Note: I am seeking comments and ideas on this one. It is an active and working concept not yet fully developed.
A small seed has been planted somewhere back in my past and I keep seeing little shoots of growth of the plant it is creating. What?! I sound like I'm trying to hard to come up with a metaphor? (laugh).
This is a multi-step concept that I will break down into separate parts so that we can incrementally go through my thought process. I have come to no conclusions; but have considered a hypothesis that I would like to see if it develops into a Theory.
First, I would like to go over the definition of the word "Mark".
There are several definitions for various usage in the English language but the one that I am looking at I found at:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Mark
7.
a. A distinctive trait or property:
Good manners are the mark of a civilized person.
Having established that a "Mark" can be a distinctive trait I want to move on to the next segment of my idea.
Second, a retinal scanner and a palm-print or fingerprint scanner examines your fingerprint/palm-print/retinal pattern against a database. These types of scanners are very secure and offers people an incredible level of 'security'. Someone would need to break into the database and modify your data saved on the equipment/database system to show their retinal scan/fingerprint/palm-print in order to fool the system and steal your identity. Thus.. people think this is an amazing way to protect yourself from identity theft.
Third, having almost completely moved away from paper currency and coin currency the world has become a place of little club-cards, debit-cards, credit cards, etc. Why carry around cash when you can lose it or it can be stolen from you? A credit card offers insurance to protect you in case it is stolen. A debit-card offers security in that you have a PIN number you have to know to use it (most times).
But.. boy, wouldn't you be more 'safe' if you could get your eyes scanned, hand or fingerprints scanned and put into a national (or World) database that was 'protected' by government encryption?
Finally, I would like to put these ideas together to form a complete concept.
It is my hypothesis that the "Mark of the Beast" spoken of in Revelation 13 could be in fact an Identification system put in place to 'protect' people.
Revelations 13: 16-17
16 And 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:
17 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.
In summary, I would like to ask you to consider the 'what if' of what might be coming in the not too distant future. The U.S. Dollar collapses, a one world government is established, we get our Utopian world where everyone gets the same ration of food and water.. but people will take advantage of a system unless we can make sure everyone only gets their 1 day of rations. So....
Come stand in the government line at city hall to place your -forehead- on this device so we can scan you. Place your hand on this device so we can scan you.
Take a look at what is happening in the world around us with the U.S. currency, identity theft, the devaluing of the U.S. dollar, the strong push to a one world government... is it really that far off?