Disclaimer: I want to clarify that I myself do not support this idea of a techno-centric religion, but I know that there will be some people who eventually attempt this, and I'm curious about how it will end for themIts an idea that raises eyebrows, but I was inspired to ponder on this topic given recent posts and images. As government bodies increasingly look to tax/ban/regulate it, perhaps some groups would claim the "Church of Satoshi" as their religion in order to gain protection.
https://www.facebook.com/inmathwetrusthttp://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z0p4u/time_to_start_a_bitcoin_religion_with_satoshi_as/Consider that the church already has
1.) A god (cryptography)
2.) A mystical prophet (Satoshi)
3.) Holy texts (The Whitepaper, Blockchain)
4.) Apostles (Miners and Traders)
5.) Priests and Scribes (Devs)
6.) Devotees (hoarders)
7.) Music (bitlisten.com)
8.) Prophecy (halving days)
Religious interpretation of the events since 2008 is easy:
In the beginning there were no inputs (Newly Generated Coins).
The peer to peer electronic network was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the banking world, but the spirit of Satoshi was hovering over the chaos.
Then Satoshi said "Let there be a whitepaper," and his followers saw that it was good. And he separated the trust from the acceptance of payment.
Thusly through his efforts the genesis block was born.
He was rewarded with the BTC from the great blockchain, first paid immutably and eternally to 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa, to which we still pay homage with signed transaction today.
Many of these people will happily evangelize the commandments of bitcoin:
(Thou shalt retain ownership of thy own private keys, Thou shalt not lend fractions of thy reserves and claim to hold satoshis that thou dost not, etc)
Tithing is the act of donating fiat to the church in exchange for cryptographic power in the network. Mining is the energy sacrificed to do the same.
Developing/programming is the act of contributing to the core source code in an effort to divine the one true agreed upon method to obtain cryptographic freedom and individual control over things considered to be valuable by all participants.
Already, the "Church" has had many schisms between adherents that claim to know the true path, and forks and alt-chains have been created.
It's not really a matter of if but when. I have no doubt that if the idea of bitcoin itself grows, eventually some people will simply start claiming it as their own church. But does this afford them any protection?
