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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026

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Still not sure what you mean by 'chain letter curse'. Are you talking about 22:18-19? Revelation was a letter written to the churches that was meant to be copied and distributed, and this warning is pretty standard - don't change anything in this letter when you copy it. There's no curse for reading it and then failing to pass it on, which is what 'chain letter curse' implies. At this point I feel like you're just making things up all over the place.

and this warning is pretty standard - don't change anything in this letter when you copy it.

This is not a standard warning:

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

This is a ridiculous, chain letter curse. When I de-canonize this and say it didn't happen, I take every word away from it. The text itself curses me. That is unacceptable epistemologically and I take it to mean the correct decision is to through it out of the canon.

And this is after vivid lake of fire for unbelievers stuff. So arguably anywhere else in the Bible where it says Gehenna, fire, or outer darkness for unbelievers, it's implying if you, idk, declare the book of Matthew invalid, you can go to hell. Again, unacceptable as instead of convincing with evidence it just spiritually threatens you. My method is not designed to remove hell theology but it largely goes away even if I hold the chain mail letter curse clause, so I think I'm on to something when I observe that this is lowly, despicible, and ugly behavior, not fit for the highest God, rather fit for some corrupters who want to keep worshiping their tribal god.

Okay, I'm not sure if you know what a chain letter is? A chain letter would say something like 'forward this letter to three people or you will be cursed'. Revelation says 'if you forward (I.e. teach the contents of) this letter, you will be punished if you alter it'.

Imagine I sent a letter with some of my teachings to my student, saying 'hey student, please go ahead and teach this to people, but if you're teaching it in my name don't add any of your own ideas in there!' That would be eminently reasonable. Now imagine if the letter is an actual inspired prophecy from God, in which case editing it is literal sacrilege.

You get worked up over the strangest things. Pretty much every other OT prophet, not to mention Jesus himself, also told the people to believe them. As does literally anyone else trying to teach literally anything. Seriously I can't get over what an absurd objection this is.