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$20 to Mint Your Prayers on “The Blockchain”
- senectus1 5y agoha! this reminds me of the M25 in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's "Good Omens" novel... where he altered the design of the highway so that it forms the shape of a sigil in some black language to say "Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of worlds".
- refurb 5y agoI’m currently raising a seed round for blockchain indulgences.
- MaxikCZ 5y agoSeems like the most direct way to send money to god (God? please don't eat me) so far.
- jamesgreenleaf 5y agoJust send ether to the genesis address 0x0. God only knows the private key.
- _aavaa_ 5y agoI think we've reached that point (which I know has a name) where I honestly can't tell if this is a satirical gag or genuine.
- crocodiletears 5y agoI'm really hoping someone here jumps up and takes credit for it as a prank.
- unmole 5y agoMeh. That happened a long time ago.
- hprotagonist 5y agoPoe’s law
- tormock 5y ago
- choward 5y agoSeriously. I thought it was satire for sure but I started the checkout process just to be sure and it seemed real.
- colecut 5y agoIt seems to be a "just kidding... unless you want to" situation
- 0xcde4c3db 5y agoEspecially considering that there's a surprisingly on-the-nose analog in The Handmaid's Tale. I can't find the actual passage, so I might be mangling the details, but from what I recall there were printing companies that pivoted to printing prayers... only for the paper to be immediately recycled and used for the next order. The point of paying for it was basically to signal that one was pious and/or wealthy enough to not care about the waste.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JNRowe 5y agoYour recall looks to be pretty good ;) "At the corner is the store known as Soul Scrolls. It’s a franchise: there are Soul Scrolls in every city centre, in every suburb, or so they say. [...] Ordering prayers from Soul Scrolls is supposed to be a sign of piety and faithfulness to the regime, so of course the Commanders’ Wives do it a lot. It helps their husbands’ careers. [...] The machines talk as they print out the prayers; if you like, you can go inside and listen to them, the toneless metallic voices repeating the same thing over and over. Once the prayers have been printed out and said, the paper rolls back through another slot and is recycled into fresh paper again." Side note: I found the quote by searching my comment history¹ and then picking up the book, because that is faster than finding the text in the book without any hints. I really can't decide if that is good thing or not. Like some super weak version of Chiang's Remem² ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672286 ² https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_of_Feeling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth...
- aspenmayer 5y agoTed Chiang is a great writer, while not being showy. I like his writing for how easy he makes it seem to write compelling ideas into narratives. I found his short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others quite a good intro to his oeuvre. I quite liked the film Arrival, which is based on the title work of the collection. I should read more of his work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Other...
- iLoveOncall 5y agoMoneygrab, as is all that uses blockchain.
- seattle_spring 5y agoThe support for pay-over-time is a nice touch. Praise be Him.
- ro_bit 5y agoBut if the blockchain is truly append-only, what stops me from paying the first payment and then disappearing? Even if I pay it all upfront, what if I charge back?
- alasdair_ 5y agoMaybe it's like most other NFTs and is just a pointer to the server where the actual data is stored? If you don't pay, they can just change the prayer to "Jesus, please ignore this prayer" or something.
- tekknik 5y agoYou think that’s how it works? One person can tell Jesus/God to ignore another’s prayers?
- markdown 5y agoThat depends on how much they've donated to their Megachurch pastor recently. If you get a monthly subscription of $29.99, your prayers go to the top of the queue. For gold tier $79.99 subscription, you get to submit a list of people whose prayers you want ignored.
- tekknik 5y agoYea there’s gullible religious people, just like there’s gullible non-religious people. If you’ve actually read scripture these types of churches are called out. No where in the bible does it say you must pay to be heard.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoIsn’t that exactly what some Christian sects do when they proclaim their way is the only way (i.e. “god, don’t listen to them listen to us!” ). Perhaps Islam does this to, but I’m no expert on Islam.
- hprotagonist 5y agoAnd when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
- markdown 5y agoMove along, heretic! We follow Al Franken's Supply Side Jesus around these parts. Supply Side Jesus approves of Megachurches and Bitcoin. https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp
- hprotagonist 5y agoPersuant to the canon of my HN username, I am obligated to inform you that it is in fact you who are the heretic, and a representative from Reverend Bob's Pearly Gates will be along shortly with a small vial of suspicious red liquid we seriously urge you to consider snorting up your left nostri ah me le le ne le le ne me ne ne eh me me me
- CSSer 5y agoIt's been awhile since I've seen this passage. I forgot how much of the bible is a diss track on the pagans. > Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. I find this bit in particular pretty humorous because it makes it sound like god's voicemail inbox is overflowing and he doesn't have time for your shit.
- TimTheTinker 5y agoThe point is that God is a Father - like a dad one has a great relationship with. No one with a good relationship with their dad spins a request wheel at him, or says the same thing 100 times in a row to him. If you ever did so, there's something wrong in your relationship with your dad -- same with God. So in that respect, a Christian's relationship with God ought to me markedly different from how many other religions relate to the gods they worship.
- unnamed76ri 5y agoAs a Christian, I’m both annoyed at someone creating this and the people who will inevitably fall for it.
- keithalewis 5y agoOddly specific.
- smoldesu 5y agoWhy would they "inevitably fail"? I doubt this has any significant operating costs: as long as one person pays for this joke of a product, they've succeeded about as much as they possibly can. The only remaining question is how long they'll keep the site online.
- unnamed76ri 5y agoIf the number of people who call themselves Christians yet fall for charlatan televangelists is any indication, there will be people who fall for something like this too.
- bckr 5y agofall, not fail
- unnamed76ri 5y agoThank you. I didn’t quite understand what they were driving at with their comment and now I see that they misread what I wrote.
- smoldesu 5y agoYeah, my bad. I was reading it on my phone, didn't quite notice the spelling. That's what I get for drinking coffee after 3pm :p
- waynecochran 5y agoThe angel from Revelation 8:3 can grab these and add them to his censor which will probably be on the blockchain by then.
- sonicggg 5y agoUnbelievable, someone managed to connect two of the most useless things on the planet: religion and NFTs. That seems straight out of an Onion article.
- WisNorCan 5y agoYes! We finally found a good use for the blockchain.
- zozbot234 5y agoThis is quite redundant, because NFT's are already a pure religious belief. They should all be 100% tax exempt for this reason.
- woodruffw 5y agoThe man who actually buys indulgences is as rare as he who is really penitent; indeed, he is exceedingly rare.
- qot 5y agoAnd you can't even pay with crypto?? https://i.imgur.com/PasTfw9.png https://i.imgur.com/PasTfw9.png
- perfopt 5y agoPhfft...I can get my name on a rice grain for far less. Plus they will even make a pendant out of it.
- bradgranath 5y agoWtf
- werber 5y agoThis is such an amazing art piece. Shopify as a medium, what a world.
- emerged 5y agoCan we just flag those scams and move on now? Why does HN allow so much clear spam if it happens to have the word blockchain involved?