I wish found this "mark of the beast" rhetoric around masks surprising, but as someone who grew up in apocalyptic churches it feels very familiar—this kind of end times theology is a deep undercurrent in American evangelicalism that liberals are entirely unprepared to counter +

all the arguments we muster about collectivism prove the very paranoia we're trying to argue against to adherents—the "new world order"—& yes it ties tightly into old fashioned xenophobia—is about bringing everyone into conformity to usher in worldwide government under the Beast

& because this is all tied to a literal belief in supernatural forces at work, it's possible to believe the disease is real but also believe one's response to the disease is a test of faith, because the virus itself could be of demonic origin, designed to break people's spirits

I predated the Left Behind edition of Rapture™ but we were forced to watch this 70s trilogy—post-Rapture believers are executed by the world government via guillotine—it scarred 12yo me—this is the narrative many mask refusers believe they're living out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thief_in_the_Night_(film_series)

& of course some mask refusers are just super-entitled white folks who have never been asked to do anything inconvenient for the benefit of others—I don't want to overstate the case—but I am struck by how often the "mark of the Beast" comes up in these videos—it's an undercurrent

ah, an addendum on fear—The fear that underlies so much conservative rhetoric also resonates with my evangelical upbringing—they didn't showed these films to children by mistake—much of the rhetoric in our churches was fear-based, trying to scare us away from anything "secular"

transpose "secular" to "liberal" & the pulpit to the rally stage & the fear-mongering is quite similar—It's maybe a reason (some) evangelicals are more comfortable w/DJT than we believe they should be—him railing about dangerous forces infiltrating the country is a familiar theme

remind me in October to write a similar thread about the "hell houses" we were forced to visit around Halloween each year to scare us away from drugs, sex, and rock and roll

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_house 

@abbymullen did y'all have these too?