Thread by @brief_fiction

@WilliamHBart 🙄

@WilliamHBart Bill is telling something less than the whole truth.

The Onion did a humor piece. Bill threatened them with hellfire over it, over an alleged violation of the Ten Commandments. I pointed out that Bill was lying about what those commandments had to say.

@WilliamHBart I also had something to say about the morality of sticking one's words into God's mouth. It all starts here.

https://twitter.com/brief_fiction/status/1488264011993206784

Bill then lied about what I wrote and tried to create drama, threatening me with hellfire if I didn't validate him.

@WilliamHBart In the end, realizing that he was losing the argument and that I wasn't going to back down, he made it split, creating many different branches of the same discussion, in each one of which he lied about what I said, and about what this discussion had been about.

@WilliamHBart Dealing with that, and this hellbound man's ego-driven distortions of the Christian message, ended up taking up my entire day, not because Bill's arguments were so clever (they weren't), but rather because Bill's ethics were so lacking.

@WilliamHBart Lest anybody think that this was something like the Catholic-Orthodox schism and that Bill and I should learn to live and let live - an amusing line to use in connection with the threatening of comedy writers with eternal damnation - let us consider one of the points Bill pushed.

@WilliamHBart Bill told me that I would burn in Hell if I didn't support his attempt to pretend that the Ten Commandments forbade the writing of a comedy piece. That is, unless I supported his attempt to rewrite scripture and put his words in God's mouth.

@WilliamHBart This is not like asking which way do we move our fingers as we cross ourselves. Bill dove headfirst into blasphemy, sticking his words into God's mouth and using God as his personal sock puppet.

@WilliamHBart Just about all of Christendom can, and indeed must come together in condemnation of such behavior, if it is to remain legitimately Christian, at all.

One can't simply rewrite the scriptures, to make them into something more to our own liking.

@WilliamHBart As for those who don't believe, I respect your lack of belief, but even on an atheist's terms, what Bill did still has to be condemned.

@WilliamHBart Even if you don't believe that God had anything to do with writing the Bible, which obviously He wouldn't have if He wasn't real, we'd still have the fact that the Bible exists. You might not think that the Bible is a divinely inspired book, but it is undeniably a book.

@WilliamHBart It has a real text, which really hasn't changed ever since the Christian canon was established. Surviving copies of the bible come down to us from centuries past, so this isn't a matter of religious faith, but simply one of historical accuracy.

@WilliamHBart There is a real passage in that real, tangible physical book that has really been called the Ten Commandments in popular usage for centuries, and nothing in that passage has any bearing on the silly article that the Onion posted.

@WilliamHBart Believe or disbelieve as your conscience and best judgement will dictate, but in this one, we're in the realm of objective, verifiable reality. What do the actual words on the actual page actually say?

@WilliamHBart This isn't a matter of believing in this faith or that faith, but one of basic integrity. Are you ready to take a stand on basic principle, and affirm that the verifiable truth is the verifiable truth on this simple matter, or are you going to agree to hallucinate on demand?

@WilliamHBart If the former, then those of all manners of belief and disbelief can come together around this simple acknowledgement of what is sitting there on the page in black and white, and thank somebody for small favors.

@WilliamHBart If the latter, then all dialogs must immediately cease at that point. Lacking a common agreement that the truth is to be upheld, simply because it is the truth, what could any discussion really be about?

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