Re: Pat Robertson Fears E-cash?

The relevant verses are in Revelations 13, where some of the actions
by which The Beast can be recognized are given. Among them are:

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.

Millenialist Christians tend to regard this as a method by which 
the faithful will be shut out of the economy, since the pious will
refuse such a 'mark'.

E-cash is a bit of a reach from this, but some of them (eg, 
Robertson), extend the verses to cover all forms of trackable 
transactions. I suspect that if someone could get him to realize the 
privacy aspects of true anonymous ecash, he'd like it.

Just don't propose an implantable cryptographic token :-).



Peter Trei
Senior Software Engineer
Purveyor Development Team                                
Process Software Corporation
trei@process.com

On Wed, 2 Aug 1995, Peter Trei wrote:

> The relevant verses are in Revelations 13, where some of the actions
> by which The Beast can be recognized are given. Among them are:
> 
> 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.
> 
> Millenialist Christians tend to regard this as a method by which 
> the faithful will be shut out of the economy, since the pious will
> refuse such a 'mark'.
> 
> E-cash is a bit of a reach from this, but some of them (eg, 
> Robertson), extend the verses to cover all forms of trackable 
> transactions. I suspect that if someone could get him to realize the 
> privacy aspects of true anonymous ecash, he'd like it.
> 
> 

I read in the New York Times that a lot of fundamentalist Christians fear 
the e-cash revolution because they believe that eventually everyone will 
be required to bear a tattooed bar code on their right hand which 
would contain all a person's information:  name, d.o.b., birthplace, 
etc.  Such a tattoo would also be used to deduct e-cash from a person's 
"account" when they made purchases.  It's still a bit of a stretch; 
they're using the book of Revelations to back up this theory.

kelli@zeus.towson.edu              http://zeus.towson.edu/~kelli/
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Diverse Sexual Orientation Coll.Towson State University DSOC@zeus.towson.edu
BigBrotherSystemsBBS........BigBrotherIsWatchingYou.......(410)494-3253#11

On Thu, 3 Aug 1995, K. M. Ellis wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Aug 1995, Peter Trei wrote:
> 
> > The relevant verses are in Revelations 13, where some of the actions
> > by which The Beast can be recognized are given. Among them are:
> > [Deletia]
> > 
> > E-cash is a bit of a reach from this, but some of them (eg, 
> > Robertson), extend the verses to cover all forms of trackable 
> > transactions. I suspect that if someone could get him to realize the 
> > privacy aspects of true anonymous ecash, he'd like it.

> I read in the New York Times that a lot of fundamentalist Christians fear 
> the e-cash revolution because they believe that eventually everyone will 
> be required to bear a tattooed bar code on their right hand which 
> would contain all a person's information:  name, d.o.b., birthplace, 
> etc.  

Crapola. They fear the unknown, and read their own personal prejudices 
and beliefs into something they don't understand. Maybe I'll start going 
to church <shudder> and explain to the believers about the benefits of 
crypto *against* such Revalationary measures. I'm sure they would be 
interested in the work Chaum has done regarding truly anonymous 
transactions.

Hell, maybe we could set up a Dining Christians net.

"Freedom is meaningless unless  | ic58@jove.acs.unt.edu - James Childers
 you can give to those with whom| No man's freedom is safe
 you disagree." - Jefferson     |    while Congress is in session
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