Is the Mark of the Beast a Microchip?

I used the automated cashless self-service checkout in Coles supermarket - and it DIDN'T feel like I was worshiping the beast or the number of his name! It was quite convenient. I didn't feel as though prophecy was being fulfilled before my very eyes.

I sometimes think that when an allegorical book described an allegory in which an allegorical animal was seen causing everyone to receive a mark in the name of another allegorical animal in the allegory, chances are the 'mark' ...may have been allegorical too! To assert that the allegorical 'mark' must be a microchip is therefore at best only an interpretation.

Think about this: the way the mark was described in the text didn't necessarily mean the mark had to be something functional in and of itself like a microchip would be. It may be that it was the edict - and not the mark itself - which allowed or disallowed the buying and selling.

The only direct function the 'mark' may have had may be that it merely identified and distinguished between those who had the mark and those who did not - between those who had worshiped the animal and his idolatrous statue and those who had not. The way the text was worded may not necessarily have meant that the 'mark' had to be something functional or electronic. To assert that it must be a functioning microchip is therefore only one of many interpretive possibilities.

The allegory explained for the reader exactly what the mark was - it was said to be either the animal's name or the animal's number. It didn't say everyone was marked with their own name or number - rather, it says they were marked with another person's name or number - the animal's.

Therefore the 'mark' didn't necessarily serve the function of distinguishing among those who had the mark - it may have merely distinguished those who had it from those who didn't have it. That's less of a function than would be required of an implanted microchip in a cashless society where every individual's chip would need to be distinguished.

Besides, the book of Revelation didn't necessarily describe a cashless society anyway. In chapter six verse six, the Roman currency 'danarius' was described as being in use.

And receiving the mark meant that a person had already been a worshiper of the animal and of his idolatrous statue. Everyone who had received the mark would later be thrown into the lake of fire. Therefore, receiving the mark presumably meant something far more damnable than merely participating in a convenient system of exchange such as is now in use in Coles supermarkets and in several other stores.

Just saying!

:)