Damus
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey
@t2hmkr

Blogger. Author. Wife. Homeschool mom of 5. Christian. Bibliophile. Natural Health Aficionado.

Relays (7)
  • wss://relay.primal.net – read & write
  • wss://purplepag.es – read & write
  • wss://nos.lol – read & write
  • wss://nostr.drafted.pro – read & write
  • wss://relay.blogstr.app – read & write
  • wss://nostr.at – read & write
  • wss://fiatjaf.nostr1.com – read & write

Recent Notes

Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.
And in all your getting, get understanding." (Prov. 4:7)

How do you get wisdom?

1) Be humble.

If you're not willing to acknowledge that beliefs you held in the past were wrong, none of the means of wisdom-getting will help. ("The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction." - Prov. 1:7)

2) Read the Bible. All of it. A lot.

Apart from the attitude of humility and submission we bring to it, knowing Scripture is THE principle means of growing in wisdom. In order to think biblically, you have to know the Bible. In order to easily and effectively measure things against the standard of Scripture, you have to be heavily familiar with it. Familiarity is developed with usage. Just read it -- again and again. Study is good, but it's also slow. Not everything has to be study; just READ it. And don't ignore portions you find difficult, uncomfortable, or boring.

3) Develop a habit of asking, "What does the Bible say about ____?" "Is this thing I'm reading/hearing consistent with Scripture?" Practice this until it's as natural as breathing to do this *automatically* every time you take in information or ideas.

(This is much harder to do if you don't have much familiarity with the Bible, which is why #2 is so important.)

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Rom. 12:2)

4) Ask God for wisdom.

Maybe this should have been first. But it only helps so much to ask for wisdom if you're not going to live in a manner that leads to wisdom. The primary way God gives us wisdom is through His Word.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." (Ja. 1:5)

5) Seek out the wise. Keep company with them, and seek their counsel when called for.

"He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed." (Prov. 13:20)
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
I'm seeing a concerning trend of advertising from conservative companies claiming to be providing education "without ideology."

Folks, education without ideology doesn't exist. Thinking you can separate the two is what got us into the mess we're in, in the first place.

*Everyone* has bias. *Everyone* has a worldview. The only real questions are "which one?" and "are you AWARE of yours?"

Perhaps these companies are just trying not to trigger censorship bots by specifying *which* ideologies their products are free of, but I'm concerned they've fallen into the trap of simply being *unaware* of their *own*.

And that's dangerous, too, even if the ideology itself is a sounder one.
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
Balance.
Integrity.
Glory to God.

This is the kind of BIG impact we, as Christian homemakers, want our lives and homes to have. Yet all too often we're too busy being overwhelmed by all. the. things.

Learn to strip away all the outside expectations and be effective at what really matters, by learning to use who you Are, what you Believe, and Conduct-driving Concepts to take dominion over your life, to-do list, and your own little corner of the world.

Clay | The Bitcoin Tavern ⚡ · 87w
I will say that I experience a lot of technical problems on nostr with no clear path to resolution, regardless of what client I use. I've tried almost all of them. i can't imagine how frustrating it ...
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
I think this is the key. Techy people can get around a LOT. Non-techy people are limited to what's made available in user-friendly format.

Case in point: several Bitcoin wallet providers are unavailable in the US due to "regulations." Are there other options? Sure. Are they practically accessible for newbies or non-developers? For the most part, no.

So in one sense, Bitcoin is unregulable, but in another sense it's HIGHLY controllable.

I think Nostr is a similar thing. Fundamentally, it might be accessible to everyone and resistant to censorship. But whether or not ordinary people can access and use it in censorship-free clients is an entirely separate question.

(For context, I'm mid-level tech-wise. I can write HTML from scratch and do some basic troubleshooting of simple script languages. Back in the day, I did some simple BASIC programming and have worked a little with Linux. But I'm not a developer or programmer and don't know any real, modern programming languages. I'm not even fluent with CSS. So not super-techy, but probably more knowledgeable than your average Joe.)
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
Help a total Bitcoin newbie out, please. I had an Exodus wallet, but they use Wallet of Satoshi, which stopped serving the U.S. due to "regulations."

I'm apparently thoroughly tech-stupid where Bitcoin is concerned, so I need something pretty dummy-proof to get started. Blink or Strike? (Or is there a better option?) And how do I go about getting my current funds transferred from a non-Lightning Exodus wallet to the new wallet?
utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻 · 93w
Weird my lightning node still works. Maybe using a company wallet is the problem, not lightning 🤷
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
Maybe. Bitcoin's actual usage is complicated and confusing and I'm not a developer, so I'm doing my best. But I'm also not computer-STUPID, and if I can't get Bitcoin to work with reasonable accessibility for real-life purposes, then the average masses can't, either. All I know is that Exodus used Wallet of Satoshi as the API provider for its Lightning Wallet, and Wallet of Satoshi said that "due to regulations" they no longer serve the U.S. 🤷

Which highlights concerns I raised several years ago. Bitcoin itself may be decentralized, but as long as the means people have to use to *access* it, either for storage or payment, are regulated, that doesn't necessarily mean that much. (I had in mind internet and cellular access, not the actual wallet access, but that possibly makes this even worse.)

Fiat money is problematic for being disconnected from any concrete standard, but there's also something to be said for being able to hold physical currency in your physical pocket and hand it over physically to the owner of a physical business to procure a product or service. Cryptocurrency, by nature, will *always* require a "middleman," even if that middleman is only a device.
tigs · 92w
Very very VERY true! 🥰
Guy Swann · 93w
Holy shit, I think I just realized a direct and concrete way that I’ve personally experienced to how #Nostr completely changes the social incentives: • Rage and hateful posts on Twitter get the m...
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
I think it's the lack of algorithm that does that, more than anything else. I've noticed that Facebook seems to show my posts primarily to those most likely to be angered by them, rather than to those most likely to appreciate them. And then because the algorithms are also built "the rich get richer" style (those with more interaction stay higher in the feed) that feeds into itself.

I miss the time-based feeds (esp. on Pinterest) that allowed little-known content to be discovered if you logged on at the right time to see it.
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Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
To say I was "offended" by the Last Supper depiction would be the wrong word. I was grieved by it. It's not something I have any interest in supporting. But God doesn't need me to take offense on His behalf; He's God above all gods and He can handle Himself.

What I *am* offended by is so-called friends gaslighting us over that depiction, and communicating that we don't have a *right* to be bothered by it.

We're not stupid. We recognized the bacchanalia. We also recognized that it intentionally used Da Vinci's Last Supper as a focal point for that, thus turning our Lord's sacrament -- that focal point and remembrance of the self-sacrificial very heart of our faith -- INTO a pagan orgy of self-indulgence. The fact that it portrays a bacchanalia isn't a substitute for its being a portrayal of The Last Supper; it's WHY the portrayal of The Last Supper is a mockery.

#olympics2024 #paris2024 #lastsupper #christianity #davinci #mythology #paganism
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utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻 · 93w
Weird my lightning node still works. Maybe using a company wallet is the problem, not lightning 🤷
brito · 93w
Monero solved that. About time for maxis to understand why we stopped using bitcoin years ago. Money in your wallet must be private. This was never a negotiable option for us because we knew this would happen. https://m.primal.net/Jfgc.jpg
Rachel (Bentley) Ramey profile picture
Being black and/or female doesn't make someone competent any more than being white and/or male makes someone competent.

Being capable of doing a job well is independent of skin color and (usually/mostly) independent of sex.