It’s not everyday that legislators are able to come up with bills aimed not only at protecting privacy, but also thwarting the Devil. But in Virginia, they have been able to do just that:
The House of Delegates is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a bill that would protect Virginians from attempts by employers or insurance companies to implant microchips in their bodies against their will.
It might also save humanity from the antichrist, some supporters think.
Del. Mark L. Cole (R-Fredericksburg), the bill’s sponsor, said that privacy issues are the chief concern behind his attempt to criminalize the involuntary implantation of microchips. But he also said he shared concerns that the devices could someday be used as the “mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation.
“My understanding — I’m not a theologian — but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times,” Cole said. “Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”
…
[T]he growing use of microchips has collided with the Book of Revelation. The biblical passage in question is in Chapter 13 and describes the rise of a satanic figure known as “the Beast”: “He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
David Neff, editor of the magazine Christianity Today, said that some fundamentalist Christians believe that bar codes and implanted microchips could be used by a totalitarian government to control commerce — a sign of the coming end of the world.
“This is part of a larger attempt to constantly read current history in the light of the symbolic language of the Book of Revelation,” he said.
That book has been sifted for clues to contemporary events almost since the ink on the parchment dried, and Caesar, Nero, Napoleon, Hitler and some of history’s other controversial one-namers have been identified as possible antichrists. Now, it’s President Obama’s turn, as tea partyers and others warn of federal intrusions into the debate over health-care reform.
Now, the book is giving new life to worries about microchips.
Interestingly, Rep. Cole says his main motivation for the legislation is because “you should have the right to control your own body” … while his website hails his achievements in having “defended the right to life. “
