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

 

[integr8d]

"which the district instituted in order to better recover its daily per-pupil funding from the state of Texas"

That's reason alone to fight this.

 

[spazzblaster]

The world must be a really exciting place when you're as dumb as a post.

 

[brokensyntax]

(Note: This isn't likely to be seen or responded to by anyone, however I will continue)
I have one main issue with this article, the same issue I have with every other article I've read about this case, they continuously refer to RFID as a "Tracking Technology", but as the name implies (Radio Frequenced IDentification) this is an IDentification technology, NOT a Tracking technology. It does not use celemetry/telematics to dial home, it does not send out a homing or tacking signal, it is not linked into a network of long-range sensors and satellite uplinks.

RFID emits a low power, low range signal which uniquely identifies the encoded tag. While a sensor network may be deployed to detect where a chip has been, it is not an active signal of where it is going, at what speed, in which direction etc. It is no more a tracking technology than CCTV is. If we're smart, have a well-laid CCTV architecture, and know where each of our cameras are, we can manually hop from screen to screen as a 'target' enters or exits a given field of coverage.

Additionally it is exceptionally simple to either block or disable an RFID chip. Simply apply a small "zap" in the microwave, or a little (please avoid the foil-hat comments) aluminum foil: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to- ... -RFID-tag/

It's known that such foils reflect radio frequency transmissions, and with the relatively weak signal of RFID, it is easy to eschew it's overall ability to be read. For more details do google searchs on "HOPE Conference" and "DEFCON" +RFID.

tldr; Not a tracking technology, please stop calling it such.

If the chip was going to be more reliable than a teacher looking around and taking role, perhaps there would be a reason to support it in this use, however when I can give you my chip and still be 'at school', we're just wasting money on technology that is offering no advantage.

The issue is that the laws in Texas stipulate that the student must be on campus, NOT in class, a teacher can only account for the students whom they see and count present for. This way they automate the task of saying "666 Students attended the school between the hours of 7am and 8am, which quickly ramped up to our full student capacity of 2000+ by 9am bell." (or insert any other time of day you wish.)

 

[spazzblaster]

"to be marked on the right hand or the forehead"

ON the hand or forehead, not in a card you carry with you, not injected INTO your hand or forehead, but ON your hand or forehead.

If you're going to take this retarded shit literally, then take it LITERALLY. This should be kicked out of court for that reason alone. The day they ask to paste the chip ONTO her right-hand or forehead is the day she has a case.

 

[spazzblaster]

overall we plan to wait until they are older and then we will teach them about many different religions and let them make an informed decision. If they want to start going to church, that's fine. If they decide another religion (or no religion) is the answer, that's cool too.

BRAVO!

That exactly how we're doing it with our children, wait until they're older, provide them with all the information, and let them make up their own minds.

 

[spazzblaster]

I think this article takes a stance right from the start, at the headline, that this is a joke...

very perceptive

This article, and many of the comments as well, seem to mock this idea as though this person is over-reacting and/or suggest that this family is a bunch of demon-fearing bible thumpers with no reasonable stance on rights.

Religion aside...

Religion cannot be put aside as they made it the basis for their argument, not privacy concerns which would have been appropriate and understandable.

I commend these people for having the balls to stand up for their rights.

What rights? The right not to be 'marked by the beast'?

 

[Simos]

People should go to school for education. The most important thing should be the teachers and the students.
A school using tag devices on students of which some fear the mark?

 

[spazzblaster]

"The Mark" containing the chip will either be engineered by man and or aliens..

Aliens! Please let it be aliens!

That's the point of movies like Twilight (Bella wanting to be a vampire) and superhero movies in general... To instill within the fallen human heart a desire for immortality, thus prepping them for a day when they'll leap for joy at the chance to obtain it in their own way without God...

Immortality: The ability to live forever, an immunity from death.

Sorry to rain on your crazy parade but neither vampires or superheros are immortal.

BUT, I do agree with you that the Twilight series is a tool of the devil.

 

[farm3r]

Two things I wanted to comment on:

1. It seems that the protest is missing the point entirely. The issue for me is quite secular, I don't see enough justification for using RFID tags to track schoolchildren, especially when they and their parents do not want them to be tracked, even if it is only in the school grounds, and even if it is because they believe in supernatural beings.

2. Since I was a kid in very conservative Greece I had heard of all sorts of things from nutcases talking about the number of the beast and connecting it to all sorts of unrelated things such as the EU open border policy, to the extent that when I was about 6 I was really afraid to dial 666 (which of course I did and nothing happened ). One thing I still do not understand though and this may be the right place to find an answer: does the fact that the most common barcode format encoding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_ ... e#Encoding
has as a beginning, middle and end a symbol that coincides with the right encoding of 6, a coincidence or someone having a laugh at the fearful Christians expense?

 

[spazzblaster]

To everyone saying "hope they don't have a cell phone, driver's license, etc", either you haven't analyzed the situation in depth, or you're being facetious.

A cell phone is a choice. Sure, it tracks where I go, but if I think that <insert evil wireless carrier> might disclose my location to the evil anti-christ government, then I can choose not to carry a cell phone. Or buy a tracfone with cash. No one will put me in jail for not carrying a cell phone, or not allow me to shop at <insert grocery store>. Life might be a little bit less convenient, but not insane. Heck, I drove all over North America (approx 10,000 km) in 3 weeks in 1998 with just a road atlas, some $US, my (at the time) Canadian credit cards and no cell phone. Nothing bad happened. People were quite friendly. Figuring out which road to take was FUN. I didn't stress over not having a GPS (although it's nice to have when travelling) because I wasn't in a hurry. Pay phones rocked. I can't imagine how much AT&T has raised their profit margin by getting everyone to buy cell phones and discontinuing pay phones.

If I suspect my Amex smart card is ratting me out, I can switch to any number of Visa/Mastercard/Discover cards, or none at all and carry good old greenback and write checks. Less convenient than carrying plastic (or NFC), but I still see people writing checks at the grocery checkout or paying in cash without being looked at as strange - here in Silicon Valley.

Again, a driver's license is a choice. I can let it expire, not carry it, use my birth certificate as ID, etc. And a DL is not trackable, nor required by law. In many European countries, people don't even need them that much due to good public transit - something I wish North America was better at.

As I mentioned above - I carry what I assume is an RFID badge for work. I don't need it if I work from home via citrix. Or, I can probably still find a job that doesn't require one, if I'm really paranoid. My SSN is not tattooed onto my forearm. I've switched citizenship already once in my life, and it may easily happen again.

A school REQUIRING students to carry an RFID tag or to not be allowed to attend is quite something else. Especially when implantation is such a logical next step to them being lost, etc..

As with choosing not to drive with the driver's license, there is always the option of a different school or home-schooling. See, it's a choice, just like you said.

 

[spazzblaster]

Page after page filled with hate over a topic you liberal naysayers don't even believe in.

I don't think you have to be 'liberal' to naysay that the girl isn't actually being "marked by the beast" by being made to carry an id card.

Amazingly, you'll hate the typical Christian...

This girl IS NOT the typical Christian and YOU are the one who is insulting the typical Christian by suggesting that she is.

...but fight tooth and nail to keep the serial killer out of the electric chair, then you chant words like 'progress' and 'forward'.

Ya, okay. I'm liberal and I've never done any of these things, but keep creating your little, comfortable fantasy world if that's what makes you feel good.

You people are venomous an vile in the very ways you time and again denounce in others.

Yes, insult us, but don't you dare pick on the girl who thinks her id card is inhabited by demons!

 

[Deleted member 192806]

Immortality: The ability to live forever, an immunity from death.

Sorry to rain on your crazy parade but neither vampires or superheros are immortal.

 

[ARSBodger]

OK. Let's play fair with the girl for the rest of her life. If being assigned a number is offending her religious convictions then she may never have a SSN, or driver's license, or healthcare, or a library card, or legitimate job,or voter registration, or...

I figure that these sensible precautions will allow evolution to move one tiny bit forward and improve the overall intelligence of the species.

 

[katorga]

The religion aspect is pointless. This should be opposed on any and all possible grounds by any self-respecting teen. Personally, I'd choose the religious argument simply because it will infuriate secular school administrators and drive them crazy, increasing my enjoyment at the mayhem I cause.

Seriously, as bad as US schools are, they are wasting money on this sort of drivel?

 

[Creepy_86]

Great article. I really hate the whole idea of forcing kids to carry RFID chips. If my school had done that I would have just packed my own lunch and pretended to "lose" my id card all the time. Just because they're kids doesn't mean we ought to treat them like cattle... That said, I love the RFID chip in my "disabled: no fare" bus pass. Now that I think about it, RFID doesn't seem as creepy as the gps phones that parents use to track all of their kids' movements, or how facebook records every conversation you ever have and turns it directly over to the government. Is the "CE" designation supposed to accomplish something other than promoting confusion?

 

[ewelch]

Sorry, I can't just up arrow this. Being rather non-religious I honestly can't say I've seen this angle from your particular viewpoint personally. Thanks. I appreciate and sincerely thank you for this well reasoned and insightful post.

So, even though it's insightful and well reasoned, you can't up arrow it because he's religious and you aren't? Isn't that awfully similar to the problem this article addresses in the first place? The inability to admit someone you disagree with might not be evil, or have some hidden agenda that agreeing with them brings some taint that marks you for life?

 

[Arnould5634]

I really like ARS Technica for their indepth articles about technology, but this article was not up to their usual quality.

The authors are obviously biased against fundamental, evangelical Christians.

They start out talking about some movies from the 70's. This is how they research theology? Movies??

Then they jump to the 12th chapter of the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is a bit hard to understand, especially when you haven't read the other books of the Bible and your just jumping around it to prove your point

Then they start talking about the number 666 itself. I find it interesting that when they began by talking about the movies from the 70's that they kind of painted these beliefs as something very recent, but then when they get to talking about the number 666, they talk about how the number has pervaded popular culture through the centuries. So which is it?

Then they go on about what most Bible scholars today think, but never give a name or reference to these scholars. If you do any research, you will find that Bible scholars have a huge range of views about the Bible. Some are very liberal, some are very conservative. So you can support your argument by just picking the right scholar.

So are RFID chips the mark of the beast? I don't know. I do know these did a crappy job explaining the theology behind it.

This article is like the many articles that I have read from Android fanboy authors when they write about Apple, or Apple fanboy authors when they write about Android. It's all biased garbage, that you have to sort through to get to the truth.

This article was really pathetic, and very disrespectful and falls short of ARS Technica's usual standards of writing.

 

[Arnould5634]

I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. From what I can recall from Revelations, the order in which this stuff is supposed to go down is the Rapture, then the Antichrist appearing, and THEN the whole Mark of the Beast thing getting applied, correct? If that's true, then why are these people who believe in this so concerned about the Mark now? Do they think the Rapture already happened, and they missed the beam out? Because if it hasn't happened yet, then the Antichrist hasn't appeared yet, and that means that the Mark of the Beast hasn't been introduced.

At the very least, these people should be concerned about continuity errors.

Good question. It depends on your interpretation of Revelation. Some people believe in "pre-tribulation", which means the rapture happens first, so they miss the 7 years of tribulation. Some people believe "mid-tribulation" which means the rapture happens during the tribulation, and then some people believe in "post-tribulation".

 

[Arnould5634]

This article, and many of the comments as well, seem to mock this idea as though this person is over-reacting and/or suggest that this family is a bunch of demon-fearing bible thumpers with no reasonable stance on rights.

Religion aside...

Religion cannot be put aside as they made it the basis for their argument, not privacy concerns which would have been appropriate and understandable.
[/quote]

So let me get this straight.... It's OK to be against this for privacy concerns, but it's not "appropriate and understandable" to be against this for religious reasons.

Can I ask a question? Who made up these rules? You?

It's perfectly fine to be against this for privacy concerns as well as religious concerns. They are both valid beliefs.

 

[Arnould5634]

What I really appreciate about this article, is that the authors present the facts on the subject matter as they are, without offering up their own personal opinions disguised as independent analysis about this or that, and further present the article without a condescending attitude toward those who believe any of the 666 / Beast beliefs. To top it off, the authors present several resources for a readers' further research on the topic, all of which say to the reader, "here are the facts", the "reader must come to his or her own conclusion or not at all". Thank you Nate and Eric.

I don't think you understand the word "biased". I suggest that you Google the definition. Here is what I found when I did: (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/biased): having or showing bias or prejudice: They gave us a biased report on immigration trends.

Just because you agree with what the authors said doesn't mean that they weren't biased when they said it.

 

[Anticrawl]

I thought the mark of the beast was 616?

 

[dabble53]

I assume she does not, and will not, drive - since that would require a DL number.
Oh, and her parents cannot claim her as a dependent as that requires a SSN for her.
And she has not bank accounts (requiring a SSN AND an account number.)
And she has no phones (more numbers)
And the list goes on....

 

[johnbramhall]

One thing I still do not understand though and this may be the right place to find an answer: does the fact that the most common barcode format encoding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_ ... e#Encoding
has as a beginning, middle and end a symbol that coincides with the right encoding of 6, a coincidence or someone having a laugh at the fearful Christians expense?

I'm not sure this is true, the right encode 6 has a leading space, the #6 right encode does not.

 

[Mydrrin]

I haven't studied Josephus in depth, but my understanding has been that the scholarly consensus is that it is not a later addition. That comes second hand, though. (For the record, that second-hand source is not religious and neither am I, and I haven't done any direct or indirect research on Josephus. Just what I've heard in conversation with someone who tends to be interested in stuff like this.)

Most importantly, there would have been no need to invent someone who experienced the life that Jesus did. There were plenty of itinerant preachers in Judea at the time, preaching the end-times and salvation, building up small followings while pissing off the Sanhedrin enough to get themselves martyred in one way or the other.

I think of two basic possibilities for a development of a sect like Christianity at that time:

(1) The gospels are generally right about his disciples spreading his word and the subsequent role of Paul. From a historical perspective, there's really nothing about that basic story that seems implausible (putting aside the supernatural parts, that is). Preacher is martyred. His closest disciples continue spreading his philosophy. Someone more energetic than those disciples latches on, makes some key changes making the theology more palatable to a wider group of people (especially dropping the Judaism requirement), and spreads the news far and wide.

(2) Someone completely unrelated to Jesus latched on to a true (or partially true) story which is circulating around Judea about this preacher persecuted by the Sanhedrin and crucified by the Romans and used it as a basis for spreading his own beliefs. Interestingly, if one believes a guy named Paul really played a huge role in spreading christianity in the mid-1st-century, then maybe you don't need the disciples. Maybe you just need a guy like Paul, who knew a story of a guy crucified by the Romans at the behest of the Sanhedrin, but made up all the other stuff.

Just seems like you wouldn't have needed to make up a character like Jesus. You would have only needed to make up a bunch of stuff around a recent (but real) person that people might have heard a story or two about. It just seems way more likely to me. Having said that, that might leave you with a guy named Jesus that was a preacher and was crucified by the Romans. He might not have been from Nazareth, might not have preached anything similar to what it says in the gospels, etc.

Josephus was a pragmatic man who worked for Vespasian who became emperor during the Great Revolt or First Jewish War. "The Jewish War" written just after the uprising in 78AD. It was a bit of propaganda showing the new emperor in a good light as both severe and forgiving. The Antiquities of the Jews was about the history of the Jews written about 15 years after The Jewish War, both were supported by the emperor. Josephus has a very good pension that made him well off. Both told of how Jews and Romans could live together, derision upon splinter groups which is very odd why the Jesus section is so positive, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/284 ... 182HCH0003, read the before passages and the after passages in Chapter 3 and view them if they make more sense of flow without the Jesus passage.

"3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, 9 those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; 10 as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

It is quite odd. Some people believe that there is a grain of truth in there, that it was a modified passage but reading the before and after it is hard to understand what it could be. Most likely added by a clergyman in the 5th century, I can't seem to find his name right now. There are many documents we have that were authored before the 5th century that reference Antiquities with regard to Christian history that one would thing this passage would be great for, but it's lack is telling.

One has to understand the estimated time of writing of Mark. This was a brutal, absolutely brutal time for the Jews. If Josephus is correct 1.1 million people died in the siege of Jerusalem. The population of Judea at the time was 3-4 million. A third to half the people died during this time. The roman punishment for rebellion is crucifixion, nearly everyone would have known someone that would have been crucified. Jewish faith would have been severely under pressure, angst would be high. Everyone would have loved ones that had been killed. Mark paints a nice time before and a comment about how the walls will fall about Jerusalem and dies in a crucifixion.

There is sayings of Jesus and a Q manuscript, stuff like this to puzzle over. Did a Jesus live? Sure, makes sense. Did he die of crucification after performing miracles and come back from the dead? Nah, doesn't make sense. Got to go here.

 

[Shannara]

When you mix fiction with reality, you get people like her kind. Stay far away from them.

 

[Deleted member 1]

Thank you, Nate and Eric, for a very non-biased, cool-headed explanation of the book of Revelation and the Mark of the Beast.

Commendations!

 

[cheerleone]

When forced to use such devices, microwave them repeatedly. When they're too costly / inconvenient to continue to use, they'll stop.

 

[aidanjt]

The whole RFID nonsense is simply unethical, and likely unconstitutional. No religious nuttery required.

 

[carcharoth]

i dont care what your religious persuasion, i hate the idea of tagging and tracking

 

[adronbudows]

Only crazy Christians every get press (and most are crazy!). I am a Christian (and relativity Conservative to Christian Community.) but it seems that all my "Christian" friends are crazy. My parent's taught me to think, and wait for actual persecution before throwing an actual fit.

I come from a denomination that really cares about the End of Times, but I doubt that many of the leaders would think the mark of the best was a RFID enabled school badge. Personally I think that the mark of the beast isn't an RFID chip at all, Imagine whacking your head on the card reader to buy something!

 

[paintersforms]

RFID is short range and only readable by close contact with a reader to energize the chip. It basically just lets the school make an attendance count automatically and do basic tracking of where on the premises a student is. If its isolated to the school premises, they have the right to do what they want. Don't like it, tough nuts. The religous angle is nothing more than a tool to scare the school into abandoning RFID or allowing opt outs. These paranoid idiots who oppose RFID generally don't understand the technology and think Big Brother can pinpoint you anywhere on the globe. RFID is NOT GPS. Guess what folks, NOBODY cares about you or what you do. If they do, its either to make money by selling you crap, or you're probably on the run from the law. Its not like there's thousands of government agents sitting at computers and on a whim wanting to see what Sally is up to. Hell, you can pretty much already do that yourself. It's called Twitter and Facebook.

Depends. If this a public school, paid for with public funds, they don't have much right to do whatever they want. Private school, yes, but then you can just transfer out if you have a problem with what they're doing. As far as being tracked with RFID, for me it's the principle of this student not having control over her privacy more than it's a concern that someone is actually doing something nefarious with the info. I will say that the potential for abuse is cause enough for me to be against this sort of thing, weighed against the benefit, which seems to be the district getting all the public funds it can.

To say it's a matter of religious liberty turns a lot of people off, but think of it as a matter of conscience (which is all religious liberty is), and it seems a lot more reasonable.

This is the sort of thing that divides the public on issues where we should all have common cause. We end up screwing ourselves to the benefit of those who would screw us.

 

[carcharoth]

I assume she does not, and will not, drive - since that would require a DL number.
Oh, and her parents cannot claim her as a dependent as that requires a SSN for her.
And she has not bank accounts (requiring a SSN AND an account number.)
And she has no phones (more numbers)
And the list goes on....

numbers?

thats not what its about at all man, you dont have to agree with what she says but you DO have to understand it enough to try and refute it.

 

[Curly4]

Here is a total misunderstanding of what the mark of the beast is. For one thing it is not any physical thing. It is an idea. A belief. Something that takes the place of God. Now the placement of the mark has significance also. It will be in the hand or forehead. If it is in the hand the person will except because of the consequence if it is not accepted and therefore will submit to its requirement. In the forehead means that the person agrees with the mark (what ever it is) and fully support it.
When the mark come those who receive will not realize that they have it even though the consequence of not receiving it will be caused to be put to death.

 

[CenterLess]

The Mark in the story image is on the left hand. Deliberate?

Probably. Everyone knows that left handed people are the third most evil people in the world.

They're very sinister.

So the 2nd would be . . . ? I know gingers are the 1st cause that Southpark is really educational and completely true. Really.

 

[Titanium Dragon]

She is entitled to her beliefs, its a recognized religion based belief. Freedom of religion also includes protection against things that infringe upon or burden the practice of religion. It does not matter how many people write what ever explaining this or that, it does not matter how many people think she is right or wrong, its her belief and her practice of it is protected by the Constitution.

I forget where its at right now, but there was a case at one point I read about a while back, not dealing specifically with this matter, but something in a federal circuit court I think, where it was ruled the law, and any entitiy local, state, or federal may not burden the free exercise of religion simply for matters of convenience or accommodation. The school wants to do it to get money, thats a matter of convenience or accommodation for the school.

It actually depends on the principle of REASONABLE accommodation. In other words, if you could do it in a different way for that person, and it wouldn't cost an exorbinant amount of money, you do it. But if it DOES, then you don't have to, as long as the purpose in establishing the rule was not to oppress people's religious beliefs.

Moreover, you can argue that something is a mental health issue, and its pretty arguable in this case.

Remember - religious freedom does not give you the freedom to put undue burden upon others, nor does it exempt you from the law. Your religious beliefs don't protect you from having your picture taken, or your voice recorded, or from the need for photo ID or to pay taxes. If your religion believes that four is an evil number, everywhere doesn't have to have five steps instead of four.

My father-in-law, who is a Christian minister, thinks that the author of Revelation was high as a kite and crazy.

I'm pretty sure most educated Christians have similar beliefs.

A school REQUIRING students to carry an RFID tag or to not be allowed to attend is quite something else. Especially when implantation is such a logical next step to them being lost, etc..

Its pretty difficult to require people to have things implanted, but it could easily be done out of convenience.

It doesn't really change the crazy though.

I agree with you that it makes the most sense that Jesus existed. You would not invent that guy in the Gospels if you just wanted to promote Essene theology. And he is too different in his approach even from what you see in the later books of the New Testament to make much sense as a pure fiction. That's not to say everything in there is accurate, of course.

I have heard it argued that the strongest evidence for him existing is the "let he who is without sin throw the first stone" story, as well as the fable of the Good Samaritian, as both would have greatly annoyed the Jews that his followers were trying to convert.

That doesn't necessarily mean he is a historical figure, however, and its very probable that at least some of the Jesus stories are actually stories of John the Baptist which were reattributed to Jesus.

For the people predicting doom and gloom about forcing RFID implants as the next step; a student can't even be compelled to get vaccinations in the interests of public health.

This is soley because some idiots did that. We should require it unless there is a medical exemption. Period.

Additionally it is exceptionally simple to either block or disable an RFID chip. Simply apply a small "zap" in the microwave, or a little (please avoid the foil-hat comments) aluminum foil: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to- ... -RFID-tag/

Destroying government/school property is illegal, so zapping it in the microwave would be bad.

overall we plan to wait until they are older and then we will teach them about many different religions and let them make an informed decision. If they want to start going to church, that's fine. If they decide another religion (or no religion) is the answer, that's cool too.

Nothing destroys religiousity like all of the mythologies, old and new, being presented at once :3

1. It seems that the protest is missing the point entirely. The issue for me is quite secular, I don't see enough justification for using RFID tags to track schoolchildren, especially when they and their parents do not want them to be tracked, even if it is only in the school grounds, and even if it is because they believe in supernatural beings.

The right thing for the wrong reasons isn't right. And I disagree that it is actually right.

2. Since I was a kid in very conservative Greece I had heard of all sorts of things from nutcases talking about the number of the beast and connecting it to all sorts of unrelated things such as the EU open border policy, to the extent that when I was about 6 I was really afraid to dial 666 (which of course I did and nothing happened ). One thing I still do not understand though and this may be the right place to find an answer: does the fact that the most common barcode format encoding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_ ... e#Encoding
has as a beginning, middle and end a symbol that coincides with the right encoding of 6, a coincidence or someone having a laugh at the fearful Christians expense?

Those aren't 6s, they're guard bars.

The authors are obviously biased against fundamental, evangelical Christians.

Reality is biased against these people, because they are, in fact, crazy. Period. So you know, depicting their craziness isn't bias. Its reality.

So let me get this straight.... It's OK to be against this for privacy concerns, but it's not "appropriate and understandable" to be against this for religious reasons.

Being nuts is never really helpful.

I thought the mark of the beast was 616?

Possibly. Its believed to be a coded reference to Nero (or Neron) in either case.

So the 2nd would be . . . ? I know gingers are the 1st cause that Southpark is really educational and completely true. Really.

If you can call them people.

 

[allwrong]

So many things can be said, so few make any sense.

 

[Killwize]

Wow, should have expected Ars readers to respond to this article with such vitriol!

 

[acl]

Let me ask a simple question: Is it reasonable for a public school to require the kids to eat pork or eat meat? Even if their religion prohibits it? Most people seem to think that dietary restrictions based upon religion is fine, but then have an issue when someone doesn't want an embedded chip put into their bodies. Logically, we have proof that there isn't any scientific reason why eating meat or pork should be disallowed. Somehow, this doesn't seem to offend the very people who are usually very offended that someone may have other religious restrictions. It often seems that it is somehow ok to ridicule "christian" beliefs (even if they are not mainstream christian beliefs), when I don't see how it is any more illogical than the afore mentioned dietary restrictions. Both are because "God Says". Maybe some of the people so offended by this should stop and see if they are equally offended by other religious restrictions that only seem more reasonable because they have been around for a long time? Something to think about...

 

[bigcraig01]

Old King James which is the only bible I considered to be his true word...

Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads...

And he... What does he do? Forceth? Nope! Causeth...

People are going to be lining up for this because they're gonna want what it promises... Watch The Amazing Spiderman... You know everything Dr. Connors (Who turned into a reptile... Gee, what was Satan portrayed as? A serpent/snake/reptile...) kept talking about... Yeah that! "The Mark" is gonna promise that... And like what happened to Dr. Connors, it's gonna back-fire...

 

[DC]

Old King James which is the only bible I considered to be his true word...

Now of course any logical person would think that the oldest versions are the least embellished by mere mortals. But you just rolled a dice and decided on the Old King James

And exactly that one is known to have been "simplified" and changed for readability. So I'm curious what was God's decision to personally oversee this particular issue of the bible (it's His true word after all). :eyebrow: