I’m kind of fascinated by the number of Christians on Nostr.
It’s an anomaly and one can draw some fun conclusions to ascertain the why.
Discussion
Why? Christianity is truth, and the truth is being censored. Nostr claims to be a free speech platform, where truth can be spoken uncensored...
💪 some of the best people too.
Sorry, may you explain why Christianity is more "truth" than other religions?
No, it would be a too long to write here, I suggest reading the bible to find out, if you are sincerely seeking the truth.
Ok
Have you read other holy books in order to seek the truth?
How many of them?
🤔
Yes. Too many to list. They are all suspect or self-contradicting, but they are all similar enough to see the twisted lies at the origins is you're honest enough.
I'm not saying that the Bible is easy to read and understand. It has only been in the last few years that I've gotten answers to many questions I've wondered. Much of that comes from digging in to the original languages more since all translations get some (or many) things flat out wrong.
Nor am I saying that all other religious texts are completely devoid of truth or facts. But... They don't hold up, IMO.
Too many to list?
Care to list "at least" two or three?
So, the other holy books are all full of contradictions... but the Bible is just "difficult to read"??
Come on, tell me you have actually read the Bible and haven't found any contradiction on it!
🫣
whatever you are trying to do, I don't think it will work. they don't change their minds like that. if it were that easy there would be no more christians.
I know I am not going to break such strong faith chatting on the internet.
Just practicing some English writing and reasoning here.
😊🫂
Yes. All other religions are opposed to Christianity and lead to worsening of, well, everything. Christianity lived correctly is the most powerful thing ever, even with all the attempts of the other side to destroy and corrupt its influence.
How is that related in any way to "truth'?
By the way, there's no consensus among Christians about what it's "Christianity lives correctly".
I'm afraid "the other side" is inside Christians.
That's not at all true. There's very wide consensus in Christianity, but of course you get debate on a lot of it. That's good and healthy.
Free speech platforms draw the rational and the vocal.
Christianity is the most rational religion, and those that understand Christianity are vocal about it.
why do you think christianity is the most rational religion?
“I am the way, the truth, the life.”
It’s based in truth, and the truth is verifiable.
No other religion stands up to scrutiny the way Christianity does.
how can i verify that your quote is the truth?
Jesus said this directly, it’s in the Bible, translated for 2k+ years.
The way we “prove” this is through study of the word and practice of the word.
Does practice of the word lead to a better or worse life? Does it lead you closer or further from god?
in other words: something "surviving" for so long we can assume it has to be true, else we would not tell it to the next generation? or does this miss the point?
Missed the point.
It’s survived as long as it has because it’s verifiable.
so how do i verify it?
cause someone saying something, that beeing written down and getting translated for 2k years doesn't mean it is true from my point of view
Right, learn and practice.
what?
Learn
And
Practice
Religion like life is not a spectator sport
i mean what should i learn and practice
I think a great place to start is bishop Bobby Baron on YouTube.
Just start listening to his brief weekly sermons. And when you’re ready he has plenty of deeper work as well.
I’m a Christian, but I don’t believe it is entirely rational to believe God came to earth as Jesus Christ, performed miracles, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and now we consume his flesh every Sunday. That’s why it’s called faith. But I think the idea of this entire thing we call life being the consequence of random atoms colliding, where humans can produce wonderful works of art and shape their environment much less rational.
Furthermore, if you read the Bible cover to cover, you find way too many coincidences to not believe.
Being a Christian is not a passive practice. It requires effort.
#christisking
yes — i agree mostly
The most rational 'religion' is atheism.
That’s the most retarded religion.
You look around you, as the infinite vastness and complexity of the universe, and go “nope, there’s nothing out there. We’re just the creation of monkeys banging on keyboards creating Shakespeare.”
Lol.
Pfft. No. It takes way more faith to only believe in causal, mechanistic materilism than there being a supreme being who created everything at His pleasure.
I'm afraid you are confused:
It's not faith that gives you atheism, but rational thinking.
There is nothing rational in looking the world and going “yup, this is 100% chance”
I'm not confused. Atheism requires more faith than simply observing the realm we live in is created logically and rationally. You cannot be rational and conclude that random chance or purely mechanistic physicality lead to the state of the universe that we can observe now. Heck, the fact that we observe is itself a fact that cannot rationally be explained by mechanistic physicality. There is purpose in the universe, and that also points to a will, and if there is a will, then there also must be something or someone with that will.
Coming from someone who briefly bought into atheism, the thing that snapped me out of it was the aimlessness of it; if there's nowhere for you to go after you die, good or bad, than what's the use in living?
Anything you do will have no impact since once you're dead, that's that. You may have people either loving or hating you on a varied level, but that's short-lived since if you were to believe in the atheist mentality, you won't live with that guilt long after your physical life ends; the only "purpose" you'd have in a godless world is that of material maximization, having the most stuff in a world that rapidly depreciates the value of whatever you attain.
Some fucking life that is.
Atheism is a foundation of people
who are seeking absolute truth .
You assume too much .
That is why you are not worthy
of either benefits of the doubt .
Atheism is a dead end, literally; not absolute truth.
You’re jewish aren’t you?
Buyers beware not all who look like Christians are Christian’s there are some heretics around us
Indeed!
Freedom and truth seem to have a way of congregating believers.
Or they post a lot to convince themselves through any means necessary. Can't imagine the cognitive hoops the Christian Nationalists jump through these days to feel 'American'.... Wild.
But more and more it plays like willful ignorance. Sad bunch I miss ye old Christians of the 90s I guess. These modern ones suck ass.
Maybe Christianity isn't as dead/obsolete/obscure as the media would like us to believe.
You have people who value truth, life, justice, peace, stewardship, etc., and have a standard to measure against, a King higher than any government or agency. I see Bitcoin and Nostr as a very natural fit. The surprise to me is that there aren't more Christians on Nostr (yet).
Many principles that lay the foundation of freedom and justice are found in the Bible. Not all the heroes of history followed Jesus, certainly. But many did, and their faith often drove their efforts to see things made right, or gave them the courage to persevere.
I'm curious, though... What do you see?
Compared to what? The algorithms on other sites might be misrepresenting (up or down) the number of Christians. But Nostr is less "algorithmic" in that sense
I was very interested in flat earth (while never believing it) for a few months and my YouTube feed was full of flat earth stuff
I believe that Bitcoin is based on truth and an excellent way to be a good steward with the blessings that God has given us!!
What makes you believe that this number is high?
I would say that allowing individuals to freely express themselves is key in society, including faith/religion. Other platforms have algorithmically squashed specific content, and thus people like myself have left these other platforms. In a free society, the high number of Christian faith individuals should reflect a similar percentage to the population. Also, I would love to have a deeper conversation on this, and would like to know your thoughts on my take nostr:npub1z3avrrs936yhjcjaq5z9f0jqmsvmgax6m52x90el43xj3mcu5xaqwnw2jv
Maybe they’re seeking a decentralized sanctuary from the mainstream narrative.
Yea, that was one of a few reasons I joined.
Wait until word spreads that baptism was an ancient Egyptian practice involving sensory deprivation, massive chemical manufacturing operations that took place in ancient Egyptian buildings, theta neural oscillation induced altered states of consciousness, and enlightenment.
They were processing basalt into Epsom salts using, most likely, hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid millennia before Epsom was even the name of the place on the Earth's crust.
The "fiery baptism of the Holy Spirit" is redundant because the "ba" in "baptism" is pointing to the same thing that "the Holy Spirit" is pointing to. Modern academic consensus interpretations of "ba" are esoterically uninformed.
Christians also don't tend to understand Alpha and Omega or Chi and Rho. Christ did. He got it. Rome, in the first few centuries, button mashed to corrupt and distort the Christ movement away from Christ's teachings and cover up or destroy evidence of Christ's travels during the missing chapters.
Christ was awesome but modern exoteric Christianity requires far too much cognitive dissonance. People are too lazy and egotistical to do opposition research on their own religious beliefs. Often times, it's because they're not closeted in their religious beliefs which is a less costly place to be when switching beliefs. The ego doesn't like to be seen to be wrong.
Also, many have decided that there is no proof of anything out there whatsoever, even though within our lifetimes, the collective knowledge of the world has been becoming ever more available with almost no friction whatsoever in terms of access. We're sitting here with the ability to explore every culture, every religious tradition, every esoteric tradition, every occult tradition, every spiritual tradition, etc. yet people use this tool to do all sorts of idiotic things. Because they've decided there is no proof out there, they do not look, which is ironic because that's EXACTLY what Christ was talking about with the whole camel passing through the eye of the needle teaching.
Most Christians wouldn't recognize Christ if Christ was out on the street corner preaching today.
Hmm, I did see a guy on my street corner who looked like Christ...
What about people who don't care whether there is evidence out there and who believe it is more than reasonable to dismiss the idea of an intelligent first existence even in the presence of some sort of documented miracle? Are they also using the internet idiotically by not exploring cultures, or exploring religious, esoteric, occult, or spiritual traditions?
Yes. That's closed minded.
I love disagreeing with people. I don't think I could ever live a life where I always try to avoid disagreeing with people. Therefore, I am very curious to interrogate your idea of closedmindedness. Please tell me, is it always closed minded to disagree with someone? Or are there scenarios where an openminded person could still disagree with others?
Disagreeing with people for the sake of being disagreeable is pathological.
Willful ignorance is definitionally closed minded. If every scientist immediately disagreed with every whitepaper that every other scientist published no ideas would spread. Open mindedness is important but so is discernment. Prejudicial dismissal of ideas is dumb.
I love talking about why I'm disagreeable, thank you for bringing it up. I can elaborate if you have anything specific you want to ask, but to keep things simple, I believe that disagreeing and arguing with someone is the fastest way to form a deeper understanding of their thought process. You are disagreeing with me right now, and I see it as a great compliment.
I see, so it sounds like you believe that willful ignorance and prejudicial dismissal of ideas are always closedminded. What about non-prejudicial dismissal of ideas? What if someone had actual reasoning and criteria for dismissing ideas? For example, would it be closedminded for a scientist to refuse to read papers depending on whether the scientist accepts the standard assumptions and methodology that the paper is built on top of?
And since willful ignorance is relevant to your understanding of closedmindedness, I would like to ask you some questions about your understanding and usage of that term as well. I believe that there is an awful lot of information available within the world's collective knowledge. I don't believe it would ever be possible to examine all of it. Do you consider it willful ignorance if someone intentionally chooses to avoid spending their time on certain topics that they have determined not to be worth the time? Is it willful ignorance for example if someone avoids spending their time learning about celebrity drama?
People don't typically try to tell you about the salt on crackers or the color of the sidewalk. They're generally telling you highlights and to dismiss their attempt to share what they consider to be significant with you is the same thing as judging their ability to determine what is and what is not significant. Most people are not good judges of what is significant. Bear in mind people took experimental gene therapy shots for free donuts.
If someone tells me something is significant, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and do some initial exploration of that thing.
It starts to become a problem when we incorporate timelines into play. If it is something I've already explored, they wouldn't know that I've already explored it so, even though I might know that my dismissal is not prejudicial, the other party does not know that. All they experience is rejection.
Such a person might be prone to falsely equate what they experienced with willful ignorance on my part, however their accusation is based upon ignorant assumptions.
Speaking from my perspective, I've canvassed a LOT of people on the subjects I talk about. Almost nobody has ever heard of these topics. This means they are not in the position I described above where they've already studied this thing I'm showing them and have the ability to intelligently converse upon that subject and countervail any arguments for that thing's significance. So when they dismiss these things, they are dismissing them out of ignorance.
Well spoken and relevant points there. I would like to caution you however with the other side of your last point. The fact that there are so few who can speak with knowledge on those points means you have very few people to keep you balanced. Many people are not in a good position to move into the unknown and can find little value in the first reports they hear from an explorer. Being an explorer is also a very risky business.
That's 100% true. If I haven't argued with someone about a particular topic, then my beliefs on that topic are pretty much useless. There are a great many topics I have thought about that I am very patiently waiting for someone to talk about them with.
Buddy how many liberal memes deep are we into this conversation from both of us and you break out the line that people are generally telling you the HIGHLIGHTS? I shudder to imagine what the whole cannoli looks like!
But no, that's completely bullshit. A person with a great ability to articulate their point and a confidence in their understanding of the other person's thought process will be concise, but that is the exception, not the rule. God damn, I'm having PTSD flashbacks to that one Christian I talked with who would literally talk for multiple hours spanning across half a dozen different topics when I asked him a simple religious question and not even end up answering the damn question. It was our third conversation before he reluctantly admitted that he could stand to ask me a question or two, and even that was only after someone explicitly told him as much.
You are 100% correct that I am judging their ability to determine what is and what is not significant. A person cannot know what is significant in a conversation with me unless they have asked me many questions about my beliefs and know my position well. Listen, I'm not going to stop talking with someone just because they told me something that would have literally zero affect on my beliefs regardless of if it was true. But that doesn't mean I'm going to accept hours and hours of homework from someone who refuses to take the time to ask about my own position and listen to it for just a few minutes.
I big part of it is because Christianity talks about morality and so scoundrels filter themselves. If someone wants to be evil and has no opinion on whether the Abrahamic god exists then they will naturally choose to be atheist, or choose to join a pegan belief system without a large community of very principled members. Just because Christians are expected to at least justify themselves when they get together and agree they are fine with a bunch of evil shit.
And then you have good people who have no opinion on whether the Abrahamic god exists, but who want to associate themselves with the good connotations that come with being Christian, many of which will come up with some sort of rationalization to call themselves "Christian" even if their interpretation of Christianity or reasons for being Christian are very different from the average Christian's.
It seems to me that Nostr as a platform is designed in a very idealistic way. That's probably why it's so shitty. And as much as I hate to admit it, even though none of the shitty Bitcoin users on here care about or understand these ideals, Bitcoin itself is also designed in a very idealistic way. A large collection of people who are more idealistic than average are also more likely than average to be Christian.
Of course, there are exceptions to my profiling. Namely there are principled people who don't give a shit what people think about them and who believe there is no Abrahamic god. Or completely unprincipled Scoundrels who care more about looking good than the inconvencience of having to come up with a bunch of bullshit reasons for acting unprincipled. Praise the Lord.
I’m not gonna lie my man, I’m not really following your logic but appreciate your perspective.
I can be more concise. Maybe that will help.
Both Nostr and Christianity draw in naive and vulnerable idealists. It's not surprising that a lot of the people drawn to Nostr would be drawn to Christianity too.
Does that help you to follow your logic? Can you be any more specific to help me explain my position better?
Taking Nostr out of this because ultimately it’s just a forum. I’d be curious to learn more about your understanding of what Christians believe. At the core of the Christianity is an understanding that mankind is sinful and need of a savior. Not necessarily the theology of an idealist.
We do believe that the world was created with intention by a designer (God) who intricately made the beautiful world we get to live in. Maybe that’s where you think Christians are naive and are idealist?
I don't believe that idealism or naivety are essential traits of Christianity. It's just that from interacting with Christians in person and online, I get the general vibe that the culture encourages thoughtfulness and frowns upon people who refuse to justify their treatment of others.
I have also noticed a huge variation among Christians regarding how they approach conversations involving the supernatural. Some Christians are very very careful with what they will claim and the position they defend, avoiding making concrete statements about exactly what God or heaven is like. And some Christians are completely unabashed in saying things like "oh yeah, God is literally a thinking feeling person who watches over people with his two eyes. Something bad happened to you? God was probably pissed at you for some reason, or maybe it would have been much worse if god hadn't literally reached down from heaven to interfere for the sake of preventing a worse inconvenience for you personally."
That's why I say that some impressionable idealists are only Christian because they see the culture of morality and just assume there's probably something correct within the Christian religion, and not because they find the metaphysics of creation particularly compelling. That's the general phenomenon thing that I see as naive.
maybe jack is jesus
Most Christian’s, like myself, are perfectly fine with other people having opposing views as long as we are also free to express our views. Right now nostr is the best place where I can say what I want and ignore what I want. That’s why I’m here. Plus, I prefer to live among other bitcoiners.