Over 16,540,843 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
Because people are superstitious
The Number of the Beast is described in the Book of Revelation In the Greek manuscripts, the Number is rendered in Greek numerical form or sometimes literally as "six hundred and sixty-six.
Scholars such as Dr. Ellen Aitken have speculated that the reference to this passage was a way of speaking in code about then contemporary figures about whom it would have been politically dangerous to criticize openly.
Many scholars believe that 666 refers to a Roman Emperor such as Nero (whose name, written in Aramaic, was valued at 666, using the Hebrew numerology of gematria, a manner of speaking against the emperor without the Roman authorities knowing).
Certainly, the number is believed to refer in code to a Roman emperor or some other enemy. Thus, it is politically and not divinely inspired. However, some early manuscripts give the number of the beast as 616. Either way, it can't really be called the "devil's number".
The reason for the difference in the "number of the beast": In some of the early translations of Revelation from one language to the next, the numerology changed.
