The Blasphemy Challenge is fairly old news for the religion/philosophy blog circuit, but I've been wasting time at work today and it involved a good deal of incidental reading of material regarding it on various blogs and even news sites. I think it started at IrContent where Doug Beaumont chided the "Rational Response Squad" (the
First of all, blaspheming the Holy Spirit in the context it appears in the Gospels is the attribution of Jesus' divine authority to the power of Satan. That is to say Jesus drove out demons and healed people by the power of God and the direction of His omnipotent Spirit; but a blasphemer would say Jesus ordered about demons and cured diseases because the Devil gave Him this power. But there is something more to it than that, insofar as something that has been revealed as True (note capital T) is denied by one who knows it to be true. Essentially, it would be an effective an exercise of doxastic voluntarism (if such a thing can/does exist) against the One True God. It would be akin to me saying, having read Scripture, prayed, seen the work of God, come to believe and know His Truth, that He does not exist at all.
However, this post does not concern definitions and how silly the aforementioned Rational Response Squad is being. I actually wrote this fine monologue. See, the RRS says the video must explicitly state "I deny the Holy Spirit," using those exact words, to claim a free DVD of The God Who Wasn't There. If I am to read this exhortation correctly, it requires a declarative statement in that exact sentence structure. So, for anyone with a webcam who feels like getting a free DVD and perhaps subverting the Blasphemy Challenge from within, perhaps you can say this:
The God my church taught me about in Sunday school doesn't exist. He didn't pour out a million dollars when I prayed for it, even though it says "anything you ask in my name will be given to you." He doesn't "love the little children, all the children of the world." I remember the story of Noah that they taught: flooding the world, which must have involved in some dry, rocky locations flash floods, sweeping small children out of the arms of their mothers, only to dash them, terrified and screaming, against craggy rocks to instantaneous death. But that would require that book being true, which it isn't, because that god doesn't exist.
I deny the Holy Spirit.
[Beat.]
If you thought that was the end of my video, where I stared intently at the web camera as if to convey my teenage rebellion and existential angst in a moment of silent, solemn certainty, you were wrong. The God I learned about in Sunday school doesn't exist. That much is true. My God isn't a childhood image concocted to make me feel good.
He is a God of Wrath and a God of Love. He sent a flood into the world that really did dash screaming children against craggy rocks. But then He sent another child into the world, His Son. Jesus did worse than suffer instantaneous death after a brief, terrified moment. He endured agony on a cross, a crown of thorns affixed to His head, the strain on His arms tearing open the barely scabbed over wounds of being whipped as blood and sweat flowed commingling down His back, gasping for air, nails in His hands and feet. How much worse than that baby in the age of Noah!
This is not a children's story, this is not foolish. This is what is to understand reality--the need for a Creator God, further on to the need for a moral force, which requires something intensely personal. And since this world is so screwed up, it seems intellectually (and personally) convenient to think that God loves enough to save us.
Now give me my free DVD for saying "I deny the Holy Spirit."
2 comments:
For your interest, i actually have a blog against the blasphemy challenge here.
Nice job! I also deny the sappy 'god' of many Sunday school (and church) lessons. ;)
BTW - it is "people" - not "person" - the RRS is several people even if only one is credited.
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