Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar
Superstitious fears of numbers is not new, especially in a society that was never educated properly as to how to think about significant numbers.
The number 666 is the number of a man. It helps for identification purposes. The "Mark of the Beast" is not the #. No one is going to get the # 666 stamped on their forehead or their hand.
The Book of Revelations needs to be interpreted "Literally", meaning, "According to its literature". People who misunderstand the word "literal" have caused lots of problems and confusion throughout history.
Revelations is a book written in symbolic language. It was meant to be a code only understood by those who understood the symbolism.
The forehead symbolizes a person's thoughts, their beliefs. And their hand symbolizes a person's actions. And a person's thoughts and beliefs, SHOULD determine their actions. And honestly, a person's TRUE beliefs do. Only the true believer ACTS like one.
So the Mark of the Beast is nothing more than people's thoughts and beliefs, their TRUE thoughts and beliefs, being seen in their actions.
The Righteous person will not take on the Mark of the Beast, because their strong and true beliefs will be seen in their righteous acts and defiance against the Beast.
The Beast may say, you have to register with the Government and take an oath against believing in The Creator, and upon doing so are then given a card or chip or whatever, that identifies you as a loyal servant of the Beast. True believers in The Almighty Creator will know The Beast is the Beast and will refuse, and they will, in a sense, refuse taking the Mark of the Beast, and in so doing, will be saved.
But remember, taking the Mark is not a simple single gesture, it is having True faith and belief, to the point of acting on that faith and belief in a way that is recognizable to the rest of the world.