Surely the military forces you to carry identification papers and present such ID in many circumstances. That seems obvious from an OPsec perspective. My father served in the forces and would also readily rattle off their social security number (another 'mark of the beast') to any government official. It's just what they do in the forces.

Who is to say the social security number is or isn’t the mark of the beast?

I’ve yet to hear of anyone kicked out of a store in the western liberal order for lack of one. On the other hand, the Covid shot yes. You’re perhaps forgetting one of the key elements to the story is not just “a mark” but that it is required for your ability to operate in life.

That my undocumented school mates had no trouble getting by in life and attaining meaningful work post graduation would contraindicate the SSN being “the mark,” it wasn’t required to rhat degree.

Then again someone may come along and argue IT IS the mark but they just haven’t finished implementing that system yet.

Interpretation of religious texts is fun that way.

> Who is to say the social security number is or isn’t the mark of the beast?

I'll say it. It's not the mark of the beast. It's a number in a database. Calm thy tittay.

There are quite a few things you can't participate in without a SSN or some equivalent in the US. Public school is not one of those because at the very least, voters have been convinced we shouldn't be cruel to children in that way.

The first objection looks pretty sensible, if properly backed with proof.

The second, in contrast, is incredibly ambiguous, as the mark of the beast can be anything, even abstractions. The measles vaccine actually leaves a mark, and it had little opposition, if at all.

Fun thing about religious belief, there is no requirement for it to be anything except a belief. No proof required.

Remember that religious liberty, the freedom to believe whatever you want, is literally written into our laws here.

Religion can be anything because religion is imaginary, and that's fine. It's cool as long as you keep it in your head, it's not cool when you use it to justify antisocial behavior.

If I create a religion that says corpses are holy, I'm still not allowed to keep dead animals in my backyard because it fosters disease. "BuT Im noT gEtTinG sIcK" wouldn't fly.

All in all, it’s not anyone’s place to play religious scholar with anyone else’s belief system or to demand hard proof either. Personally, I haven’t found a sect that really matches with my reading and understanding of scripture. So how do you validate that?

As for the second, no one said the “mark” has to be a literal mark. Many sects of many religions view large parts of scripture as allegorical or good general teachings for a coherent (if not imperfect, particularly based on modern secular norms) society.

No to be overly accusatory, but this all reminds me a bit of a young, agnostic me. The “well what about turning the other cheek” type of gotcha comment that ignores scripture that provides deeper context or contextual “contradiction.”

We live in a large and diverse world, and religion is ultimately a human system. We’re just never going to be able to nail it down to an instruction set as we may desire to do.

There's no need to validate anyone's beliefs, only their actions. You can't claim that your personal beliefs exempt you from taxes and get away with it, for example. Your beliefs are your own inner world, but the outer world still exists and you're accountable to it.

Actually, you can claim that your beliefs exempt you from taxes and get away with it, but the privilege is negotiated in the real world with real influences.

I believe your tax example reveals your ignorance of the Amish and their place in American society.

My friend, I mean no disrespect but you remind me of a younger me. I was a teenage agnostic, but the politics were too convenient...

I’m sure you want folks to take a medical treatment you believe will help them and others but we live in a diverse society that makes affordances for religious belief as a core pillar of our society.

Whether or not you want that to be so is not germane to the issue of how one, here and now, is presented with an exemption from an otherwise mandatory government edict.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but the only taxes the Amish don't pay are services they have been specifically exempt from paying (FICA, because their religion has a specific obligation to take care of their elderly) and taxes that come through state usage fees like driver's licenses. They pay federal and state income taxes, property taxes, and any other tax that comes along with those.

> we live in a diverse society that makes affordances for religious belief as a core pillar of our society.

I think you've stated the problem quite well: it's not a question of freedom, it's a religious and political issue.

BTW, you shouldn't risk getting COVID. if I remind you of your younger self, you must be in the vulnerable age bracket because I'm 50.

That's actually easy.

All you have to do is ask if they're being consistent.

If they've taken all the vaccinations to this point but suddenly have an issue with this particular vaccine, then it's not a religious thing. Personally, I don't feel like it should matter whether a belief is fundamentally religious or not. The thing that matters is that a person believes it.

That said, if they aren't being consistent, then there's no reason to take them seriously.

Sure, if you catch them in an lie it’s clear something is amiss. If one argued against Fetal Cell development and asked off for an abortion (or used some other product) then you get to mail them to the proverbial cross.

Now, how much time must elapse before a religious change is true and sincere? A hard question to determine. For many, all it takes is a rock bottom moment in their life.

Either that or you make the legal argument that your freedom of religion ends at the tip of my nose. Seeing as the larger the group of unvaccinated get, the more danger we are all in, I don't think that would be a difficult argument to make.

Also regarding Fetal Cell Tissue I think it is used in testing various other common drugs like aspirin, tylenol, ibuprofen etc...

All those drugs existed, approved and became generic before fetal cell research emerged. If one drug manufacturer decides to do FCR on asprin that doesn't invalidate all asprin, just that manufacturer's. For a new product the logic is different. This product exists because of FCR and is forever tainted unless it is recreated using clean room design.

Now, you might disagree with this logic, and that's your prerogative. But also irrelevant outside of an honest attempt to persuade a person otherwise. It's their conscious.

> the existence of a religious exemption somewhat weakens the argument

So because there is an out built into the system, it can't be the literal embodiment of evil some argue, therefore no one should be allowed to use the out? I feel like this argument is self-defeating.

For the mark of the beast side, as a good Christian, he should not be fighting for Satan's(the US government) navy? It'd make a lot more sense for him to leave the military altogether