What Does the Mark of the Beast Take to Exist?

It needs to be spiritual. Using it in mind (forehead) or in action (right hand) should be taking you away from God.

Simply using money won't do that. We have examples in the Bible of using money that are perfectly licit, indeed, most are.*

It should be a novelty. Using clothes dates back to Genesis 3. Not being able to shop if you step into the shop stark naked (unless you are a known millionaire who can pay a big tip to compensate the embarrassment, or it is aclothes shop where you go when someone robbed you of your clothes, but you got money to buy clothes) is not making wearing of clothes a mark of the beast. Not being able to do business if you insist on being open on Sundays (except some service providers and urgency providers that should be open even then) is not novel enough if, as you should, you take 1260 days as 1260 * 24 hours. It's been around for centuries. Obviously, 7th Day Adventists try to get around that by pretending 1260 "prophetic days" = as many literal years, which is a blatant misunderstanding of 40 years' penance in the desert for a 40 days' sin or 40 day's penance of one prophet for a 40 year period of sins in Israel (specifically Judah).

But it does need to be physical.

It can't be a thing that only manifests after 15 minutes of conversation, since much business and much access to services is conducted very much quicker than that and in the case of services used for more than 15 minutes directly doesn't involve that much of conversation. Into the cinema, but blocked out if you are a fundie who believes in Geocentrism? The ticket seller won't ask you if you believe Geocentrism and once the session starts, you will not be asked anything, you will be watching. Similarily with taking a train ride or bus ride.

Also, it should be something where complying or not complying owes nothing to clumsiness or someone else's immediate action. You can keep 1 meter distance by simple immediate imitation of people around you, or fail to do so because someone steps back or because you do, and they haven't seen you or you haven't seen the guy behind you.

Now, ideally we would be talking of something that also manifests in your forehead or your right hand.

But the Greek word for forehead, prosopon, also means a helmet's face shield, or vizier. It is also immediately visible if you are wearing a mask or not. In some places, entering with hands with no gloves and without taking hydroalcoholic solution on your hands either is blocked by guards watching the entry.

And if vaccinations become if not mandatory then relative to certain things so, proving you have been vaccinated to people who weren't around will likely involve holding up a paper, a smart card, or a cellphone with some certain application. Such things you usually hold in your right hand.

Now, why would vaccination, masks, hydroalcoholic gel, gloves, if taken as mandatory, involve loss of grace?

In the case of Covid 19 some vaccines are directly abortion tainted, and even Moderna's vaccine is somewhat so, since viruses don't grow in plates of nutritious solution, but only in living cells, and today the standard is using cells from aborted feti.

Masks, hydroalcoholic gel, gloves, all of them take the hospital out in the street - and make it seem our primary loyalty is to hospitals. There are troubles about religious processions, there are troubles about religious services, there are no troubles manifesting loyalty to hospitals. And they are in Christian social ethics not meant to be our primary loyalty and our lead stars. Also, the rule is already unjustly impoverishing people who refuse to use the mask. Even if my hunch were wrong, trying to avoid the mark of the beast and in the process avoiding something else which isn't so, is per se laudable, and it is wrong to impoverish someone for such an attempt. Yesterday I tried to buy yoghurt in two different shops. I was refused to pay (but in the first might theoretically have stolen) for not wearing the mask. In the first one, the shop was empty except for me and the guy at the counter, who fled out into the street to avoid allowing me to pay. I was hungry, and I didn't have money for something more expensive from where the counter faces the street. While I lost my temper, he lost no more than his dignity, not even the yoghurts. OK, some moments in putting them back in the shelf too. But I lost the meal I could afford.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Wednesday in Holy Week
31.III.2021

PS - I had a similarily clearly no risk for contamination encounter with police a few weeks ago, and was charged a fine. The invoice meant to be returned with a check has an invoice number starting with three consecutive sixes .../HGL

PPS - here is how it looks in US, right now:

Watch People Get Arrested For Not Wearing A Mask
5th April 2021 | vaticancatholic.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEvJ22F6mGI

* Some transactions which read like use of money were in reality using silver or gold weighed by balances, no coining involved. Abraham lived before coined money, but not before weight unit "talents" or precious metals silver or gold.