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RFID, Sign of the (End) Times?

andy753421 writes "Wired is running an article featuring Katherine Albrecht who, with her new book 'The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance', is warning that RFID tags may in fact be the "mark of the beast". Among her arguments are that in a futuristic world anyone who wishes to buy and sell goods would be compelled "to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads," as is foretold in the book Revelation. Others are skeptical saying that many new technologies, such as the printing press, bar-codes, and several others, have also created fears about the beginning of the end."

23 of 843 comments (clear)

  1. Last post by saltydogdesign · · Score: 5, Funny

    Get it? Huh? Huh?

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    // This is not a sig.
    1. Re:Last post by ookabooka · · Score: 2, Funny

      Perhaps your post was merely the end of the first of the beginning of the last posts.

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      If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
    2. Re:Last post by Namronorman · · Score: 2, Funny

      I read at -1, it is real hell sometimes.

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      $fortune
      Tomorrow has been canceled due to lack of interest.
  2. So... by 313373_bot · · Score: 5, Funny

    you may defeat the beast by wearing a tinfoil hat (or glove)?

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    ^[:q!
    1. Re:So... by dcapel · · Score: 2, Funny

      Tin foil can increase the effectiveness of cooking noodles. Tinfoil can decrease the effectiveness of the Mark of The End Times. The Flying Spiggetti Monster likes noodles.

      CONVERT! Convert all ye who want to have divine protection from the end times! The End is near. Only His Noodlyness can protect us!

      --
      DYWYPI?
  3. Re:So.. its RFID today is it? by Hiro+Antagonist · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's just Ashcroft; he forgot to put his make-up on this morning.

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    I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy .sig.
  4. Pope is the Antichrist - Traditional View by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    The traditional view of all major Christian churches and
    the reformers is that the pope is the antichrist and the
    Roman Catholic church the great whore.
    http://www.rev14.info/

    I have a list of all the major churches who had the
    pope is the antichrist in their Confessions of Faith*,
    including baptists, presberterians, luthereans, methodists,
    calvanists, and more on my website.

    If this view is correct, that the pope is the antichrist, and
    the roman catholic church is babylon the great, than obviously,
    the mark of the beast also already has (and does) exist. I
    also have this on my website - the traditional, gospel view
    and interpretation (as if the bible had something to do with
    the gospel!!)

    With the Roman Catholic church continued to be involved in
    numerous scandals, including the raping of more than
    10,000 boys by its priests, claiming that the mark of the
    beast is something other than what traditionally Christians
    have said it is probably has political consequence as well:

    It allows apostate Christians and silly idiots continue to
    fellowship wiht the Roman Catholic church instead of splitting
    with it and refusing to have anything to do with it.

    The mark of the beast == microchip implant means
    continuing to look the other way with the rapes of little
    boys.

    http://www.rev14.info/

  5. Don't Forget Your Towel by LordVaderSithLord · · Score: 2, Funny

    Remember that the answer is 42. Don't forget your towel, and above all else DON'T PANIC. Please remember too that God's final message to his creations was "Sorry for the Inconvenience." This too shall pass.

  6. And there's no suffering now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    We have six billion people on the planet. Over the next five hundred years, hundreds of billions will live and die. Most of them will spend most of their lives suffering terribly. They will starve, kill each other, rape, drug themselves to death and more.

    If the six billion alive today suffered through the apocalypse now, it would prevent the suffering of hundreds of billions. More, really, since you can extend this for as many thousands of years as you like. It's clear that the sooner the world ends, the fewer people will suffer, and the sooner those of us who are righteous will be in heaven.

    Just one of the reasons God is clearly a son of a bitch.

    1. Re:And there's no suffering now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      That's easy. To kick ass and chew gum.

  7. Re:So.. its RFID today is it? by boojumbadger · · Score: 2, Funny

    isn't it just a little scary that governments keep trying to fulfil the prophecy?

  8. Re:Fallacy by mr+i+want+to+go+home · · Score: 4, Funny
    Maybe the whole process just takes 600 years to complete

    Surely you mean 666 years to complete :)

    Let's see anyway - printing press invented in 1440. Add 666 years. That's 2106. Plenty of time for RFID to become required, and just about the time this asteroid will hit Earth!

    Ha! I win the thread!

  9. Re:Fallacy by dsanfte · · Score: 2, Funny

    Shh, don't rock his worldview too hard. We have to respect ignorance, it's a point of view now.

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    occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
  10. Easy Solution by Plocmstart · · Score: 3, Funny

    Get one implanted in your left hand or in your neck or back of your head or something. Just avoid the right hand or forehead. Disaster averted!

  11. Re:Religion is being replaced, not just displaced by TallMatthew · · Score: 5, Funny
    In this respect, America and the west at large is definitely losing its religion.

    Yeah, that's us in the corner.

  12. Re:Fallacy by jbrader · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm not really sure. How long has there been religious conviction?

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  13. Re:Fallacy by Zeinfeld · · Score: 4, Funny
    I never did understand the Christian aversion to the Beast. The Beast must come as part of Christ's second coming, prophecy says so. Why would they resist this?

    It would have a negative effect on property values.

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  14. Wait another sign of the end times.... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 3, Funny

    When I was young back in the late 70s, there would circulate a story in the church that some old person received their social security checks mistakenly from the future. Usually the future date was the mid 80s and the check said "Not cashable without the mark of the beast" or some stupid thing.

  15. Re:Fallacy by hazem · · Score: 2, Funny

    If I were a Christian, I would be doing anything I can to hasten the return my my God.

    And that explains so much of the Bush foreign policy. Starting civil wars, giving out nukes, it all makes sense in this context.

  16. Re:*Sigh* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    People who think such should be be herded onto an island and forgotten about.

    Just tell them that you're the angel Gabriel, have a gun-toting guy with you who calls himself Michael, and tell them it's the rapture and you should have no problem herding them - at least, until you reach 144,001.

  17. Re:Fallacy by nanojath · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, you've delivered a very sane, rational analysis for the true-believin' rapture preachin' hardcore eschatological hysterics. That should settle 'em. Why didn't anyone ever think to just explain it to them?

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    It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries

  18. "Rapture loans" by Animats · · Score: 5, Funny
    Back around 1997, I came up with the concept of "rapture loans". The idea was to sell balloon-payment second mortgages to fundamentalist Christians. If the Rapture came before the end of 2001, they owed nothing. They could thus enjoy "abundance" until the Rapture. At the end of 2001, interest payments started, and if they couldn't pay, foreclosure would follow.

    Marketing would be on Christian TV and radio stations, in the form of infomercials. "Quit your job now! Don't work again! Jesus is coming soon!", along with pictures of happy people with consumer goods. We considered finding some Christian figure to promote the product. Enough people were talking about the Rapture and the "Jubilee" back then that a modest market for the product clearly existed.

    (For those of you interested in financial mechanics, the money for the mortgages would be obtained by creating a derivative security that could be resold in the secondary mortgage market. The "rapture" contingency would be taken care of by obtaining an insurance policy against the "rapture" for each mortgage (probably from Lloyds or Swiss Re), using exactly the same definition of "rapture" as in the loan. The combination of the insurance policy and the loan would constitute a resellable security without a "rapture" contingency that could be packaged up and sold in the mortgage-based security market. So we wouldn't have to finance the deal, just broker it.)

    We didn't go through with it. It just seemed too evil.

    Nevertheless, when there are people running around claiming that Jesus is coming back soon, it's quite feasible to make money taking the other side of that bet.

    1. Re:"Rapture loans" by StressedEd · · Score: 2, Funny
      We didn't go through with it. It just seemed too evil.

      You presumably work in the financial sector. You opted not to do something because it was too evil.

      Hmm, maybe there is hope for humanity.

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      Be nice to people on the way up. You will meet them again on your way down!