RFID Implants and the End of the World

Greetings to all who read this.

Last week I read a story in the Seattle Times (or maybe it was the PI... Anyway, it was the paper some guy had left at the table in the Taco Time) about a man near here who has implanted an RFID chip in his hand, and rigged his car and house to it, so that he can open his car doors and his house with a wave of his hand. It has other features too -- for example, I think it has his emergency medical information on it.

When I was younger, I had heart problems. Because my heart slowed to 19 beats per minutes while I slept, they installed a pacemaker inside my chest and just underneath the skin. It really was an amazing device. It not only controlled the rhythm of my heart, it could sense when my heart was misfiring and add additional beats to compensate for the irrythmia. Also, they could adjust the micro-voltage to give just the right amount of electricity to make the heart beat as well as the duration of the micro-voltage. The doctors could adjust all of these things with a device outside of my body.

During the years that I had pacemakers, the inventors were enthusiastically changing and improving the device to be more manageable, to do more and be better at what it could do.

The point is, sure, it will open the door and let you into your computer, but in a few years.... maybe it will open your bowels and shut off your breathing!

Hmm, I realize that sounds a little paranoid, but just a little.

The article went on to talk about the rising new fad of getting RFID implants. Now that all the young people (men and women) are comfortable with all kinds of body piercings, tattooings and so forth, the new edgy thing is to get RFID implants. I guess there are several hundred people in the U.S. with these things now, and it's on the rise.

The possible application of these gadgets is endless. Apart from identification and door-opening and car-starting, they could contain credit card information and a whole host of other stuff from library cards to gamertags. Perhaps they could make identity theft more difficult.

Now, as I read this, the first thing I thought about, as any Christian of my generation would, was the "Mark of the Beast". From the time I was out of diapers, I've been hearing predictions about evil computer chip implants. Does anyone remember the film "A Thief in the Night"? In that film it wasn't an implant, but some kind of computer-readable code stamped on the skin. I remember a funny sketch from a 70's Christian comedy group called "Isaac Air Freight" where an angel in heaven is planning out the end of the world, and talks about how convenient it will be to get a computer chip implant in the right hand so that you won't have to carry credit cards or cash around.

As I continued to read, I thought about how things have changed. Christian young people today have not seen "A Thief in the Night", and if they did, they'd probably spend most of the time laughing at the bad acting, 70's hippy-music, and silly stamped-on computer code (everyone apparently gets the same code, which doesn't make much sense). Today we have "Left Behind" and the ultra-crappy "Omega Code" which do not seem to evoke the same response.

Does anyone leave the theater after seeing "Left Behind" and lay awake all night in fear that the rapture will come? I don't think so. Yet I can attest that millions of teenagers sat in stark terror as the credits rolled after "A Thief in the Night". It seemed like the rapture was probably going to happen tomorrow, or next week. Certainly before the end of the year!

I started wondering then whether young people today would even make the same connections that I do when thinking about this. The world has evolved a lot since I was young. Today I routinely see conservative Christian men sporting ear-rings and pony-tails. I know of a conservative evangelical pastor of a large church in the Bible-belt who (at least for a while) wore a pony-tail and an ear-ring. This is the same man whom I once heard preach for 30 minutes on why Christian men should not grow facial hair!

Today's Christians just don't seem to care about the things we obsessed about when I was young.

In my world, I see the younger generation more concerned about living a life with God in the center, this is their obsession. It is wonderful to see.

Wow, Jerry! You're being nicer than usual here. Did you have pancakes for breakfast? Is this the new Jerry?

But seriously, I'm not saying anything about the young folks' passion for God. It's there today as much as it was in my day. I love the whole earring and pony-tail thing. I'm always trying to grow my hair out long enough to wear one myself, but the wife and kids say I look silly.

From the mouths of babes. Death to ponytails. My son wore a ponytail for a while, it was only an attempt at humorous rebellion. Rebellion.... I wonder.

The strange thing for me is that I can envision a world in the not-too-distant future where the RFID implants are commonplace in and out of the church and no one thinks twice about it. It's not that I'm even against it. It's just weird to me. Like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode. It makes me think I guess.

So here's my question: is this all a fulfillment of those end-times prophecies? Is this like the case of the frog in warm water, slowly boiled to death?

Tadpoles have the answer, when frogs are simmering away. These things are cyclical from "everyone did which was right in there own eyes" to "they burned down the groves, and everyone worshipped God in the high places."

What's this about tadpoles? Are they impervious to heat? I'm totally missing the point of this paragraph.

Just so we are clear (you not getting the symbolism and all) the tadpoles are the younger generation (this is the first time I used this phrase, am I now officially old?) they are managing to stay out of the pot with a firmer reliance on the divine than I have seen in my generation.

If I get an RFID implant am I taking the Mark of the Beast? What if it's just a convenience and I can get it in my LEFT hand? The Bible says that it will be in your right hand or forehead, and that it will be required to buy or sell. If it's not required, and it's in my left hand, does it count?

I am a pre-tribulation rapture kinda guy. Go ahead and get it in your left hand; let God sort it out afterwards.

Ok, sure... but, ummmm..., you go first...

I will not be able to get one in my hand I will have been raptured.