The "Blasphemy Challenge" has caused a few ripples in the US over recent months. From a Brit perspective it's hard to see what all the fuss is about as being actively religious is only pursued by a declining minority.
For those of you who haven't come across this yet, the Blasphemy Challenge is simple, people are asked to record a short message damning themself to Hell and then upload it to YouTube. There are some exact instructions on how you are supposed to damn yourself to hell, as you must say "I deny the Holy Spirit". Apparently this is because according to Mark 3:29 in the Bible, "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." Jesus will forgive you for just about anything, but he won't forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Ever. So there you go.
The challenge has prompted fierce rebukes from the likes of fair and balanced Fox News.
Amanda Marcotte on Pandagon pulls together an interesting defence of the whole exercise. Firstly, those who are getting angry that the Blasphemy Challenge even exists are proving the point that religion gets special dispensation from
mockery or challenge, that disbelief is more widespread than some in the US would like to admit, and finally that it has been a remarkable emotional release for some people who've been directly oppressed by religion.
"At first, I found the Blasphemy Challenge to be a little silly. As a
hardcore, unrepentant atheist, I tended to think that blasphemy is a
non-concept for non-believers. You really can’t blasphemize things you
don’t believe in, after all. If I say, “Damn the unicorns!”, there’s no
fear that some unicorn is going to come crashing through a window to
spear me for taking his name in vain. Watching the videos, I get it,
though. Half of it is that cheap thrill of speaking the truth and
having some fun with it, and watching people get all flustered that you
called out their comforting lies. The other half of it is that it
shows, in a very straightforward way, that there’s nothing to be afraid
of, that people call god a lie all the time and god doesn’t come out of
the sky and strike them down."
"Or should I say, nothing supernatural to be afraid of.
As that video shows, (See below) the young woman is unafraid to call religion a
lie, but she’s quite afraid of being overheard by people who know full
well that scary stories about hell give them power to control others.
The real danger of blasphemy is not that god will get angry at you, but
that you’ll expose the power mongerers for who they are, and show that
they mostly enjoy the power that the lie of religion gives them over
others. But of course, as this video shows, the people who don’t want
to hear blasphemy that could cause others to question their power are
all too willing to use non-supernatural means to surpress dissent
against religion."
"Scapegoating of the sort that happened to me and Melissa is about
random shows of power from the religious oppressors, to make people
afraid to speak up. It’s because the Bill Donohues of the world know
that the more blasphemizers out there, the more people realize you can
do it, just experiment for a bit, and you’ll see that it’s not so scary
disbelieving. In Julia Sweeney’s show “Letting Go Of God”, she talks
about how she weaned herself into atheism, choosing not to believe for
an hour today, two hours tomorrow, and it wasn’t very long before she
scrapped the whole project and walked into the light, unafraid. For
those whose “faith” is mostly a combination of fear of blasphemy and
fear of the social stigma, then hearing atheists speak their mind out
loud is all they’re pretty much going to need to let go. Maybe not the
first 10 atheists they hear, but eventually they’ll see that it’s not
so scary. And that’s a scary thought, because in a free society like
ours, the second you quit the church is the second they lose power to
control you."
The video Marcotte writes about is below and you can see a collection of Blasphemy Challenge responses on this page on youtube:
Comments