666 chip? Why a Texas student thinks her school ID is the "Mark of the Beast"

The theology behind a battle over RFID tags.

Read the whole story

 

[Koshchei]

This girl's privacy concerns are legitimate, and as tax-payers, her parents might want to ask the local school-board why they chose to spend a fortune on the electronic equivalent of punch clocks rather than textbooks or other supplies that might have had a direct benefit on the quality of the education that their child is receiving.

Or so my thinking went, until I reached the antichrist/bat-shit crazy fundamentalist part of the article. I have since reconsidered, and come to the following conclusion: I hope that Texas secedes. This way, both problems are solved.

 

[Koshchei]

Quick question for the minister that posted earlier, the author, or anybody else with a theological background -

I thought that Revelations was written in an oriental rather than occidental style - that is eastern symbology rather than western literalism. If that is the case, then wouldn't it be much more reasonable for the relevant verses to be concerned with a persons thoughts/motivations (forehead) and deeds (right hand) than the actual placement of the demonstrated embrace of the antichrist-figure?

Edward Said would be justified in smacking you if he wasn't dead.

That out of the way, you forgot option d: Dismiss lunatic ravings about the end of the world as the irrational rubbish that they are and get on with your life.

 

[Koshchei]

I'm sure he'd think he was, but I'd disagree. I may not be well versed enough in all writings from around the world, but from the religious literature I've read, both historic and modern, I see what I believe is a tendency toward Orientalism in the sense that descriptions are not intended to be literal, but rather focus on imagery and feeling, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, etc. This stands in contrast to the more Occidental literalism that a lot of preachers, especially in the US, especially in the stereotypical South, ascribe to the those scriptures. I find it much more reasonable to believe that famine would cover the earth through political, farming, and environmental conditions than as a result of some dude riding Black Beauty.

I'd comment on option d, but I can't tell what I set out as options a,b,and c.

My point about Said was that the whole concept of "orient" and "occident" is utterly absurd; the "orient" is a construct created by Western imperialist powers, dating back to John Mandeville (or Herodotus depending on whether or not you have a classics background), to give us an "other" to civilize. If you toss aside your false dichotomy and actually look at eastern cultures, you'll see that western countries are as similar to them as they are to one another; they're populated by humans who believe stuff. Other than that, they have their own unique cultural and political histories, languages, and beliefs.

To that point, there's plenty of historical precedent, even modern, describing the effects of literalism creating poorly thought-out national policy, an example being China's Great Leap Forward, in which between 18 and 45 million people starved to death.