Having professed myself not a believing Christian, I thought a few words might be in order to clarify the previous post regarding the Mark of the Beast in The Apocalypse, It is often said by non-believers, especially those that disdain Christianity, that The Devil is a Christian "invention".Those who make this claim are correct only in the strictest sense. The specific image, a red devil with horns, a barbed tail, goatee and cloven hooves, who resides in a firey, eternal Hell, and whose job it is to tempt souls to everlasting damnation is unique to Christianity. But there is no dearth of images of Ultimate Evil in the annals of human religious thought. The Egyptian god Osiris was murdered and Isis was hounded by the evil god Set. The Norse god Loki caused the murder of the beloved Balder. The Frost Giants representing the great evil, Chaos, were the perpetual enemies of Thor. In pre-Islamic Iran, the good god Ahura Mazda, was opposed by Aingra Mainyu the chief deity of evil.
Star Wars has the Dark Side of the Force. Lord of the Rings has Sauron. Pirates of the Caribbean has the cruel, immortal Davey Jones. Harry Potter has Lord Voldemort. Buffy and Angel and Supernatural have vampires and demons, and hell-mouths and hell-gates!
(...and the Left has George W. Bush...)
The idea of ultimate, unredeemable evil is not unique to Christianity, and though it is from the Bible that the idea of a Mark of the Beast comes to us, we need not interpret it as limited to the Christian Devil.
Evil's minions come in all shapes and sizes. It is not the form, but the function that matters. I think one can accept the concept of an evil Mark of the Beast, without professing faith in Christian dogma.
Just because it's in the Bible doesn't make it literally true. At the same time, just because it's in the Bible doesn't make it automatically false.
Non, and anti Christians would do well to remember that.
The Gunslinger
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