I don't think it matters whether or not the mark is spiritual , physical or whatever , the fact that whoever takes it believes their good to go , can buy and sell and doesn't give a hoot about anyone else , especially the unmarked.
Back to the article, what was the "mark" there? Hint: there ain't one. Joe Computer looks at you and says "yep, that's Insaneru, or "nope, that ain't him". No mark necessary. It looks at your face, or your eyes, or you palm print.
You lot are still trying to find a mark, which isn't even needed to identify anyone any more. Worst case, far from having a mark to distinguish you, there's simply be a "deceased" switch set on in the Great Big Database, the same one they'd use to indictate that you were physically dead.
They can take the mark and sit quite happy in their new found comfort zone , while watching the unmarked starve to death.
Why have a mark for someone to "take" or not? It no longer serves a purpose.
And we have already seen a microcosm of the lack of this during the pandemic
Not really. I pretty much did as I pleased during the pandemic except, obviously, stuff that the gummint just straight up shut down. I flew all over the US in half empty airplanes (I miss that!), drove where I pleased, ordered food in, stood on the dot on the floor at Kroger and WalMart. All it took was a mask, which was probably not a bad idea in the first place. My Asian kin have been wearing masks during cold & flu season for as long as I can remember. <Laugh> I didn't get the 'Rona until the masks came off, but I'd taken the vax by then and was all but asymptomatic.
How much love did you show toward your unvaccinated neighbor?
Same as I always had. I was a Starbuck barista through the whole pandemic when there was no vax,with nary a sniffle. If I wasn't skeered of folks before I got the shot, why would I have been afterward?
One of my best mates, though, refused the vax. He had all the best logical reasons. He'd gone through the worst of the pandemic in safety, he avoided crowds (he always had), he ate vitamins like popcorn, he washed his hands with almost OC regularity, his age made him unlikely to get the bug, or for it to be dangerous if he did get it, and thus the vax could prove more dangerous than the bug itself. He agreed that a fossil like me ought to get the shot, but that he'd surely be better off without it. I told him I hoped he was right for both of us.
He died in hospital, on a ventilator, about six weeks later. He told his family while he could still talk how much he regretted not having gotten the stupid shot.
Requiescat in pace, my brother.
You don't need to answer that , just think about it.
The only person I fell out with was about masks. A pastor, who became a no mask crusader. He perched in his parsonage, ordered food from Kroger to pick up at curbside, ordered everything from Amazon, did Zoom sermons o the few parishoners who had zoom and wanted to, and pontificated about the weakness of mask wearers.
He went to far as to post on Facebook that people who wore masks were "afraid to live".
I told him I appreciated the courage it took for him to hide in his house and inveigh against those of us who, like myself, wore masks, while we worked 40 hours a week (at on of the only Starbucks locations open in town, in a Kroger store that was considered "essential"), went pretty much where we pleased (all over the US, couldn't get to Denmark or England for a couple of years) , and lived as much like we always had as was possible given the heavy handed reverse quarantines that were in place. ) His chicken-hearted brand of heroism was a bit too much for me, and I lost a lot of respect for him that I still haven't recovered.