(Afterthought: This note turned out to be much longer than I originally intended, so maybe it should be a Medium article. But I don't like Medium, and I don't have an account there. So, this will live on Nostr for now.)
Earlier this evening, my wife and I watched the original Star Trek, season 2 episode 25, "Bread and Circuses". Not only is that episode exceptionally well-written, it's a great one for Bitcoiners to watch, as you can probably tell from the episode's title.
Though this was the first time for me to watch this episode, my mom talked about it a lot, ever since I was very young. In the episode, there are a group of runaway slaves, who are misunderstood by our main characters as being sun worshippers, but are actually Son worshippers, as in worshippers of the Son of God.
I grew up in a Christian home, and so from a young age, it fascinated me to think of the implications of humanity some day coming in contact with beings from another planet who just "happened" to have the same basic religious beliefs as Christians. If it were just that way by accident, how unimaginably small would the chances of that be? Wouldn't that show any rational atheist/agnostic that there's at least something to this Christianity thing? If it is all true, and if there's life on other planets, wouldn't that mean that the same God who made us and loves us and revealed Himself to prophets here, would have also made them and loved them and revealed Himself to prophets there? The similar beliefs of two entirely separate worlds wouldn't prove anything, of course, but it would make the likelihood of it just being a result of chance, and of Christianity being fictitious, laughably small.
How would the Christians of our world react to such a thing? Would they rejoice, and readily use this new development as vindication for their faith, and and an unimpeachable testimony to call many more sinners to repentance? Well, if the last couple centuries are any indication, most Christians would not. Instead, they would outright reject and ridicule the other world's Christian beliefs, nitpick at any flaw in it they could find, and claim that the people from the other world are not Christians, but something else entirely. God would have spoken many beautiful truths to these other people, His words would have been written down and kept as a holy book, and this book would have many similar teachings in it as the Bible, and would have a few minor and precious differences in it, too. But most Earthling Christians would reject that book, mistakenly citing Revelation 22:18, and so would reject what would have been the greatest witness for Christ they would have ever seen.
I know this would happen because it has been happening for almost 200 years. Except in this case, it involves two separate cultures on Earth coming into contact from two separate continents, instead of two planets. It's on a smaller scale, but it's essentially the same thing. Instead of honestly researching what could be the greatest testimony of Yeshua they will ever see, most Christians act like nocoiners by condemning this ancient American record, compiled by an ancient prophet-historian named Mormon, without any real investigation, a condition that Einstein once called "the height of ignorance."
"Know ye not that there are more nations than one?" God once asked rhetorically, and which an ancient prophet, Nephi, wrote down, sometime between 559 and 545 BC. "Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?
"Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also.
"And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure. And because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever.
"Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.
"For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them; for out of the books which shall be written I will judge the world, every man according to their works, according to that which is written.
"For behold, I shall speak unto the Jews and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the Nephites and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it.
"And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews.
"And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of the house of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the lands of their possessions; and my word also shall be gathered in one. And I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever."
Amazing what insights one can get from a single episode of Star Trek, huh? 😏