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Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

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Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#111

Post by loeg »

hereme888 wrote: post #95

"A Christian did something bad, let's insult God and Christianity!" That's the point of this article and its title. But no one cares about the missionaries who risk their lives to benefit others, and all positive things are thrown out the window. Then, let's blame God because a human did something bad "in His name." See the irrationality of the "logic"?

I read it completely differently. It is especially audacious and egregious that this guy claimed defrauding his followers was god's will. That doesn't reflect badly on christianity; it reflects badly on him.

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#112

Post by loeg »

CitrusFruits wrote: post #100
HarryHirsch wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather say that such conduct is mostly confined to evangelicals. Mainstream Christianity teaches that prophecy ceased with Maleachi, and form then onwards we have only the traditions of the Church to go by. That would include a sober ("chaste") lifestyle.

This actually depends on your denomination quite a bit. What you're outlining is a fairly conservative approach. There's a decent sized amount of "charismatic" Christians who firmly believe in prophecy here and now. What qualifies as prophecy, and how to handle it can differ quite a bit from congregation to congregation.

Is charismatic christianity not entirely under the evangelical umbrella?

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#113

Post by klyrs »

withinboredom wrote: post #25
cm2187 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that standard dogecoin is a scam.

Isn’t that the point of dogecoin? A literal parody?

It's a parody of a scam wherein you actually lose your money. It's a scam with a winky-face emoji.

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#114

Post by manicennui »

batch12 wrote: post #82
spamizbad wrote: post #54

Lots of people mocking the “God commanded me to do X” but if you’re familiar with evangelical Christian culture, this line gets used to justify all sorts of behavior and life decisions that might go against what one would traditionally expect a devout Christian to avoid. Obviously fraud and financial crimes are an extreme version of this, but it’s a line I’ve heard to justify all sorts of legal albeit self-destructiv…

Christianity isn't the only religion abused by flawed people to do bad things. Its more of a reflection of the people involved and not the religion. It's sad.

The problem is a world view based on appeals to authority and nothing claimed about said authority can be proven or disproven.

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#115

Post by kstrauser »

Uptrenda wrote: post #12
paulgb wrote: post #2

This detail didn’t make it into the summary, but the audacity of it gave me a laugh. > Hacken, a cybersecurity company, audited the cryptocurrency, according to INDXcoin’s website. State investigators, who obtained copies of Hacken’s audits, say that the Regalados fail to mention that Hacken gave it a rating of “zero out of 10.”

I can see it now: 'your system is horribly and laughably insecure. Please don't launch with this plan.' Is then turned to: 'we have been independently audited by a third-party' (((no need to mention what they said)))

Flashbacks to Mad Magazine:

“This [terrible] idea will change [nothing positively, but will cause] the world [to eat itself].”

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#116

Post by bloomingeek »

kevingadd wrote: post #97
batch12 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christianity isn't the only religion abused by flawed people to do bad things. Its more of a reflection of the people involved and not the religion. It's sad.

Modern american evangelical christianity suffers from a particular moral rot that isn't unique to it but is also not common to other branches of the faith. Specifically, there's a firm conviction that once you're saved you remain saved, and you can find lots of people who behave as if as a result, nothing they do really matters. They can be selfish, they can be rude, they can be cruel, they can be unfaithful, and it'…

Sadly, I agree. The "always saved" and "faith without fear" motto's give most the idea that humility doesn't matter anymore. Pastor's fill them up with their being special and elect, which is in the heavenly realm, not here on earth. The concept of servant-believers, for most, isn't even on their radar.

2015 was a sort of tipping point, IMO, that has caused a sort of paradigm shift in Christianity. (sorry, a little vague, but I'm still trying to understand all the changes.) My hope is that all Christianity will go back to basic tenets of faith, biblically taught.

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#117

Post by chrismorgan »

tialaramex wrote: post #52
toyg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muhammad and Siddharta are dead too.

Muslims would be pretty firm that Mo was just a prophet. They're worshipping God, not this prophet bloke. The Christians have this neat hack where their prophet guy literally was God. If you haven't grown up with it, the logic of Trinitarianism is completely batshit but if you grew up around Christians it just seems normal. An Iranian friend was astonishing that Unitarianism wasn't the default because it seemed less…

Please do note that not all Christians believe in the trinity. It’s mainstream, but far from universal. As an example, I am a Christadelphian, and we refute the doctrine of the trinity, as it simply doesn’t appear in the Bible, and is indeed well documented as having been developed from roughly 100–325 AD.

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#118

Post by toyg »

tialaramex wrote: post #52
toyg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muhammad and Siddharta are dead too.

Muslims would be pretty firm that Mo was just a prophet. They're worshipping God, not this prophet bloke. The Christians have this neat hack where their prophet guy literally was God. If you haven't grown up with it, the logic of Trinitarianism is completely batshit but if you grew up around Christians it just seems normal. An Iranian friend was astonishing that Unitarianism wasn't the default because it seemed less…

> Muslims would be pretty firm that Mo was just a prophet.

Nobody said that "the guy at the top of the pyramid making most of the money" is supposed to be god.

Doesn't matter anyway, y'all are taking a joke way too seriously.

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#119

Post by baobabKoodaa »

foofie wrote: post #56
zaphar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under christian theology the devil made me do it isn't an excuse it's a condemnation. The blame still lies entirely with you. That is in fact the whole point.

That's a good observation, but the part where this breaks down is that these evangelists are clearly not Cristian.

> these evangelists are clearly not Cristian

No true scottsman would ever have perpetrated such a scam. In fact, true scottsmen never do anything bad.

Re: Colorado pastor charged for cryptocurrency scam he perpetrated at God's command

#120

Post by ametrau »

test77777g wrote: post #62
spamizbad wrote: post #54

Lots of people mocking the “God commanded me to do X” but if you’re familiar with evangelical Christian culture, this line gets used to justify all sorts of behavior and life decisions that might go against what one would traditionally expect a devout Christian to avoid. Obviously fraud and financial crimes are an extreme version of this, but it’s a line I’ve heard to justify all sorts of legal albeit self-destructiv…

I’m an atheist and frequent places where men have anonymous gay sex and the majority of the men are “devout” Christians for me it’s a kink, I don’t feel a lot of guilt, and neither do they, lies are their choice and it shows.

This is how we incubate various diseases. Monkey pox being a good example (but it’s origin story doesn’t get mentioned because it goes against the current zeitgeist).
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