6/6/6

I will be going to see The Omen today. The 1976 original, with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, was excellent. Good choice by the studio to launch the movie on the day that includes three sixes, traditionally called the "mark of the beast".

There is much disagreement and speculation about the meaning of the mark. Students of scripture also argue whether it is to be taken literally or symbolically.

The beast is generally believed to be Satan or the AntiChrist, a man or the Devil in human form. One idea is that the mark is the representation of the name of this person, the AntiChrist, who is to come before the end of the world.

"The initials in Greek: Chi, Xi, Sigma are the "mark" itself, at once a number and a name. Two Greek characters stand for the name of Christ, with a third, the figure of a crooked serpent, put between them, thus transforming the name of God’s Messiah into a Devil sacrament."
-- Joseph Seiss, The Apocalypse, 1865, p. 457

Some believe it will be a barcode or an RFID chip that allows us to conduct commerce, either tattooed on or implanted in the right hand or forehead of a "follower" of the AntiChrist. A recent discovery claims the number more properly is 616.

Personally, I think it's all irrelevant. There is good, and there is evil -- a dichotomy in all things. We know what constitutes good: love, freedom, truth, service to others, uplifting and worthy things, joy, light, kindness. We know what constitutes evil: hatred, contention, slavery, force, lies, deception, cheating, stealing, murder, unworthy things, darkness, and meanness.

Whatever influences you to do good, in truth, comes from "God"; whatever influences you to do evil or to deceive comes from "Satan". In the end, all good people will be "saved", regardless of where they went to church or how many times they said a particular prayer. What's in our hearts is reflected in our deeds, and if/when there is some kind of judgment day, it is how we treated our fellow beings that we will be accountable for.

Nobody really knows what is after this life. We have some good guesses, and I choose to believe in physics -- that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only changed. All that religious stuff is just scaffolding and paint; it doesn't make the house a home. When you find the truth, you know it.