All a matter of perspective and societal acceptance isn’t it
Discussion
I would argue it’s in the eye of the beholder.
If I use Bitcoin as money, then it is money, and it doesn’t really matter if someone disagrees with me. I had this argument with Per Bylund on Xitter recently and he tripped himself up on this.
And I’d say the same of religion. If I want to worship Charles Manson, who is to say I am wrong and that it’s not a religion but a cult?
Others can have their opinion but fundamentally both are an expression at the individual level.
You are really demonstrating your passion for individual beliefs over society’s rules.
I like this.
Does something perceived as legitimate come from an individual’s story first and even if society doesn’t agree, if the story grows the legitimacy in society grows.
Now I’m confusing myself but I assume you can see where I am heading.
All ideas originate from an individual. The best of them, those which provide the most utility, are adopted by others.
If you don’t adopt my ideas (money and religion are ideas), that doesn’t negate the legitimacy I ascribe to them but if you do adopt them, it can affirm.
If I worship Charles Manson as my god, and you don’t, you haven’t delegitimised my worship.
If you join me in worshipping him, you have affirmed my beliefs to me but not necessarily anyone else.
They’re both individual expressions. I can’t worship a god on your behalf for example.
It’s why both money and religion have been so useful in controlling populations - they’re individually expressed ideas which form a collective conscience of sorts, but if you control the inputs (ie mint the coins or print the holy books) you can control the outputs.
This is why all who have an idea and claims it is true must be able to prove why the idea is valuable to the individual in isolation. Then the idea is adopted in practice by the masses because it's benefits are evident and verifiably true.