Unique ID In India Causes 'Fear of the Beast' 725
bhagwad writes "India's attempts to tag everyone with an ID number has run into a roadblock is some Christian villages. Apparently the villagers fear they will be associated with the devil since according to the Bible, everyone having the 'mark of the beast' will go to hell. These people are not afraid of punishment. They relish this opportunity to prove their faith because the Bible also proclaims that they will be persecuted."
Blah (Score:4, Insightful)
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't care what arbitrary reason they picked. I'm just glad to hear of someone - anyone - standing up and saying that they refuse to be tagged like cattle. Good for you, Indians!
Uneducated (Score:5, Insightful)
If you meant that it takes years of indoctrination before a normal human being is willing to let other human beings tag him like an animal, then yes, I suppose these people need more "educating".
They may be wrong about WHY consolidated power is dangerous, but they are absolutely correct that it IS dangerous.
The Bible Proclaims... (Score:2, Insightful)
They relish this opportunity to prove their faith because the Bible also proclaims that they will be persecuted.
It has been my experience, through years of informal religion studies, that the Bible can predict/proclaim/justify just about anything you want it. Thousands of pages of hear-say, from hundreds of authors, many only written after being passed down for generations, just adds up to way too much ambiguity and makes it way to easy to find a sentence or two that can support $my_action. Yes, this is part of what makes religion so dangerous.
enjoy the show (Score:4, Insightful)
I am just sitting back, enjoying the show: religion versus state, no matter who loses, I win.
Oh boy (Score:2, Insightful)
At lest that's the picture that I get in my head when I read all of these comments.
Re:Blah (Score:1, Insightful)
>>>Always good to see uneducated crazies are all over the world.
Always good to see people who are intolerant of Christians. If you can be tolerant of gays, and tolerant of people speaking ideas you disagree with, why can't you be tolerant of Muslims, Jews, and Christians too? They have as much right to "pursue happiness" as anybody else, even if you disagree with their religious philosophy.
Oh and you know what? I agree with the Indian Christians that I don't want to be marked by the "beast", except in their world the beast is the antichrist. In my world the beast is the New Noble Class that has taken over democratic Republics around the world. I feel like Rip Van Winkle - went to sleep in a (mostly) free world and woke-up wearing Serf's clothing. Do this. Don't do that. Buy a Prius. Or else be fined.
It's like we're reliving the fall of the Roman Republic, which was a democracy (100BC), then fell into a dictatorship, and finally feudalism (after 300 AD). Except of course we're repaying karma at a vastly-accelerated rate.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
These are Christians in India, not Hindus. There's a difference: one believes a magical zombie died so they can live forever but that if they don't follow the zombie's teachings very closely, they'll burn in a lake of fire forever; the other one thinks the stupidest creature on four legs (and also one of the tastiest) is a magical creature that we should all aspire to become in a future life, but in the meantime we should give rats milk and bath in the most polluted river in the world so that when we die we can finally be happy...until we get reborn into a new body and have to be unhappy again.
Bah, bunch of nutters, the lot of them. Why anyone bothers with religion is a mystery to me.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actual Mark of the Beast (Score:1, Insightful)
The Bible also says that it will be marked on your forehead or hand. Why is it that people remember the whole "Mark of the beast" part, but they forget about the details. It seems like this happens every time some government agency wants to roll out ID numbers. I can't find anywhere in the Bible where God is opposed to ID numbers.
- Derrick
Re:Blah (Score:1, Insightful)
What about comments about 1984 and the moral outrage concerning Big Brother? Unique IDs are a great way to track your citizenry, leading to tighter control, stricter regulation, etc etc. Everything the /. crowd is usually against.
Oh, I get it, it doesn't matter because they're religious. Can you see the irony?
Re:Blah (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Always good to see uneducated crazies are all over the world.
Always good to see people who are intolerant of Christians. If you can be tolerant of gays, and tolerant of people speaking ideas you disagree with, why can't you be tolerant of Muslims, Jews, and Christians too? They have as much right to "pursue happiness" as anybody else, even if you disagree with their religious philosophy.
Maybe it's because gays just want to enjoy the same rights that you enjoy; whereas Muslims, Jews and Christians want to remove the rights they feel disagree with their beliefs.
Their right to "pursue happiness" stops when they try to impinges on the rights to pursue happiness by others.
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that they don't. At least, no more than anybody else. Possibly less, actually.
In the US, Christians are about 80% of the population, but over 90% of convicted criminals.
And churches pay no taxes. Those who give money to churches get tax breaks for doing so. Assuming Christians also give to actual charities as much as everybody else does, that would mean they actually pay less taxes.
As for the "Mark of the Beast", we've had this in the US for a very long time now. Every citizen of the U.S. is given a unique ID number at birth. A number which you need in order to get a passport, or drivers license, or credit card. So we're already regulating the buying and selling of property without it. And have been since before most of us here were born.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
So let me get this straight. You want to be treated with respect but you refuse to treat others of faith with respect because someone else did something that offended you and they just happened to be theists also?
You're probably a logical thinker, but sir that's illogical and pretty much the definition of intolerant.
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
Marriage (unless you are in one of the few places that allows same sex marriage).
Re:Uneducated (Score:5, Insightful)
And regardless of who wrote these religious texts (divine inspiration, folk story, philosophers or old fashioned kooks), it is really interesting that someone as acknowledged and feared the idea of someone taking authority over and tagging the population for literally thousands of years.
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:enjoy the show (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blah (Score:1, Insightful)
How are these Indians preventing anyone from pursuing happiness? Why are they deserving of Slashdot's scorn?
Oh, I get it. You're not addressing that point; you're merely taking an opportunity to paint all religious people by the same brush.
WOW (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think Christians (practicing their faith in "loving others") are the best kind of citizen one can have. They follow the just laws, they pay taxes and help their fellow men.
History class: apparently [wikipedia.org] you [wikipedia.org] never [wikipedia.org] showed [wikipedia.org] up [wikipedia.org]. Ever [bbc.co.uk].
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:4, Insightful)
But I [Christ] tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:5, Insightful)
more like a noisy and obnoxious minority of a community.
anytime you try to associate a trait with a group you're probably oversimplifying the truth.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Two things... (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem: Not all versions of the bible use the work "signify":
NIV:
NAS:
The Message:
NCV:
What makes your version any more correct than these?
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:1, Insightful)
In the US, Christians are about 80% of the population, but over 90% of convicted criminals.
[citation needed]
Re:Blah (Score:2, Insightful)
If you can be tolerant of gays, and tolerant of people speaking ideas you disagree with, why can't you be tolerant of Muslims, Jews, and Christians too? They have as much right to "pursue happiness" as anybody else, even if you disagree with their religious philosophy.
Maybe it's because gays just want to enjoy the same rights that you enjoy; whereas Muslims, Jews and Christians want to remove the rights they feel disagree with their beliefs.
I for one welcome our rabbinic overlords...
Seriously though, we all would _like_ to remove those rights which disagree with our beliefs. Some of us realize that if we did that then others could remove our rights which disagree with their beliefs. I think it is a mistake to generalize and suggest that there is something special here about religious beliefs.
This does not mean that no religious person will ever express an idea which you dislike. Nor does it mean that he will never petition for the redress of what he (possibly mistakenly) sees as a wrong. A person's philosophy (whether religious or not) will influence his ethical judgments and may cause him to view something you call a right as a crime.
For example, in almost all ethical systems it is considered wrong to end the life of another person in order to advance one's own interests. Thus, I may not murder my grandfather even if I need his money to pay off my debts. But what if a pregnant woman wants to end the life of her unborn child because caring for a child would interfere with her education? Is it wrong because she is depriving another human being of life for personal advantage or is it acceptable because he is still in a sense a part of her body and she has a right to decide what will be done to her body? This is a question on which reasonable persons may disagree. It all depends on the relative weights which one's ethical framework assigns to these two competing interests.
To describe religious persons as "crazies" or tramplers on rights just because they say something should be against the law is an example of intolerance.
Re:Blah (Score:5, Insightful)
You assume the GP has it. He doesn't, for instance, if the person he loves is a minor, an octopi or his own sister.
And before you reply "but that'd be disgusting!" be aware that the same can be (and has been) said of homosexuality as well.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:1, Insightful)
If that is your definition of liberty you lost your liberty a long time ago. In case you were not familiar, you cannot eat whatever you like (your offspring, tigers), you cannot drink whatever you like (moonshine), you cannot smoke whatever you like (cannabis). You cannot trade in ways beneficial to yourself (cocaine).
The faster you acknowledge that it makes sense to have rules in society and accepting these, the faster will you be able to convince others to modify these. If you start out by stating that rules that have been in place for centuries or decades trample on your liberty, people will take you for a crackpot.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and this applies equally well to the comment by the AC who said:
Got news for you... (Score:3, Insightful)
...human beings are animals, no more and no less!
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:3, Insightful)
The trouble with religion is that only God can say who's being a true Christian, and he's not saying.
Re:Uneducated (Score:3, Insightful)
Just FYI, the guy who wrote that was most likely on some Middle Ages equivalent of LSD. It's a single throwaway line in a book full of random shit; the fact that what he said just barely manages to be relevant right now is more coincidence than anything else.
If you throw enough shit at a wall, at least some of it will stick. That doesn't mean it's glue.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:1, Insightful)
In the US, Christians are about 80% of the population, but over 90% of convicted criminals.
That's a good one. But perhaps those criminals converted while they were doing jail time...
Re:Break It Down (Score:3, Insightful)
Hold on. You're doing two things wrong here. First, you're changing the definition of, "tolerant," to, "acceptance," or, "agreement." Second, you're lumping together totally different groups of people.
Nope, I'm not. I don't care what they believe in private.
The gays aren't knocking at my door, telling my children that they are going to burn in hell forever.
Okay, define how this is intolerant. Are they killing your kids if they do not convert? You always have the option of shutting the door if you don't like it.
No, they are applying social pressure to my kids. They are attempting to impose irrational fears of punishment in order to sway my childrens' beliefs. And I can't "shut the door" when the pressure is coming from authority figures like teachers(66% of the teachers in my children's school are practicing Christian preachers, and I have video-taped them pushing religious dogma in school).
They aren't shooting abortion doctors.
How many abortion doctors have been shot by self-described Christians? Less than a dozen (which I would say is still too much). And true Christians condemn these acts (that whole Sixth Commandment and all).
How many have been shot by non-Christians in this country? How many non-Christian groups are actively promoting such activities?
They aren't launching suicide attacks on my neighborhood.
Ah, now you're talking about Muslims, which is a totally different religious group. Fundamentalist Muslims will try to blow you up. Fundamentalist Christians just pray for your soul and witness to you.
Did you skip over the term "theist" that I keep using?
They aren't polluting science with their fictional delusions.
To turn this around, aren't you being a little intolerant in the way you're presenting their beliefs?
Nope. I'm not in their Sunday school classes, trying to inject rational thought into their religious dogma.
When the theists abandon their irrational bigotry, grow up and stop trying to control their neighbors, they'll be worthy of tolerance.
That also doesn't sound very tolerant.
Absolutely correct. I don't tolerate that behavior.
Re:Blah (Score:3, Insightful)
You're in here stereotyping theists as irrational, delusional, bigoted murderers and suicide bombers, and at the same time decrying their supposed intolerance?
Do you honestly not see the irony of this?
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes I would agree with you that we lost liberty a long time ago but there are degrees of liberty and there is no reason to keep going in the wrong direction. As for your examples, yes I disagree with all the prohibitions you mentioned except obviously eating your offspring (which doesn't involve my rights but my offspring's rights) and arguably eating tigers but animal rights are a bit more complex issue.
The faster you acknowledge that it makes sense to have rules in society and accepting these, the faster will you be able to convince others to modify these. If you start out by stating that rules that have been in place for centuries or decades trample on your liberty, people will take you for a crackpot.
Are there still people around who confuse liberty and anarchy? I guess there are and judging by your inclusion of eating babies as an example of an infringement of liberty you are one of them.
Re:Uneducated (Score:2, Insightful)
That those objecting to the assignment of unique IDs are uneducated is simple speculation. Fear of being too easily tracked by the government is common among persons of all education backgrounds.
The belief that the number of the beast is a unique ID number or an injected RFID tag is not uncommon among Christians. However, I find it unpersuasive. It simply does not fit well with the context.
First of all, the beast is pretty clearly an international political organization. (The beast is not Satan himself because in this context he is "the dragon" and in 13:2 it says that the dragon gave the beast its power.) The beast wears multiple crowns (verse one) symbolizing political power.
Second, the number of the beast is not a set of numbers identifying persons, it is a single stated integer: 666 (verse 18). It cannot distinguish the wearers one from another as a national identification number would. Instead, it identifies the wearers collectively as the slaves of the political beast.
The whole chapter is about events on the world political stage. A reasonable interpretation of verse 17 is that those who refuse to acknowledge the authority of an international political organization will be subject to trade sanctions.
Re:Uneducated (Score:4, Insightful)
It wasn't intented to be a fantasy trip, but an obvious metaphor for people and governments around in the time of the author, warning of things he expected to happen in his lifetime *and many of them did). Of course, if you make your prophesy obscure enough, it will keep matching random events, but the intended timeframe for the predictions is long past.
The only reason is seems mysterious is that almost no one understands the referents. If I made an allusion to "the Beast of Redmond" it would be obvious to many /. readers, but it would seem very odd 1000 years from now.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good! (Score:2, Insightful)
These are Christians in India, not Hindus. There's a difference: one believes a magical zombie died so they can live forever but that if they don't follow the zombie's teachings very closely, they'll burn in a lake of fire forever; the other one thinks the stupidest creature on four legs (and also one of the tastiest) is a magical creature that we should all aspire to become in a future life, but in the meantime we should give rats milk and bath in the most polluted river in the world so that when we die we can finally be happy...until we get reborn into a new body and have to be unhappy again.
Bah, bunch of nutters, the lot of them. Why anyone bothers with religion is a mystery to me.
I'm an atheist, but this is by far the most stupidest comment I've ever read of Slashdot. LOL.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good! (Score:2, Insightful)
These are Christians in India, not Hindus. There's a difference: one believes a magical zombie died so they can live forever but that if they don't follow the zombie's teachings very closely, they'll burn in a lake of fire forever...
This is supposed to be a description of Christianity, right? At least it fits more than the one about cows. What I would like to know is why people on Slashdot keep referring to Jesus of Nazareth as a "zombie". Is this a reference to those church paintings in which he appears to be drugged? I can't think of anything else since the Jesus of the Gospels is not zombie-like at all.
So, who started the Zombie thing and what is it all about?
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:1, Insightful)
Our descendants will look back and say, "They should have known better. How did they justify that?"
And they'll respond, "Because those evil delusional fucking christians fought tooth and nail to block the teaching of basic biological facts and access to birth control due to their sickeningly twisted definition of 'morality' leading to tons of unwanted, unaffordable pregnancies due to ignorance of the basic biological facts the christians kept pushing for in order to increase the numbers of the poor and ignorant so they could keep preying on them since the poor, ignorant and uneducated make far and away the best fodder for such evil, idiotic delusions."
Re: Boy are you confused (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Two things... (Score:1, Insightful)
Not all churches are the same. Not all Christians are the same. And not all Christians are Christians.
If you are serious about learning more about God, just read the Bible for yourself. If you want to focus on Christianity first, start at the book of Matthew and read sequentially through the New Testament. Not all of it will make sense at first, but believe the parts that do make sense, even if what you read goes against everything the world is telling you.
For example, the world tells us to worry about the future, save for retirement, protect our valuables, stay on top of the latest trends, and fight to get what's coming to us. But Jesus tells us not to worry about the future at all, and to take one day at a time. Why? Because focusing on something that cannot last, and something that you can't take with you when you die, will distract you from focusing on what will last.
Jesus says that God is spirit, and those that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. The Bible tells us that God wants us to be more concerned about our spirits than our bodies, more concerned about our minds (in knowledge and wisdom) than what we have, and more concerned about God Himself than ourselves.
Once our focus is on spiritual things, on God's knowledge and wisdom, and on God's righteousness, then the world falls into its proper place. We work to make money in order to give to the poor, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. We care about justice in order to defend the poor, protect the widow, help the orphan, and seek justice for other people, not ourselves. And we do this not because we are trying to get closer to God, but because God has already brought us closer to Himself.
Re:Educated, not crazy and not afraid. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is denouncing so-called "Christians" who don't even fit the base definition of being a Christian as defined by their book
Well, those guys say that their book has a definition that doesn't match yours. Why should I believe you over them?
And, yes, I've read that book. It's so vague and self-contradicting that, with a bit of a stretch (which both sides - Bible-thumping fire-and-brimstoners, and God-loves-everyone turn-the-other-cheek hippies - are guilty of) can be made to fit either way.
This is even leaving aside the issue of who defined the book (which is really a collection of texts, and we know full well that not all of them made it in there)...