Number of the beast?

What? String bean cans with RFID tags won't be able to go to heaven? You lost me; I thought it was UPC codes that were the number of the beast...
 
So, let me get this straight. First off, the products that we are buying are going to get more expensive because each of these suppliers have to install all of the equipment to dispense, track and maintain all of these little chips. Then, because the chips send out a radio frequency signal to the cash register, meaning that no one will have to be there to scan my items, thousands upon thousands of low paying but necessary jobs are going to end up being cut. Then, on top of that, because new technology always comes with a risk, I'm now going to get cancer by the so-called "safe" rf signal being emitted by these little chips (that as far as we know will also be used to track and keep tabs on everyone that buys a can of yams). And of course, there comes the ever present mis-pricing that we all know happens all of the time, requiring the now dismissed cashier to manual input the correct price, lest we be overcharged for our miniscule can of mushroom pieces.

Personally, I say we should go back to the good ol' days where they actually payed some bored old man to go around with a pricing gun and put prices on every single solitary item. It'll save existing jobs, and even add back a few new ones that were phased out years ago.

But hey, that's just my opinion, and we know how much that counts for.
 
Thing about the mark of the beast is that, imo, it won't be something that subtile, or soc. sec numbers, for that number. That mark will have something to do with worship of the beast.

IMO.
 
So what happens when some bored college student designs a backpack mounted RFID deactivator and walks around a store randomly wiping items?

Or better yet, reprograms tags so that everything costs $800 or $80,000?

Or tape a dozen tags to the bottom of a box so it looks like some poor bloke is walking out with twelve of an item they don't have.
 
So what happens when some bored college student designs a backpack mounted RFID deactivator and walks around a store randomly wiping items?
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I'm no expert on them, though I'm beginning to learn about them. From what I know, I think they are pretty durable and would take quite a lot to wipe out.



Or better yet, reprograms tags so that everything costs $800 or $80,000?
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Doesn't work that way. All the tag does is squeal an identity, just like a UPC. That is then compared against a database, which spits out the dollar value.
 
Remember that commercial in the "You will" series from AT&T, I think it was? The shopper pushes the full cart of groceries through the scanner, and heads right on out to the car.
 
I'll call.

This is just stupid. How is it that a marketing/sales concept has become a Legal and Political issue simply by suggesting via query association it is somehow the 'number of the beast.'

I love technology religico-paranoia. It is fun to poke fun at those who feared stupid things based on some unfounded, disconnected, bizarre religious beliefs that turned out to be based on nothing but ignorance and/or misunderstanding. We had a local group of overly devout Christians who felt the world would end in 2000, as if 2000 was some sort of special year in regard to the Bible, Jesus, etc. It wasn't. There was never any actual Christian basis for the belief, but somehow some 'special' people got it in their mind that it was.

RFID tags are not the number of the beast. They aren't even a number. The aren't even a creature of any sort that could be a beast! D'uh!

And people, the mark of the beast is supposed to be a number, not number sets. It is on an individual somehow, not large segments of the human race. So SS numbers, serial numbers, phone numbers, UPC code numbers or RFIDs are not the mark or number of the beast.
 
There was never any actual Christian basis for the belief, but somehow some 'special' people got it in their mind that it was.
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Yep.



And people, the mark of the beast is supposed to be a number, not number sets. It is on an individual somehow, not large segments of the human race. So SS numbers, serial numbers, phone numbers, UPC code numbers or RFIDs are not the mark or number of the beast.
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Yep. It's more like a brand, or a mark of loyalty, not a serial number.

Mark of the beast aside, getting people to accept being numbered and tracked is NOT a good thing for liberty, so those of you who are not religious should not dismiss this kind of thing as being irrelevant. You may think the Mark of The Beast is nonsense, but a Mark of The State certainly is NOT.
 
42, sensop. 4 is the number of a pretty good quarterback.

The number of the beast thing is a result of some quasi-religious numerology which assigned numbers to everything. It had some pretty goofy rules, IIRC.

Reprogramming it would mean taking it apart and rebuilding it. Of course, said college student could just build a device to deactivate the anti-shoplifting part, which the checkout machine currently does. Or just tear off the tag until they are smart enough to place it where nobody can get to it.
 
I'm no expert on them, though I'm beginning to learn about them. From what I know, I think they are pretty durable and would take quite a lot to wipe out.
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They're typically wiped (though not fully deactivated) as you check out. The door greeter folks at Wally-World have battery powered hand-scanners designed to detect active RFID tags and wipe them. Since they're used as a secondary form of security right now, a wiped tag isn't a big deal. If they were used as the primary method for detecting and identifying purchases, it would be a much larger problem.
Doesn't work that way. All the tag does is squeal an identity, just like a UPC. That is then compared against a database, which spits out the dollar value.
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Actually, the tag can contain quite a bit of data. Typically a unique tag ID and a descriptive value ID for the item. But you're right, likely it'd be used as a simple ID connected to a central database for ease of use, though. So $80,000 may be a bit high, but what's to stop you from retagging a $75 MP3 player as an $8,000 plasma screen? The value can be reprogrammed.
 
The number of the beast thing is a result of some quasi-religious numerology which assigned numbers to everything. It had some pretty goofy rules, IIRC.
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It was a Jewish practice called Gematria. If you add the numerical values of the letters (they had no different characters for numbers) of the name "Nero Ceasar", you get 666. State the name in a different grammatical form, and you get 616 (and some of our biblical manuscripts accordingly say the number of the beast is 616). The number of the beast is the name of Nero, the last Julio-Claudian emperor, and a generally all-around bad guy who was hated by Christians along with lots of other folks. This was actually figured out by Frederich Engels (as in Marx & Engels), believe it or not.

The mark of the beast is almost certainly Roman coinage (on the hand) and the ceremonial headress awarded to the colonial leadership of the cult of the emperors (on the forehead).

Biblical scholars have known this for a long time. Don't ask me why televangelists and Tim LaHaye keep trying to scare the populace with a big 'mystery' (okay, do ask me: Money).
 
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