Not my name on Nostr: Ok - I’ve got some time. :) So first off - thank you again for taking the time to ...

Ok - I’ve got some time. :)

So first off - thank you again for taking the time to think about something that often results in only a knee jerk response. While I am certainly not the appropriate judge of anything, I nevertheless really also appreciated the fact that what you wrote started with a very insightful review of why someone may disagree with your position. I mean, wow, I have come across very very few people who have the capacity to reason like that. It legitimately made me excited to read the rest of your reply and I’ve genuinely been looking forward to it for the last day or so while I’ve been busy with other things.

That said, I’m hoping you won’t mind clarifying your position on faith relative to Bitcoin. Are you saying that faith is similar to Bitcoin or Fiat? Because I see faith and fiat (they literally are the same word) as much more aligned. As a result I have many of the same issues with faith based reasoning as I do with the fiat economy. Fiat and faith alike seem to me to solve a problem that I’ve never had nor perceived. Clearly lots of other people do find value in them though given how pervasive both are. So I definitely concede to having a minority opinion.

In your next paragraph you seem to be saying that your belief in Jesus helps you with the negative feelings that can come from making mistakes. If that’s the case, I can understand the perceived value of that, but couldn’t you also just forgive yourself for being imperfect? I believe that we are all immensely flawed creatures and when I screw up, I just try to accept/admit my fault and learn from the experience of failure. I don’t see how religions answer to this problem could result in more personal growth than my approach since mine deals with entirely intrinsic factors as opposed to (at least some) extrinsic ones like Gods will, etc.

Your next section gets to the issue of who or what is responsible for us being moral creatures who have the capacity to treat each other well or badly.

Religion to me seems to like to take credit for the good in people while blaming the bad on a lack of faith. This is very problematic line of reasoning for me, who, as an entirely non religious person has dedicated my life to helping others. God didn’t put the good in me and not did the absence of faith cause me to do the bad things that I have done.

If history tells us anything, it’s that religion and faith can be dangerous in the wrong hands (as you started out by so insightfully saying).

So my request of you would be to please just think about this a little more. If for no other reason than to try out a different perspective, consider that you may just be a decent person who has learned from your mistakes like me. Of course if attributing this to a God is your version of humility or if it still brings you other forms of comfort/contentment then great. Just consider that all the positive feelings you describe above can be achieved without belief in things you cannot explain. And by extension, you can be just as happy without subjecting yourself to the risks associated with blind faith in something.

Thank you so much for a great and fun discussion. :)

#grownostr
#thinkdangerously