Comments:  This and the images to follow comprise a PowerPoint slide show circulating via email since February 2004, though the ideas it conveys have been around much longer.

From a few basic facts — e.g., the existence of a company called Mondex, a subsidiary of MasterCard International which manufactures "smart" bank cards with microprocessor chips to store personal information, and the development of the "biochip," a special microchip that can be implanted in human or animal subjects — the anonymous authors of the presentation veer off into wild extrapolation, asserting that these technologies fulfill apocalyptic prophecies in the Biblical Book of Revelation. Some of the claims are demonstrably false. Others proceed from fanciful assumptions and a literalist, current events-oriented interpretation of scripture with which many theologians, not to mention rank-and-file Christians, disagree.

Could the so-called "Mondex bio-chip" really be the "mark of the beast" predicted in the Bible?  Read on...