Over the past several weeks many Christians have gone to their knees in prayers to God, Holy Spirit and Jesus begging them to have mercy on Kenya and the world, and potentially to postpone the end time and the coming of the beast and his mark thereof. Reason? The Pope is coming to Kenya. Just to make it clear, the head of Catholic church is Christian, and so are the many other Christian denominations that believe that the Pope is Satan incarnate, the beast from the sea in Revelation 13 and the head of the woman dressed like a whore in Revelation 17.
That’s what makes Religion interesting. Although all religious believe in gods, and most believe in one God, and even going down further where many still believe in similar characteristics of the God and His Son and the Holy Spirit, they still find themselves as far apart as South is from North when it comes to interpretations of some tenets of their religious teachings.
For example, whereas there are those who believe that the Antichrist is Antiochus IV Epiphanes who defiled the Jewish temple in around 168 BC, there are those who believe that Antichrist is the Papacy who fulfilled the 1260 days of Revelation and Daniel day for a year prophecies from 538 AD “when the armies of the eastern Byzantine Empire under general Belisarius began a series of victories in the Gothic wars that would ultimately allow Rome to become an effective center for the Roman Catholic authority that ruled during the Middle Ages” up to 1798 AD “when the armies of France took Pope Pius VI captive” – see Revelation of Jesus.
It doesn’t end there, there are those who believe that the Antichrist is yet to make an appearance and by the time he comes, he will rule for 7 years with the first three and a half years spent in consolidation of world powers into one world order (in a World War III scenario involving Israel, Russia, Middle East, Europe and US – e.g. the current Syria and Ukraine conflicts), put in place measures to ensure a unified economy and political power, and usher in world peace and utilization of the mark of the beast in form of 666 in global and local commerce. At the end of the first half of the seven years, the loyal Christians will be mysteriously raptured to heaven and immediately after the beast (Antichrist) will reveal himself in his true colours and force everyone, “great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name” Rev 13: 16, 17.
According to this branch of believers, the Antichrist will need to use technology to implant the mark of the beast on every human on earth. This has made most of the believing Christians to follow the progress of technological adoption across all sectors of global economy to allow them predict the beginning of their end time.
True to their expectations, the technology without which one will not be able to buy or sell is already here, and again, it has nothing to do with religion, although I like calling it the technology of 666. And it is not a one single technology but rather an amalgamation of technologies that are driving us towards a 100 percent cashless economy.
- Electronic Money
The precursors of 100 percent cashless society are the various forms of electronic money. For a while card based payments in form of Mastercard and Visa Card have been going on. In the developed world, these card based payments penetrated the economy for as much as 80%, but the use of cards could not be referred to as the 666 since the use of the mark of the beast for commerce require two important parameters – that the mark will be in people’s right hand or in their foreheads. Even though there are Christian denominations that interpret the right hand as “labour” and the forehead as “thought”, the literal interpreters posit that actual electronic marks with personal and banking information will be embedded in the right hand and/or the forehead; hence the need to miniaturize the cards. It is important to note that these types of interpretations are based on studying technological developments thus not a forethought or of divine inspiration.
2. Mobile Money
Mobile money is in two forms – the SMS based platforms where we have MPESA in which Kenya is a pioneer, and the Internet based platforms e.g. Apple Pay and Google Wallet. The SMS based platforms are important in accelerating adoption of cashless commerce in developing countries due to unavailability of Internet in most places in those countries and the low population of the banked. The Internet based mobile money that utilize Apps are important in transferring card users from the traditional electronic cards to a new virtual system that relies on cloud computing. As technology progresses, the two mobile money platforms will have to merge to create one standardized payment platform.
3. RFID
Mobile money is important as it eliminates the need of carrying cards or relying on particular hardware. This makes it easier for miniaturization of basic hardware required to store basic personal identification information that can be linked to mobile money accounts – a hardware that can be implanted in the hand or forehead through a simple stamping procedure. Such a basic hardware already exists and it is known as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
In a move to popularize the use of RFID, Zoltan Istvan who is the Transhumanist Party presidential candidate in the 2016 US elections, in the course of his immortality bus trip that is basically a cross-country bus journey to spread the word about his Transhumanist Party campaign, stopped over at the GrindFest biohacker event in Tehachapi, California to have his hand implanted with an RFID chip. We have interviewed Zoltan Istvan in this blog which you can read by following this link.
In the not so far future, the smartphones will miniaturize to the size of RFIDs. This will be helped with widespread adoption of Augmented reality that will eliminate the need of screens thus the only thing that will be required for the access of mobile phone services is a tiny chip implanted in the hand or chip. As smartphones become RFIDs and reality transform into Augmented and Virtual worlds, and everyone become RFID tagged, there will be no need for cash of any kind. It is highly likely that in a such a world that is set to begin as soon as next year when Virtual Reality goes mainstream, money will be in the form of Bitcoins or any other virtual/crypto currency.
The Universalization of the Global Economy
In the interview with Zoltan Istvan, we asked him to give his opinion in regards to the donor-recipient relationship US has with Africa, specifically asking him to tell us whether a two way business partnership between US and Africa is the best way forward, to which he responded, ” … Furthermore, I do think eventually we will be heading for a global government, as technology becomes something too powerful and pervasive to maintain so many nations in the world. If this global government happens, then Africa will likely benefit much … “
As much as the Christian world is waiting for the prophecies of the bible to usher in a global government through coercion and world war three scenarios, a world where people cannot buy or sell without the use of implanted technology chips containing the mark of the beast and 666, the technology world too is looking forward to a unified global economy with a potentially one political power (or an apolotical power) but where all transactions and communications, including payments for goods and services, are done through connected devices – a universal world where human beings become part and parcel of the Internet of Things – a scenario I would like to refer to as the technology of 666.
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Let us welcome Pope to Kenya as any other human being but a human being recognized by his followers as an important one. Those scared of him thinking that he is Satan incarnate, it’s all up to your religious teachings.
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Please do not use this article as an indication that your prophetic interpretations of the bible are the correct ones. Sometimes it is good to assume that all religious interpretations are potentially wrong.