A group of community farmers, some of them Amish, are challenging rules requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips, saying the devices are a "mark of the beast."

"Use of a numbering system for their premises and/or electronic numbering system for their animals constitutes some form of a 'mark of the beast' and/or represents an infringement of their 'dominion over cattle and all living things' in violation of their fundamental religious beliefs," according to the farmers' lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The farmers' lawsuit, brought by the Virginia-based Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and some of its 1,400 members, seeks to block enforcement of the National Animal Identification System. Some of the group's members so staunchly oppose the program that "they may have to quit farming," according to the lawsuit.

RFID tagging "forces them to, in part, violate tenets of their Old Order Amish beliefs

according to the suit.