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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."
And why the sobbing at funerals? Aren't they happy their loved ones went to be with Jesus? Or deep down do they know it's all make-believe?
Trolling is a art,
Because they want to, in a round about way, show that it's not only the Muslims that have the nut cases. It's sort of a "case mod" pissing context ...
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
"When did religious conviction become ignorance?"
When was religious conviction ever anything else?
There are different nations, but there is still a common European culture. Sure, other nations don't have as strict of laws, but there is clearly a lot of sympathy for this. Why is there no outrage over this? This one incident dwarfs ANYTHING questionable the Bush administration may have done. I still can't quite wrap my head around the concept that a country in Europe has literal thought police that put someone in jail for THREE YEARS. Think about that -- THREE YEARS -- for thinking the wrong thoughts.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Yes. I'm talking about the mouth-breathers, the ones who don't get the point despite countless patient explanations.
I dispute your claim that even bright christians are capable of evaluating new information that goes against their preconceptions, btw - purely anecdotal, but there you go.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Think of the lack of perspective people have with regard to their faith. Most Christians today would want a mother who murdered her child because she claimed God told her to locked up if not killed (since the death penalty is yet another example where two wrongs make a right, and yet another exception to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"). Yet when Abraham almost murders Isaac (before God supposedly stays his hand), it is accepted uncritically.
Today if someone told us a burning bush was talking to him, we would put him in a straightjacket--few Christians would accept the testimony. Yet when they read of a similar testimony from a faraway time, somehow it has more credibility.
Christians are perfectly willing to seek medical treatment, and seem to accept the findings of medical science. Yet the defer to the disproved biological knowledge of the ancient Jews with regard to questions on the origin of life and diversity. Creationists shouldn't go to the doctor. You cannot accept a fairy tale on the origin of life on the one hand, and then seek treatment using techniques and understanding derived in part from evolutionary biology on the other. Yet Creationists do so and experience no cognitive dissonance in the process. Catholics are against birth control on the mistaken Biblical premise that semen is the seed of life--they didn't understand, certainly in Old Testament times at least, that women host an egg that is fertilized. So ejaculating anywhere but a womb was considered to be abortion in those times--and Catholics still uncritically accept teachings based on this false premise, while accepting other scientific findings, such as evolution. Similarly, the pro-life movement seems to have some confusion about where life begins. Some pro-lifers assume life begins the moment a seed is fertilized-again citing documents that were written in a time when there was very little understanding of biology. But these documents were divinely inspired, right? And so were the ones saying men should not spill his seed, even though the premise for it is now widely accepted by all, Christian and otherwise, as false.
They point to prophecies in Isaiah that Jesus fulfills in the Gospels, and they point to similarities between the gospels as validating their truth. I'm not going to debate the truthfulness of the Gospels, but since the authors of the Gospels were learned in the Old Testament, and since they were written so many years after Jesus' death, one wonders why more Christians don't consider how easy it would have been to construct and refine narratives that fulfill those prophecies post hoc. But since the narratives are accepted uncritically as absolute truth, this possibility never arises, and the weakness of the apologetic argument is never exposed.
"If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today, He'd be gunned down cold by the CIA."
--The The, "Armageddon Days Are Here Again"
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How do you validate the parts that contradict the other parts?
There are two options.
The lesser option, the pathetic fallback position of those who Have Not Truely Been Reborn, is to first select one to interpret figuratively and invent some figurative meaning for it and to validate that.
Option 2: You study the text until you see five fingers.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Waaa Waaa! I'm being persecuted! Christians are being persecuted! Religion is being attacked! Religion is being called evil by those nasty opressing persecuting Slashdot atheists....
Oh wait... the poster you replied to was a Christian.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If you're a troll, know that I will not respond to your response, so don't bother.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
You're absolutely right, it's not a fairy tale. It's a collection of myths with maybe the same historical accuracy as The Illiad (which I guess isn't really a myth, but you know what I mean.)