RFID, Sign of the (End) Times? 843
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."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen [wikipedia.org]
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I have heard 'Alah akbar' shouted from minarets in many places all over the world, but no Arabic sounding like 'Amen' either.
Does any real Jew care to comment on 'Amen'?
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Fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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In fact, the Book of Revelations was a controversial addition to the early Bible, and several Bishops argued against including it in the canon due to the difficulty of interpreting it, and hence, its potential for abuse--particularly the type of abuse so typical of fundamentalists, who keep claiming that the end times are upon us. Other portions of the Bible specifically warn against doing this, because only God knows the time when the world will end. To this day the Eastern Orthodox Church does not consider it part of the Canon.
If you're a non-believer, like I am, all of this is moot--the whole thing is either about the world John lived in, or he got dosed with some grain ergot while in prison. If you are a Christian, however, steer clear of belief that these are the end times. It's a definite no-no in the religion. And if you believe in the Rapture, rest assured that the people who compiled the Bible would have denounced you as a heretic, and you probably would have ended up being used for sword practice by a Roman Legionnaire. This is a spin from the lunatic fringe on a single line of a book that almost ended up in the fireplace of history. It is also a morally corrosive doctrine because it undercuts personal responsibility, encouraging people to believe that God is going to solve all of their problems for them, kill all their enemies, and build them a whole new world.
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Because for much of history since then, they killed anyone who tried.
Orthodox Church & Protestantism on Revelations (Score:5, Interesting)
I was baptised Orthodox, and I can assure you that that's not true. It's considered by the Orthodox Church as part of the Canon, but is not read as part of Divine Liturgy. A PBS documentary once mistakenly claimed the Orthodox Church doesn't consider it part of the canon, and this mistake has been widely repeated ever since. Walk into any Orthodox church this morning, and have a look. Most English-speaking Orthodox churches use the Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha, which includes the book of Revelation.
There's an Orthodox monastery above the place on the Isle of Patmos [12net.gr] in Greece where St. John the Divine received his Revelation, and the spot where St. John is said to have written it is a site of frequent Orthodox pilgrimage.
The Orthodox Church teaches [theotokou.org] that Revelations is a divinely inspired book, but should not be taken as a literal account of future events.
In fact, the Book of Revelations was a controversial addition to the early Bible, and several Bishops argued against including it in the canon due to the difficulty of interpreting it, and hence, its potential for abuse--particularly the type of abuse so typical of fundamentalists, who keep claiming that the end times are upon us. Other portions of the Bible specifically warn against doing this, because only God knows the time when the world will end.
Neither did Martin Luther:
Luther didn't think that the Catholic Church was infallible in determining canonicity, and rejected Revelations, and the Epistles of James (he called it an "epistle of straw"), Jude and Hebrews. Yet the Protestantism that he was instrumental in founding still fiercely defends the Catholic/Orthodox Canon of the Bible, including the Book of Revelation. On the other hand, they reject the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches' teachings on it, and on much else besides.I haven't entirely worked my own beliefs yet, but this contradiction never made any sense to me.
Re:Fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
As with any cult, how could the Christian church recruit new members if the End of Times was more than a lifetime away?
Re:Fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Take for example prophecy in the Old Testament - most of the OT prophets were quite clearly speaking to the people of their day, warning them of events that were about to happen (and, well, actually did happen - that's because they were prophets
Even if all the events of the Book
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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 [abc.net.au] will hit Earth!
Ha! I win the thread!
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Hell, when England made the Domesday Book [wikipedia.org] in 1086 Christians probably went ape-shit over it for the same reason.
I've learned something about Christians, when something like this comes, many don't say "this is the mark of the beast" instead they say something along the line of "the end is near"... So, they're learning.
I think that the stance against RFIDs needs all the help it can get... So, let the Christians rant and rave next to the EFF... Just as long as the reasonable people raise that point that tracking technologies COULD be used for bad reasons, and encourage people to weigh the good against the bad... Or does that involve thinking?
Yes, it's very unfortunate... (Score:4, Insightful)
If only that had been arbitrarily put in and Revelations left out. We'd all be talking about how Jesus went to hell and that after the Apocolypse, if those who ascended to heaven asked to for clemancy for those in hell, it would be granted. Guess it just didn't have the fire and brimstone to keep the stupid peasants under controll that all the 666 bullshit and no redemption theme Revelations does.
The worst thing about modern so called "christians" is that they don't know thier own history.
Re:Yes, it's very unfortunate... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, it's very unfortunate... (Score:4, Insightful)
Emperor Constantine had more influence over the process than you indicate. Just ask Arius or Marcius. Jesus's divinity was decided by a non-unanimous majority vote of men.
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Re:Fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I was talking about being able to identify a unique person via DNA when I wrote that business about 'mark of the beast' in Revelations.
Once 'they' get that ability in near-real-time (ie, on the spot) - you guys are screwed.
It is always funny to watch how you young people misinterpret what I wrote in that book.
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Plus, the Book of Revelation was written as a consolation to the early Christians who were being prosecuted.
And wasn't the War in Iraq also supposed to be the beginning of the Apocalypse? I don't believe that one bit, but I'd certainly believe that more than I'd believe RFID is the beginning of the Apocalypse.
Re:Fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a lot of confusion here in general, and this whole thing is stupid. The Book of Revelation doesn't predict ANYTHING. It was written as a coded message to the early Christians - it was written so that only they could understand it, which is why there's so much confusion about it.
Let me help things out a bit:
1) In ancient times, the Jews and Christians had a special system for translating names and words into numbers. "666" could be the translated form of "emperor" or whoever the emperor was at that time (maybe Nero? I'm not sure).
2) Certain numbers in the Bible represent different things - the number 3 represents God, 6 represents man, 7 represents perfection. Therefore, a 3-headed beast with the number "666" meant a man pretending to be a god - and the Romans believed that their emperor was a god. So it would've represented the emperor, whoever that was.
What did the Mark of the Beast represent? I don't know. Maybe the Romans dressed differently than the Christians. Maybe it was the Romans' brutality which only the Christians saw as a problem. Maybe it was their inability to be non-conformist (the Christians were seen as "unpatriotic" because they were pacifists and refused to become warriors - certainly there must've been others in Rome who didn't want to fight but did so simply to avoid prosecution?)
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That's true regardless of the group and is the nature of the beast. If you want to take the time, I would be interested in what you see to be some specifics in this area. I can guess, but I'd rather know...
The problem arises because most religions is that they are exclusionary...
But that isn't the problem of religion, that's the problem of truth. Truth, by it's very nature, is exclusionary. Those who think th
Re:Fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Environmental Armageddon [beliefnet.com]
Re:Fallacy (Score:5, Funny)
It would have a negative effect on property values.
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And there's no suffering now? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
The (original, non-commercialized) New Orleans Jazz Funeral recognizes this fact.
The band plays dirges while the casket travels from the Church to the cemetary. Then, from the cemetary to the deceased's house, the music is lively and happy, celebrating the fact that the deceased is now in Heaven.
Re:Fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
There are asshat relegious types who'll hold a relegious funeral, even against the express wishes of the dead. But like I said, the funeral isn't really for the deceased.
Funeral Directors get this, which is how they've managed to turn it into a business.
Re:Fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they are, but they're also sad that the child is moving away from them. Most people crying at funerals aren't nearly as sad for the person as they are for themselves, having lost the person.
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-stormin
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Religion is one of those topics - like abortion or evolution or homosexuality - that causes slashdot readership breaks into a frenzy whenever we have an article that allows us to vent (again) our particular poition on this issue. The tiresome part of this is not only that almost everyone is just talking to hear themselves talkk, but also that most people are also quite content to argue with phantom straw men rather than respond to real-world positions.
In this case the straw-man for the anti-religion crowd is a very specific definition of religion; more particularly its theological definition of faith as "blind belief". This type of faith is nothing more than willful assertion of some rote dogma or other. As such it necessitates an anti-science position as it is anti-thought. Rational thought involves questioning and doubting. These activities threaten the very nature of (blind beleif) faith itself. In short - I can see why people who value science, knowledge, fairness, and information highly would find this form of religion utterly repugnant. I share that sentiment.
There are two problems, however. The first problem is that not all religion is anti-intellectual. Not all religion has this "blind belief" view of faith. Some, like the existentialist thinker Kierkegaard, have blind belief but situated within a compelling rational framework. Others, like C.S. Lewis, focus on the aspects of their faith systems that are logically and rationally appealing to thinking, questioning and questing individuals and marginalize the blind-belief aspects as inconsequential. To throw out all religion as the base "blind faith" variety is just to show one's utter and complete ignorance for the vast spectrum of religious thought that does exist. Most people who are so convinced that religion is anti-intellectual have never bothered to read the writings of a single religious intellectual (note: this means someone other than Falwell or Robertson). When you dismiss all of religious heritage with witty one-liners you may think you look cool. +5 mod points for "informative" or "funny" may give you the credibility you apparently desire. But the fact is that you are no more informed than some Bible fundamentalist who's never taken a real sciene class in his or her life would be in assuming that evolution was just some crocked up scheme by satanist communists to lead the world from the path of God. Not only are they wrong (everyone is wrong from time to time) but they are publicly demonstrating their own prejudice and arrogance. The saddest part is that they, like you, would never even comprehend their own humiliation.
The second problem is quite simple: it's impossible to get away from some definitions of faith. What if faith isn't believing in gnomes, faeries, Gods or Goddeses just because it's the dogma - what if faith is actually the rational extrapolation from insufficient evidence to guide necesary action? In other words - faith is what guides our actions when we don't have knowledge but need to make a choice. Well, if you realize that certainty about the real world is impossible you quickly realize that all of the things we know or do are - in a sense - dependent on faith. Even science is, in some sense, dependent on faith. Faith in the law of causality logically (if not temporally) preceeds all experimentation. It may be subsequently reinforced by experience but it can neither be directly proved by experimentation or any other known means and yet is the pre-requisite for rational experimentation.
In the end it's a simple case of hatred for one thing spilling irrationally over into hatred for related or similar things. You guys really hate dogmatic and anti-i
Re:Fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming we're talking Christianity here, there's no biblical reason to believe that suicide is an automatic hell penalty. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Of course, some feel they've got to threaten those who would like to shortcut life, but there's no biblical way to justify it.
I could get into the theology of this, but hey, this is /. and I'm already an ignorant blowhole for daring to say I'm a Christ
There will be an end (Score:3, Insightful)
every society has had an end, the mayans, egyptians, romans, greeks
it all comes to an end, if you truly think the culture of greed, capitalism and consolidation can continue for ever then you are deluded, so when that time comes how will we know ? at what point do we give up and start again ? 20 years ? 50 ? 100 ? 500 ?
its not IF but WHEN
Re:There will be an end (Score:3, Insightful)
it all comes to an end, if you truly think the culture of greed, capitalism and consolidation can continue for ever then you are deluded,"
Except that looking at your examples (Mayans, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks), I'd say that greed, capitalism and consolidation have been around for a long, long time indeed.
You mean Germany? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're talking about the Holocaust Deniers, right?
Barcodes (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Barcodes (Score:2, Insightful)
I can tattoo myself with a barcode, does that count?
This is what many Christians want (Score:2)
I love Slashdot, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I love Slashdot, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot seems to consist of people who are equally interested in new technology, but also smart enough to be concerned about its effects. RFID could be very beneficial. And it could be very oppressing. While most Slashdotters probably don't believe that the number 666 will literally mean anything, or that it really matters which hand it will be or who the antichrist is. But they do heed the warning that it implies. The fact that it is a Christian mythology doesn't make it any different than if it was in a modern dystopian novel like 1984. Whatever sort of fiction it is, it was forward thinking and applicable now. And so, people will be interested.
Now, back to your regularly-scheduled trollish Christian-bashing replies.
Re:I love Slashdot, but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Technology isn't the devil. Technology is a pitchfork. People who try to use technology to oppress others are the devil, or at least work for him.
Because it may not be a LONE nutjob (Score:3, Insightful)
If this "flake" is able to convince a large enough number of other Christians to flake out over this, it will impact how RFID gets used. The RFID design or usage plans may get modified, using "avoid freaking out the evangelical nutjobs" as an added implementation criterion. The resulting design changes may make for something that the rest of us will be happier with... or make for something that we wil
Thank Allah for the distraction (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thank Allah for the distraction (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Thank Allah for the distraction (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:2)
So.. its RFID today is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if some guy with horns and a tail, and breathes fire, comes out waving an RIFD injection machine THEN you can panic..
Re:So.. its RFID today is it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So.. its RFID today is it? (Score:2)
SSN as master primary key is still scary (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop letting the fact that religious people are leary trick you into dis
Re:So.. its RFID today is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason the image of the "mark of the beast" is frightening is that authorities in human history have always attempted to assert their control in ways that reach into individuals' lives and compel them to function as slaves for a self-serving power.
Social Security cards, bar codes, and RFID tags all provide valid readings of the text in Revelation. Ther
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Eh... Apocalyptic Stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Eh... Apocalyptic Stuff (Score:2)
And, hey, if TV bores you, you should listen to some of them. It's amazing how they are constructed, and it's even more amazing the assertions that people will make.
OBVIOUSLY Aliens crashed at Area 51, bringing a message of peace (see, the aliens are always so evolved that they became pacists).
If that'st the hallmark of a conspir
Re:Eh... Apocalyptic Stuff (Score:3, Informative)
There are programs discussing the implantation of these in people. It's being piloted in the military as a way of tracking medical records, and there are already medical trials of having this inserted into people.
Verichip is pushing for people to get implants, and bars and clubs in other countries are already using them as debit cards linked to your tab.
So, the implants are here, and people are already using it to trade. There has been di
Closer to April 1st every day... (Score:2)
One central mistake these people make... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One central mistake these people make... (Score:5, Informative)
The "Mark of the Beast" is most likely not being referred to as a physical thing, but rather the acceptance of a doctrine that affects how one thinks and behaves. (Like Free Market Fundamentalism).
My Grandma thought punchcards were the mark... (Score:5, Interesting)
Social Security Numbers
Punchcards (They used to be included with your utility bills)
Drivers License Numbers
Credit Card Numbers
Bar Codes
IP Addressess
Bill Gates full name converted to ASCII and summed.
CPU IDs
and now.... RFID (Which is really just a modern bar code.)
I think the "mark of the beast" might be figurative language in the book of Revelation, but talking about apocalytic literature can be like running the Boston marathon is quicksand. It is amazing how a 10 page book of the Bible could be expanded into a 2000+ page box set and miniseries [amazon.com]. Maybe 666 is just a number that represents imperfection three times over.... What? I pity the fool that says the mark of the beast isn't a literal number stamped on the forehead... Ow, don't hurt me Mr. T....
Re:My Grandma thought punchcards were the mark... (Score:3, Interesting)
Poster refers to the biblically reported dimensions of the ceremonial basin which sat in front of the first Temple (I'm way too lazy to look up the chapter and verse right now, it's in Beckmann [amazon.com]).
Anyways, the bible says that the basin was 10 hands across, and thirty hands around. This is a contradiction, unless you consider that the rim would have to be a certain thickness, thus, rabinnical scholars conclude that thirty hands is the circumference of the inside of the basin, while 10 hands is the width meas
oh cmon (Score:5, Insightful)
It's written to warn and to use descriptive language to explain what the future holds. The idea of head and right hand are frequently used to depict what we think (head) and what we do (hand). As such, in this particular instance, the warning is not when we have implants in our heads or hands, it's when we think and do evil things.
Interpreting apocalyptic literature as truth verbatim is not only stupid, it's dangerous.
Re:oh cmon (Score:3, Informative)
Not gunna happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Lemme tell you why: The Black Market
The black market is never going to dissappear. It is fueled by personal anonymity and cash (because cash money is anonymous).
While the black market isn't necessarily something to be proud of, it shows up whenever there are market inefficiences or certain niches that aren't being fulfilled.
Money from the black market is like money from Bush's tax cuts... it trickles down into the rest of the economey and boosts it up.
Re:Not gunna happen (Score:2)
i am curious about what will happen when that happens, or if it should. the implications are pretty huge. imagine a full currency system trackable like that, quite incredible.
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Other Technology isn't readable without contact (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Barcodes and print can be covered. Credit cards and magnetic stripes have to be practically inserted into the machine to read em.... the field strength is too weak otherwise. If you keep em in your wallet your are safe.
All of the other technolgies that might be used to track your actions require you to willingly and deliberately use them. You don't have to use plastic to pay for purchasses is one example. Use cash.
With RFID tags, they can be read from within metres of you so anyone just passing by you on the street can access all of the tags on you if they like. Anyone outside your house can read all of the RFID tags on your household equipment, books, porno, etc and figure out a bit about you completely without your knowledge.
RFID is this technology that nobody really cares about except the people who would want to misuse it and the tinfoil hat brigade. Problem is that the tinfoil hat brigade will be made out to look like crackpots by the people who seek to abuse the technology.
RFID is not cost effective and is very problematic (Score:5, Informative)
I am currently working with one of the RFID companies that is "working" with Wal-Mart on the actual implementation of RFID. Let me tell you that there is no foreseable ROI in the near future. Currently at a cost of about 25 cents a tag, it is much too expensive to be worth it for anyone. The technology is in its infancy so there are so many problems we have encountered so far.
One of the problems is the tags. Not only do they cost so damn much, but they are also not very high quality. There's a feature called "locking" which allows you to set a number on the tag and not allow it to change, but when using this we have too high a failure rate to be effective (10-30% depending on the tag type). So we had to turn off the locking, meaning its much easier to change the unique number associated with the tags (which will be a problem when tags hit the retail sector) and now we only get around a 1-2% failure rate. But when doing high volumes, even this small percent is expensive to deal with.
Another is the hardware. Part of the tag writing problems we have seen may be due to the tags and/or the reader/writer units. But right now, some tags get created and written to with no problems, but when they go by a reader, the reader just does not see a number on that tag, meaning as i said before its either a bad tag or some sort of incompatibility/problem with the reader unit. Currently we are trying to get the tags applied cost effectively, but unfortunately its pretty much boiling down to using people to grab tags from a RFID printer and hand-apply everything.
We have also been having trouble verifying all the product on a pallet, and certainly cannot expect to read 100% of product 100% of time. Some product is easy to see, but depending on the density/material in the materials on the pallet, it can be very difficult to read many of the tags.
Software is another hinderance. While the company i have been working with has had its large share of problems in the last few months, they are getting better, but still are not perfect. And unless things work perfect, it can cause so many problems. One small chink in the software can make it inoperable (essentially crashing the software a-la Windows), but the software is slowly getting more and more stable.
Easy Solution (Score:3, Funny)
Wait another sign of the end times.... (Score:4, Funny)
It may not be Christian, but it's catholic (Score:5, Interesting)
Many catholics fear it as well, but what they do not realise is that the Catholic Church (by which i do not mean merely the RCC) pray for the return of Christ at every mass offered. This implies necessity of this "mark of the beast."
Regular people, many Christians, many Catholics hope to stave off the apocalypse by rejecting anything they construe as the mark of the beast. The first step in the sequence of all things apocalyptic. Yet the Catholic Church teaches that the the return of Christ (the apocalypse) FOLLOWS the mark of the beast. Additionally, the apocalypse is supposed to be a GOOD thing. Too many people are afraid of the wrong things.
You believe in the apocalypse? Fine. Welcome it. There is no reason to be afraid.
You don't believe in the apocalypse? Hey, your call.
Either way, there is no reason to live in fear.
Piece of paper on my door (Score:3, Interesting)
I find this crap so banally boring. I mean, lookit--Revelations itself is chock full of stuff that you could spin into whatever apocolyptic message you want to. The fact that people are so pathetically boring as to only focus on a couple or three passages is at least as depressing as the fact that they feel the need to make up apocolyptic crap in the first place.
Oh well. By the way, if you're high or tripping sometime and you really want to freak yourself out, go read Revelations. Whole thing is whacked out on the weirdness. And you don't even have to get a bible, you can get as many translations as you want from http://www.biblegateway.com/ [biblegateway.com] .
"Rapture loans" (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:"Rapture loans" (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Have you read the book? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Crazy Cult Believes End of Times Coming (Score:4, Interesting)
Religion is being replaced, not just displaced (Score:5, Interesting)
How do we define our lives? Work... for most people, whether they believe it or not. Kids ultimately, I suppose. Money, absolutely. The dreams the majority of us hold usually are tied to acquiring copious amounts of wealth, things, gadgets, cars, property, etc. This wasn't always so, it's actually pretty new.
It's important that people realize this, though. The hole that religion filled/fills in the minds/hearts of the public is now being filled by other things tied to capitalism/materialism at large. We don't see it, because just as a fish submerged in water, we do not know what it feels like not to be wet.
One thing is important: This current indirect worship (nobody goes to pray at the Sony store, but they sure spend a lot of time at the mall) of technology and materialism cannot fill any permanent voids in our lives. Our computers and cars won't sing our praises when we're gone, and if our kids are caught up in acquiring their own wealth and living for the present, neither will they. In the end we are (though I am atheist, I must use the term) spiritually bankrupting ourselves in the name of present gain. I just don't think it's worth it.
Re:Religion is being replaced, not just displaced (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, that's us in the corner.
Re:Crazy Cult Believes End of Times Coming (Score:5, Insightful)
Christianity does not believe end times are heralded by RFID tags, some Christians do. That is what separates Christianity from crazy cults, since it is large and diverse enough to have people make up their own minds on such things. Cults need centralized leadership to tell its adherents what to do and what to believe, Christianity hasn't got a central authority and so its adherents are free to interpret the canon however they see fit and form groups where they share crucial facts of their interpretation. Most Christians believe the book of Revelation to be a non-literal message about what kind of persecution the church has faced and will face in the time between Christ's first and second coming, others believe it is an allegorical prophecy of the history of the thousand years after it was written in about 50AD and some (like the RFID nutter) believe that it is an allegorical prophesy of the thousand years before Christs second coming (whenever that may be). What almost all scholars agree on is that whoever the beast may be is irrelevant when one simply holds to the principles that the bible teaching when dealing with the beast as with dealing with anyone, thus finding the beast is pointless. Unfortunately, not all Christians are scholars and some like to draw shaky parallels and make accusations without merit.
I know I have just bitten a troll, but someone had to clarify it.
Christianity == Crazy Cult [Read all first] (Score:3, Interesting)
For an outsider, most of the new testament looks like this to an outsider:
1) Man and woman engage in pre-maritial sex, woman gets pregnant. Father considers finding new woman to knock up...
2) Woman claims 'divine' miracle to escape village mockery. Villagers buy it?!?!
3) Child has some social/behavorial problems, reading too many religious texts at a young age, believing himself to be the next coming of god.
4) Child manages to recruit some poor uneducated
Re:Christianity == Crazy Cult [Read all first] (Score:4, Insightful)
This fact seems to be heavily obscured... And of course, the Testaments have undergone revisions since then. Also the 4 Gospels are basically the same in content, so three seemed to have mainly copied off the 1st, and just re-wording them for different audiences.
We do not know the exact dates of composition of the gospels. They are not dated, and we do not have to autographs. Still, 50 years after Jesus' death is one estimate, with 25-30 years being a lower one. It is also true that though the gospels themselves were written (or compiled) later, their actual source materials may have been written long before that, likely when Jesus was still alive. Also, three of the gospels have very similar content, while John is fairly unique and written quite a bit later. The postulation of scriptural revision is not so sure as to be a matter "of course." We have manuscripts from the early seconds century onward, so we can establish the textual history of the new testament to a greater degree of certainty than any other historic document collection. This means that even if major revisions happened (which they didn't), we can see through them. The compositional history of the gospels is a very complicated thing, in case you were wondering ;-).
Re:Clarify this, Pilate! (Score:5, Insightful)
Limbo (together with pergatory) however was never part of the bible, it was simply part of that pagan stuff that was folded in by the Roman church to allign it with other popular beliefs of the day, it is part of what protestant churches reject. The catholic church actually did the bible a service by getting rid of that dogma. I don't think you personally know what the bible says, how different churches interpret it. I think you should learn a little about theology and church history rather than a bunch of crazy conspiracy stories if you want to talk rationally about something.
I don't let my personal Atheism prejudice my study of faith, I don't see why you should either.
It's Easy to Make Fun of the Pious (Score:3, Insightful)
Ignoring end-times psychosis, what is the reason why the "mark of the beast" is evil? Could it be something to do with the commoditisation of human beings? RFID would fit right in... I'm not saying that these groups are right, but when you look at why such things are seen as being evil or wrong by religious groups, they often have a certain consistency, and are in fact a pretty mainstream view.
Quoting from revelations isn't going to help t
Re:Crazy Cult Believes End of Times Coming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow. (Score:2)