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0 sats \ 16 replies \ @fourrules 4h \ on: From the Prophet to the Police: How ‘Morality’ Corrupted Christianity Politics_And_Law
I can get behind this.
Christ made the greatest sacrifice (work), on the highest hill (proof), as the lowest man (inclusivity), alone (sovereignty). Christ taught us to play the game such that we don't corrupt it, and contribute to its decay, entropy, even at the expense of our own interests. Satoshi taught us to design the game such that it is not as susceptible to entropy, regardless of the strategies of the players.
The Roman Empire had to respond to Christianity as it was adopted by slaves and the working class, and then parts of the literate upper class elite who wrote the gospels. Their solution to a civilization which became dominated by non-violent revolution was hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the governing principle of the West, a Christian skin suit that serves to uphold everything that Christianity is not. Thus Christianity was sanctioned by the empire, and it became easy, even mandatory, so everyone called themselves Christians, even baptising their children before they could speak the name of Christ. Christianity became just another form of identitarianism, exactly what it Christ lived and died to oppose.
As Dostoyevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, the parable of Christ returning during the Spanish Inquisition, and how they imprisoned Him knowing full well that He was Christ, on the justification that they needed to protect the people from Him and the burden that he placed upon them.
So when Christ really returned it has to be under a pseudonym, giving us the gift again in a mode that is unrecognisable from His first life.
Appreciate this framing, especially the contrast between prophetic truth and empire-maintained hypocrisy.
Just to be clear: I don’t believe Satoshi was Christ; at most, Bitcoin echoes some anti-imperial principles in how systems can resist corruption. The Gospel stands on its own, and my argument is about how power co-opts faith, not about replacing Christ.
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What part of my comment suggested that Satoshi replaced Christ?
They literally had exactly the same idea, which to us is transmitted via the story of the crucifixion and the monomyth. The pillars of that story are the objective rules that govern society, which you can label for shorthand as:
- challenge
- truth
- care
- responsibility
The only way for Christ to propagate and transmit these rules in a pre-literature pre-modern society was too embody them, to face the greatest challenge, in public, with the criminals as an everyman, alone.
That is the bedrock of what makes Christianity, the core idea without which everything else is a mere open of some bloke in antiquity. We know that now because we have seen we an equally obscure individual can do with the same rules, the instantiation of proof of work to create the ideal monetary system.
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We agree on the critique of empire and hypocrisy.
Where I differ is that I don’t see Christ primarily as transmitting an abstract rule-set or monomyth. The Gospel isn’t proof-of-work or a system design. It is God’s redemptive work, confronting unjust power through covenant and incarnation in the Son of Man, not a set of transferable principles.
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Keep working on it, eventually you'll see the 4 rules everywhere, especially if you're a Bitcoiner. It's not my opinion that Christianity is about the propagation of the four rules, everyone lives as though they are true, including you. You are a Christian to the extent that you believe in the four pillars. Otherwise you're a hypocrite, or worse.
Why do you think He had to die, and knew it, in that way?
Question: I'm not big on the resurrection, not because I disbelieve it but because I don't necessarily understand it. But presumably you do, so why is it hard to believe that He is still acting on the world materially, if He was resurrected from the dead? What do you think Revelations is about?
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I’m not judging anyone here. I respect the seriousness of the question. I just see Christianity differently: it’s not mainly about rules people already try to follow.
It claims something specific happened, that Jesus, the only-begotten Son, fulfilled the Scriptures by confronting unjust power, teaching the truth, refusing violence, and being killed for it. For followers of the Way, the resurrection is what makes that life trustworthy: it says this wasn’t a brave loss, but a real victory we’re invited to share in.
That’s what gives people the courage to live this way now, without needing control, because death and violent power don’t get the last word.
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You might just need a bit more grace, to consider what people are telling you, as novel ways of thinking and informing your own faith, rather than invoking an immune response. Nothing I'm saying contradicts what you are saying, I'm just being more concise and succinct, and making the Way more clear, for you and whoever has ears to hear.
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You asked "What part of my comment suggested that Satoshi replaced Christ?"
It was this "So when Christ really returned it has to be under a pseudonym, giving us the gift again in a mode that is unrecognisable from His first life.'" I just wanted to clarify my position, since I do not hear to that interpretation. That's all.
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"So when Christ really returned it has to be under a pseudonym, giving us the gift again in a mode that is unrecognisable from His first life."
First of all, if Satoshi was/is Christ then Satoshi didn't replace Christ, no more than I am "replaced" by my pseudonym here on SN. So on a basic logical level you are suggesting that I adhere to a position that I don't, let alone tried to convince you of.
Secondly, given that we are governed by hypocrites who for more than a thousand years governed in opposition to Christ, yet in His name, why would you assume that Christ would return in His own name, rather than with a pseudonym? Nothing in Revelations suggests that.
On a more sophisticated, less literalist level, even if Satoshi were just a guy, completely unaware that his ideas are tethered fundamentally to the core principles of Christianity and the Crucifixion, that doesn't change anything in what I said. He doesn't replace Christ.
There is no rational way of reading what I said that infers that I was replacing Christ with Satoshi.