Reformation Day + Bitcoin White Paper
240 sats \ 3 comments \ @go 31 Oct 2022 bitcoin

Reformation Day + Bitcoin White Paper
Historians disagree whether or not Martin Luther actually nailed the 95 Theses to the door on October 31st, but it has lasted for centuries as the day to celebrate the Protestant Reformation. On this day in 1517 a single man released a ground breaking document that undercut the authoritarian rulers of the day - by empowering individual people to take self custody of their own religion.
Exactly 491 years later a man named Satoshi did the same thing with money.
God bless the revolutionaries. Corruption reigns without them! https://www.swanbitcoin.com/satoshis-white-paper-explained/
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7 sats \ 0 replies \ @notgeld 31 Oct 2022
Indeed, never thought about this coincidence.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @orthzar 31 Oct 2022
On this day in 1517 a single man released a ground breaking document that undercut the authoritarian rulers of the day - by empowering individual people to take self custody of their own religion.
This is one of those myths that confuses me. Europeans were not free to choose their religion during Middle Ages, including during the Reformation. Having a state religion was a critical aspect of European states, especially in German principalities where the Reformation began.
During the Protestant Reformation, a lot of Europeans were forcibly converted to one or another Protestant denomination by the kings/princes/etc that ruled them. Those who wanted to remain Catholic were not allowed to do so. And the reverse is also the case: those who wanted to become Protestants were prohibited by Catholic kings/princes/etc.
Europeans would not see freedom of religion until the modern period, more than 150 years after the Protestant Reformation spread across Europe. Many connect the two, but fail to mention that there was no religious freedom during the Protestant Reformation.
The reason the German princes eagerly participated in the Reformation was to separate from the Catholic Church, which had long acted as a partial check on the power of the German princes. Other states joined the Reformation (e.g. King Henry VIII) in order to increase their own power for the same reason.
The Reformation, in terms of state policy, was far from being an embrace of religious freedom. As a result, Christianity in Europe ceased to be any sort of independent institution. Instead, Christianity became a wedge that European states used to drive Christians apart to the advantage of the State. The Reformation was the nationalization of Christianity in Europe.
Bitcoin is an independent institution, for now. Comparing Bitcoin to state control of religion is to ironically predict that Bitcoin will somehow be captured by the State.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @go OP 31 Oct 2023
Right as you may be - his efforts were to introduce self custody to the Christian faith and I think that’s a point to applaud
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