The Mark of the Beast

The beast is the state, and the state has a number. It's 666. Whenever this number appears at some crucial turning point, we know that the state is heavily involved. Most recently, 666 was the turning point for the Norwegian stock market. The central bank of Norway went all in to rescue it once it hit 666.

Not only does the state have a number, it requires everybody to carry a mark. This mark is needed in order to find gainful employment, or start a business. This is the mark of the beast. The fact that we live in a time in which everyone but a handful of us use the mark of the beast in our business affairs tells us that we are in fact living in the dystopian future revealed to John some 2000 years ago.

The foresight of John is remarkable by any standard. He saw in the Romans the emergence of a modern technocratic society in which every human is tied directly to the state. He foresaw the day that we have to beg the state for a mark of approval. What God gave to us as a birth right, namely the right to life through gainful employment and trade, is now a monopoly domain of the state.

What follow, according to John, is the apocalypse followed by the rebirth of society into a kingdom of God. In that kingdom, no-one will any longer require any kind of mark or approval in order to exercise their birth right. Ruled by the spirit of Jesus, the emergent society will be without a central government. Laws will be simple and natural.

Luckily for us, we don't have to wait for the apocalypse to enter the kingdom of God. We can band together and form political structures centered around family and friends in which we do favors for each other without reporting this to the state. There is a parallel economy within reach to all of us in which we can live as if the kingdom of God has already arrived.

By entering the kingdom of  God at an early stage, we can even bypass the apocalypse. We can avoid the draft for our children, and spend our time in peaceful union while battles rage all around. To do this will be difficult, but not impossible. The main criteria will be a will to avoid the final battle. We must free us from the idea that the beast is our master, because it's not. The state is not God. It has no special powers. The state is in decline. The apocalypse will finish it off. The wise thing to do is to stay out of the way and instead prepare for the better world that will emerge out of the ashes of the old.

By Albrecht Dürer - Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, Link