation implies these things?
-------------------- a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
No, Belle Ringer, no, Hitler and Stalin weren't Beasts. They were false Antichrists. The Beast and the Antichrist are two different things. The Beast is a Belgian supercomputer hence the microchip. The Antichrist is a person probably some charismatic European politician yet to be revealed. The false prophet is also a person probably Pope Francis or Joel Osteen.
-------------------- Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible. -Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Evensong: I've obviously led a pleasantly sheltered orthodox existence.
What the hell are we talking about? Where are you lot getting these crazy ideas from? Which particular bit of Revelation implies these things?
Ahem. quote: Originally posted by Beeswax Altar: The Beast is a Belgian supercomputer hence the microchip. The Antichrist is a person probably some charismatic European politician yet to be revealed. The false prophet is also a person probably Pope Francis or Joel Osteen.
-------------------- 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
|
|
churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Evensong: I've obviously led a pleasantly sheltered orthodox existence.
What the hell are we talking about? Where are you lot getting these crazy ideas from? Which particular bit of Revelation implies these things?
Revelation 13:11-18 (link is to NRSV)
The fact that you can't buy or sell without receiving the "mark of the beast" on your right hand or forehead is what has led to so many of these speculations. Also, the number (usually rendered as 666, but 616 in some Greek manuscripts) is what has made people nervous about new numbers issued by government or global entities, such as UPC codes and Social Security numbers.
You have to be some kind of literalist, though, to start making those connections.
Personally, I find it troubling when people start taking a whole book out of Scripture to be some kind of fortune-telling code book.
-------------------- I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by churchgeek:
Personally, I find it troubling when people start taking a whole book out of Scripture to be some kind of fortune-telling code book.
Especially when one considers what the bible says about fortune telling.
-------------------- 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
|
|
Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by churchgeek: Personally, I find it troubling when people start taking a whole book out of Scripture to be some kind of fortune-telling code book.
Exactly.
Thank-you Churchgeek.
-------------------- Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Beeswax Altar: No, Belle Ringer, no, Hitler and Stalin weren't Beasts. They were false Antichrists. The Beast and the Antichrist are two different things. The Beast is a Belgian supercomputer hence the microchip. The Antichrist is a person probably some charismatic European politician yet to be revealed. The false prophet is also a person probably Pope Francis or Joel Osteen.
Thank you for the enlightenment!
If Joel Osteen is the false prophet, the world is (relatively) safe - Texans never (voluntarily) leave Texas.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by churchgeek: You have to be some kind of literalist, though, to start making those connections.
Personally, I find it troubling when people start taking a whole book out of Scripture to be some kind of fortune-telling code book.
It's definitely the case that Revelation is a rich source of what might be termed literary pareidolia, with every generation finding something to read into it.
However, I'm not sure the underlying interpretation can be dismissed so easily. The themes of the global reach of materialism and dis/mis-information/propaganda seem pretty obvious to me in Revelation even if the two little lines at the beginning of barcodes do not mean "6".
-------------------- 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
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Evensong: I've obviously led a pleasantly sheltered orthodox existence.
What the hell are we talking about? Where are you lot getting these crazy ideas from? Which particular bit of Revelation implies these things?
This is the basic gist of it.
(Trigger warning: It's a Chick tract.)
More or less the same thing, with considerably better art.
(See previous warning)
There are also a lot of books, movies etc portraying the same thing, going back at least to Hal Lindsey in the 70s, and continuing to the Left Behind books of today.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
Oh, and from a somewhat less luntaic source...
Dispensationalism
-------------------- I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Dispensationalism (and with it, Chick tracts) assumes a pre-tribulation rapture. As far as I can tell this notion was introduced to the world by a seventeenth-century Jesuit. The idea that the Pope and/or the EU is the Antichrist (portrayed in these tracts) is popular with dispensationalists but not exclusive to that theology.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the historicist view (i.e. you think Revelation applies to its own time and nothing else).
Between those two poles lie a whole range of eschatological views in which the mark of the beast, Bablyon and such like require some explanation, not necessarily as lurid as Chick has it.
-------------------- 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
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
Eutychus wrote:
quote: The idea that the Pope and/or the EU is the Antichrist (portrayed in these tracts) is popular with dispensationalists but not exclusive to that theology.
I'm not an expert on these things, but I suspect that if you really did a thorough genealogical search, you would find a common ancestor shared by that variety of Dispensationalism, and general anti-EU sentiment as we know it today, albeit with the former being a sort-of warped, inbred cousin of the latter, more popular in the USA than the UK.
Catholics of hardcore Marian tendencies often hold to a similar interpretation of Revelation, though I believe without the anti-Europe paranoia. See the hoopla around the Secrets Of Fatima and other messages(which the church seems happy to quietly encourage, since it keeps a portion of the faithful in awe.)
quote: Between those two poles lie a whole range of eschatological views in which the mark of the beast, Bablyon and such like require some explanation, not necessarily as lurid as Chick has it.
Granted, but Evensong seemed curious about the more off-the-wall renditions, of which the Chick tracts serve as a representative example.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Eutychus: [QB] Dispensationalism (and with it, Chick tracts) assumes a pre-tribulation rapture. As far as I can tell this notion was introduced to the world by a seventeenth-century Jesuit. [QB]
I thought Jesuits were supposed to be smart.
[code] [ 19. May 2014, 18:06: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
-------------------- a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
|
Posted
by Eutychus; quote: Dispensationalism (and with it, Chick tracts) assumes a pre-tribulation rapture. As far as I can tell this notion was introduced to the world by a seventeenth-century Jesuit.
I thought that the Jesuit in question mainly produced an elaborate pre-millennial scheme. This came to the attention of Edward Irving, a Scottish Presbyterian who had become enthusiastic about the idea of an imminent Second Coming, also pre-millennial in opposition to the prevalent post- millennialism of the Church of Scotland at the time.
Irving's preaching led to the formation of many prophetic study groups. As I understand it, after a time they came up with an anomaly. They keenly believed in an 'any-minute-now' Second Coming, and were not willing to abandon or modify that idea; but their studies had shown quite a raft of unfulfilled prophecy - basically the Tribulation/Antichrist thing - which wouldn't fit in the Millennium after the Advent, but also wouldn't have time to happen before the Millennium if the Second Coming was going to be 'any-minute-now'.
What happened next isn't absolutely clear; but someone came up with a resolution to this dilemma whereby the Advent was not THE END but a coming 'for the Church' who would be removed to safety while non-believers would be 'left behind' (where have I heard that phrase recently?) to face the Tribulation etc. Also during this time the Jews would return to Israel, experience a mass conversion and rebuild the Jerusalem Temple (or possibly Temple first leading to the conversion) and only at the end of this seven year period would Jesus return WITH the Church to institute the earthly Millennium....
Brethren leader John Nelson Darby played a major role in developing this teaching before the split which led eventually to the Exclusive Brethren (Darby's party) and the Open Brethren. That's why in Britain at least the Brethren have been the major proponents of the theory. In the USA it became widely popular through its adoption by the annotated 'Scofield' Bible. Even the usually rational Francis Schaeffer adopted the view.
Those who started the ball rolling were expecting the Advent almost immediately - they would have been surprised that it hasn't happened yet nearly two centuries later!! Also by the logic of the original version those holding this view should have woken up in 1948 and thought "OH - Israel have now returned to the land; we must have been 'left behind'!!"
A useful source for the history is "The Puritan Hope" by Iain Murray, published by Banner of Truth in, I think, the 1970s.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Eutychus: I remember reading that if attempts are made to impose tracking, they are shouted down as totalitarian, but if you sell them to people as a feature (like London's Oyster travelcard or Google Glass) people will embrace them wholeheartedly.
With reference to the above, allow me to quote (not so extensively as to bother the hosts, hopefully), from Neil Postman's book 'Amusing Ourselves to Death" - a very prescient book, written before the internet...
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves...we had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another...Aldous Huxley's Brave New World...Orwell warns that we will overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think...Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance...
-------------------- The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Ricardus: I remember being taught this in my fundy days. As corroborative evidence it was pointed out that 666 is encoded into the type of barcodes that are most often used by retailers. There are two groups of six numbers and six lines that are longer than all the others.
At least some of the Athos monks see the Greek EEC enabling law (or is some legislation of the EEC itself?) as satanic; it involves 666 in its numbering.
-------------------- Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Even the usually rational Francis Schaeffer adopted the view.
He was a post-mil rather than a dispensationalist.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
|
Posted
I'm going by material in Schaeffer's book "25 Basic Bible Studies" which made me groan when I found it; I haven't got the book handy to re-check - and/or he may have changed in later life. I must check....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Steve Langton: I'm going by material in Schaeffer's book "25 Basic Bible Studies" which made me groan when I found it; I haven't got the book handy to re-check - and/or he may have changed in later life. I must check....
I think in earlier life he was a historic premillenialist, which is still different to being a dispensationalist.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
|
Posted
Like I said, I will check; but my library's a bit disorganised after a refurb of my flat. I don't think Schaeffer's views make much difference to the basic thread topic.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Starbug
Shipmate
# 15917
|
Posted
I used to volunteer in a Christian video library. We had a number of videos of the late Barry Smith, a preacher from New Zealand, who used to preach about the mark of the beast and the end times. He also said that both the Great Seal on the US dollar bills and the layout of the streets in Washington DC contained Freemasonry symbols. You can find some of his talks on YouTube, should you wish to look.
We also had a video series of films called 'A Thief in the Night', which I think were designed to terrify teenagers into the Kingdom. The acting was poor and the Seventies fashions were worse, but they were pretty scary - I recently found them mentioned on a fansite for horror films! I think these films were a precursor of the 'Left Behind' books.
-------------------- “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
|
|
Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
|
Posted
Hal Lindsey has a lot to answer for!!
My dad had all of his books, and I read "The Late Great Planet Earth" voraciously in 6th grade. It was so over the top in it's depictions of the end times that what pre-teen boy wouldn't love it? Of course, then I saw Star Wars...
Anyhow--I remember in the early 70s, The Common Market was going to be the Beast (once it added it's 12th country), and bar codes were to be his mark.
-------------------- Siegfried Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
That's brought memories back. I had some clients in the early 80s, who were, well, a little strange, and they used to shove pamphlets in my hand, denouncing the Common Market as the beast with ten heads. I don't remember anything about microchips, but probably Rome figured somewhere.
-------------------- I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
The not-so-funny thing about this religious paranoia is that it can cause real world harm. It could be (and has been) argued that recent data breeches could have been prevented if Americans weren't afraid Satan was lurking in the internet.
quote: “Bible prophecy” mythology is also why thieves were able to steal consumer data from 40 million Target customers this fall. That theft was easily preventable with the smart-card encryption used in most other countries, but we can’t use that technology here in America because the phrase “embeddable microchips” sends tens of millions of Americans off the deep end. It’s the Mark of the Beast!
Italics in original.
-------------------- Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
If Jesus can live in your heart, I am sure the furnishings and plumbing are comfortable enough for any Devils who we would open the door to.
Somewhere is an angel weeping, holding out a bloody sword. No matter how hard we look we cannot see it's pointing towards. (paraphase of Bruce Cockburn)
-------------------- Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. \_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
The obsession with signs and portents and defining them is unnecessary. If the Devil exists as you fear, the moment your comfort becomes more important than the suffering of others, you've inked the contract in your heart.
-------------------- 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
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by quetzalcoatl: That's brought memories back. I had some clients in the early 80s, who were, well, a little strange, and they used to shove pamphlets in my hand, denouncing the Common Market as the beast with ten heads. I don't remember anything about microchips, but probably Rome figured somewhere.
No, the microchip thing came later. The urban legend about the Belgian supercomputer known as the beast was already prevalent in the 80's. A microchip becoming the mark of the beast was inevitable.
-------------------- Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible. -Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
And the end and middle delimiters in bar codes are NOT 6 6 6.
-------------------- Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Beeswax Altar: The urban legend about the Belgian supercomputer known as the beast was already prevalent in the 80's.
Shucks, I've been admiring your wit because I thought YOU made up that computer! (I'll just have to admire you for different reasons.) Hate to see I missed an important interpretation of the endtimes stuff!
I re-read Late Great Planet Earth last year, really interesting to read it remembering how entranced I was with it back then, and seeing how it has turned out so far. How does he avoid being dismissed by his followers as nonsense spouter? Do they like the drama more than they care if it's true? I mean, fool me once, sure, but...fool me again and again?
My biggest objection these days to end of the world timetables is - so what? I don't hear in the lectures any indication of how this stuff applies to our lives today, right now. Isn't Christianity about living right now in God-reflecting ways? Not just about some future "we" supposedly won't experience anyway because of the suppose rapture?
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
Hal Lindsey just keeps on predicting the end of the world. The last time I remember seeing him was in 1999. Y2K thing was going to cause an accidental nuclear war. It didn't.
-------------------- Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible. -Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
|
Posted
Eutychus wrote:
quote: And I agree with Stetson that it does seem rather oddly material and arbitrary.
From reading I've been doing, it seems that the Tribulation Saints(ie. people who accept Christ AFTER the Rapture and refuse the mark) are allowed to ask God to inflict revenge upon their persecuters, even though that is forbidden to regular Christians.
I guess converting after the Rapture is the equivalent of taking your underaged girlfriend to a motel across the state line.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
|
Posted
Didn't know that.
I'll keep it in mind just in case I miss the rapture and get left behind.
-------------------- Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible. -Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote: Originally posted by Beeswax Altar: Hal Lindsey just keeps on predicting the end of the world. The last time I remember seeing him was in 1999. Y2K thing was going to cause an accidental nuclear war. It didn't.
On a related note, despite the fact that it's no longer in print (for some reason) you can still get copies of Lindsey's The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon really cheap.
-------------------- Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|