catholicsphere

As I was surfing around the blogosphere, cruisin’ my neighborhood of Catholic blogs, I came across an entry by Carl Olson over at Insight Scoop titled Atheism for Adolescents.  It refers to an article from the webzine, Boundless, about a web site group called Rational Responders who have issued “The Blasphemy Challenge” and launched it on the popular YouTube platform.

The group has called for people to post videos of themselves committing “the unforgivable sin”, that is, the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, as put forth in Mark 3:29 (as well as Luke 12:10).  The purpose behind this is to demonstrate to the world their contempt of the Christian religion.

There has even been a recent ABC News Nightline segment devoted to this.

So, I ventured over to their website.  I looked through some of the commentary on their discussion forums.  I watched some of the videos.  But, there was one thought that really stuck out to me about these guys: that their ridicule or reactions against Christianity, if they could demonstrate an “upper hand”, would prove that God does not exist.

In the Nightline segment, Brian “Sapient” (not his real name because he has received death threats for his “work”) says that his goal is to end Christianity.  Will that prove that God does not exist?  Only if Christianity was the only theistic religion on the planet.  The fact that it is not means that just disproving Christianity will not disprove the existence of God.  So much for being rational.

The article on Boundless makes many good points, which I don’t want to waste time and space to repeat.  However, I think there is an important point to be taken away, and into discussions with athiests — either those that really believe, or those that are just pretending: when subscribing to atheism in such a heinous and confrontational manner, you better be 100% sure of yourself.

I have had discussions with atheists before and I’ve expressed that very idea to them.  Some have responded that such a statement is not a good case for faith, or as they’ve put it, not a case for mindlessly believing in a religious system of fear. I agree with them on at least that much.  Our faith should not be based on fear.  In fact, the real message of Christianity is hope, despite the various expressions, doctrines and actions that have occurred and are occurring in the name of God and Christ Jesus that have undermined that message.
Such bold declarations, as these mostly Gen X’ers and Y’ers have made, must be able to definitively demonstrate both the negative and affirmative position.  The negative: all arguments for God’s existence.  The affirmative: that God absolutely does not exist.  The former deals with all things stated about God (not just the Christian understanding of Him).  The latter affirms that which has not yet been raised.
The idea that belief in God is better than the alternative should at least appeal to the rational freethinker as a driver for extensive investigation.  Such investigation may take a decade or more of reading and research, and certainly could be a lifelong endeavor.  Discovering the proof of one objection, or even a handful of objections, should not result in a triumphalist atheism, as it seems many of the responders have claimed.

Theirs is an “irrational response”.

[tags]faith, atheism, God, Christianity, Catholic, catholicsphere, youtube, news, apologetics, blasphemy, blasphemy challenge, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Christ, freethinker, abc, nightline[/tags]