[antidemocommie]

Oh, so there will be no "mark of the beast" on your right hand and forehead to worry about then???

I guess that will be just some universal tatoo that we will use to buy or sell with. But, strangely, I remember the Bible saying something about those who take the mark have already sealed their fate and are going to by pass Heaven on their way to Hell.

I must have been reading the funnies again.

[nate4one]

Oh, so there will be no "mark of the beast" on your right hand and forehead to worry about then???
I guess that will be just some universal tatoo that we will use to buy or sell with. But, strangely, I remember the Bible saying something about those who take the mark have already sealed their fate and are going to by pass Heaven on their way to Hell.

Do you remember the Biblical references that Christ made to your Heart and what you think and do?
What defiles a man? A TATTOO??

The mark is your "thoughts (forhead) and actions (Right hand)."

What are you going to do if they allow it on your left hand? Add to scripture?

The 1st century Christians were well known because of their "thoughts and actions" and that is why they were not allowed to buy or sell. Everyone knew who they were and didn't let them.

P.S. I am saying IT ALREADY HAPPENED. I do not deny that there was a mark, but it wasn't a literal one. It was thoughts and actions and has already happened!

[sheltonmac]

"Oh, so there will be no "mark of the beast" on your right hand and forehead to worry about then???"

As Ed McMahon would say, "You are correct, sir!" The "mark" was symbolic. There will be no mark because there already was a mark in the first century. When you consider Revelation was actually written before Jerusalem fell (i.e. before A.D. 70), things begin to make sense. The Beast was representative of Rome (generally) and Nero (specifically). For more on this, check out the following links:

http://kennethgentry.com/Merchant2/backtothefuture.htm
http://www.reformedreader.org/mchart.htm
http://www.bibleprophecy.com/

I'm still studying this myself but have studied it enough to know that the strict futuristic interpretation of Revelation is full of errors and inconsistencies.

[The_Reader_David]

I have the dreadful feeling, from the fact that the account of the mark of the beast in the Revelation to St. John the Theologian, that it will turn out to be a device with a neural interface, which will make repentence impossible (how else could a mark render spiritual grace inoperative?). We are coming perilously close to having such a techology.

It is a little trope I might include were I to write a novel as an Eastern Orthodox "reply" to the "Left Behind" series that the implantation will not need to be on the forehead or right-hand, but that artificial ganglia will form on the dominant hand and the forehead (near the eyes) to run a real-time neurally implemented virtual reality in which, deprived of even the reality of the Fallen world, one will be unable to attain salvation. I would, of course, depict pre-tribulation rapture believers cheerfully accepting the device, certain that it can't be the Mark because the rapture hasn't occurred.

Oh, and be careful about Elijah: while the Anti-Christ will have his False Prophet (as all the little antichrists throughout history have always had), Orthodox tradition tells us that the two witnesses against the Anti-Christ will be Elijah and Enoch (who will finally die so they can join in the Resurrection).