Read enough about Bitcoin and you will inevitably come across people who refer to cryptocurrency as a religion. Bloomberg’s Lorcan Roche Kelly called Bitcoin “the first true religion of the 21st century.” bitcoin promoter Hass McCook He has taken to calling himself “The Friar” and wrote a series of middling pieces comparing Bitcoin to a religion. There’s a bitcoin churchfounded in 2017, which explicitly calls the legendary creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, its “prophet”.
In Austin, Texas, there are billboards with slogans like “Crypto Is Real” oddly reflective of the ubiquitous billboards about jesus found on the roads of Texas. Like many religions, Bitcoin even has diet restrictions associated with it.
The dirty secret of religion
So does the fact that Bitcoin has prophets, evangelists, and dietary laws make it a religion or not? As a religious scholarI think this is the wrong question. The dirty secret of religious studies is that there is no universal definition of what religion is. Traditions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism certainly exist and have similarities, but the idea that these are all examples of religion is relatively new.
He word “religion” as used today, a loose category that includes certain ideas and cultural practices related to God, the afterlife, or morality, arose in Europe around the 16th century. Before this, many Europeans understood that there were only three types of people in the world: Christians, Jews, and pagans.
This model changed after the Protestant Reformation when a long series of wars started between Catholics and Protestants. These became known as “religious wars,” and religion became a way of talking about differences among Christians. At the same time, Europeans were encountering other cultures through exploration and colonialism. Some of the traditions they found shared certain similarities with Christianity and were also considered religions.
Historically, non-European languages have not had a direct equivalent for the word “religion.” What has counted as religion has changed over the centuries, and there are always political interests at stake in determining whether or not something counts as religion. As a student of religion Russell McCutcheon argues: “The interesting thing to study, then, is not what religion is or is not, but the very process of ‘making’ it, whether the manufacturing activity takes place in a courtroom or is a claim made by a group about their own identity. behaviors and institutions.
Critics point out the irrationality
With this in mind, why would anyone claim that Bitcoin is a religion? Some commentators seem to be making this claim to steer investors away from Bitcoin. Emerging Markets Fund Manager mobius brand, in an attempt to stifle cryptocurrency enthusiasm, said that “cryptocurrencies are a religion, not an investment.” His statement, however, is an example of a fallacy of false dichotomy, or the assumption that if something is one thing, it cannot be another. There’s no reason why a religion can’t also be an investment, a political system, or just about anything else.
However, the point of Mobius is that “religion”, like cryptocurrency, is irrational. This critique of religion has been around since the Enlightenment, when voltaire wrote: “Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” In this case, labeling Bitcoin a “religion” suggests that bitcoin investors are fanatics and do not make rational decisions.
Bitcoin so good and healthy
On the other hand, some Bitcoin advocates have leaned towards the religion label. McCook’s articles use the language of religion to highlight certain aspects of Bitcoin culture and normalize them. For example, “satellite stacking” — the practice of regularly buying small fractions of bitcoins — sounds weird. But McCook refers to this practice as a religious ritual, and more specifically as “decimate.” Many churches practice tithing, in which members make regular donations to support their church. So this comparison makes satellite stacking look more familiar.
While for some people religion may be associated with the irrational, it is also associated with what scholars of religion doug cowan called “the fallacy of good, moral and decency.” That is, some people often assume that if something is really a religion, it must represent something good. People who “stack sats” can sound weird. But people who “tithe” may sound sane and principled.
Using religion as a framework
For students of religion, categorizing something as religion can pave the way for new insights. As a student of religion J.Z. Smith writes, “’Religion’ is not a native term; it is created by scholars for their intellectual purposes and therefore they must define it”. For Smith, categorizing certain cultural traditions or institutions as religions creates a comparative framework that will hopefully result in new understanding. With this in mind, comparing Bitcoin to a tradition like Christianity can make people notice things they didn’t notice before.
For example, many religions were founded by charismatic leaders. Charismatic authority does not come from any governmental position or tradition, but solely from the relationship between a leader and his followers. Charismatic leaders are seen by their followers as superhuman or at least extraordinary. Because this relationship is precarious, leaders often keep their distance to prevent followers from seeing them as ordinary human beings.
Several commentators have pointed out that the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, seems like something of a prophet. Nakamoto’s true identity, or if Nakamoto is actually a team of people, remains a mystery. But the intrigue surrounding this figure is a source of charisma with consequences for the economic value of bitcoin. Many who invest in bitcoin do so in part because they consider Nakamoto a genius and an economic maverick. In Budapest, the artists even erected a bronze statue as a tribute to Nakamoto. There is also a connection between Bitcoin and millenarianismor the belief in a coming collective salvation for a select group of people.
In Christianity, millennial expectations involve the return of Jesus and the final judgment of the living and the dead. Some Bitcoiners believe in an inevitable arrival”hyperbitcoinization” in which bitcoin will be the only valid currency. When this happens, the “Bitcoin believers” who invested will be justified, while the “non-minters” who avoided cryptocurrencies will lose everything.
A path to salvation
Finally, some Bitcoiners see Bitcoin not just as a way to make money, but as the answer to all of humanity’s problems. “Because the root cause of all our problems is basically money printing and the misallocation of capital as a result of that,” McCook argues“The only way to save the whales, or the trees, or the children, is if we stop the degeneration.”
This attitude may be the most significant point of comparison with religious traditions. In his book”God is not one“, Religion teacher Stephen Prothero highlights the distinctiveness of the world’s religions using a four-point model, in which each tradition identifies a unique problem with the human condition, proposes a solution, offers specific practices to achieve the solution, and presents examples to model that path.
This model can be applied to Bitcoin: the problem is fiat currency, the solution is Bitcoin, and practices include encouraging others to invest, “stacking clutter,” and “holding on” — refusing to sell bitcoin to maintain its value. Examples include Satoshi and other figures involved in the creation of blockchain technology. So does this comparison prove that Bitcoin is a religion?
Not necessarily, because theologians, sociologists, and legal theorists have many religion definitions, all of which are more or less useful depending on what the definition is used for. However, this comparison can help people understand why Bitcoin has become so attractive to so many people, in a way that would not be possible if Bitcoin were treated as a purely economic phenomenon.
This article is republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the Original articlefor Joseph P. Laycockassistant professor of religious studies at Texas State University.
