The Blasphemy Challenge
Loren Michael
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Registered User regular
NOTE: DAWKINS DID NOT START THIS, ALTHOUGH HE LINKED TO IT
This is currently linked on Richard Dawkins' website. It is a contest being run encouraging young people to 'blaspheme the Holy Spirit' on a video submitted to youtube, and thus condemn themselves to an eternity in hell, or so some people believe.
i'm embroiled in a lively pissing match on xwalk about this right now, and my stance is that it's basically a form of publicly "coming out" as it were, and showing a certain amount of solidarity as an unbeliever. naturally, some others have equated it to cross burning and the like, while some more moderate voices have said that it lends itself to being unnecessarily offensive to religious folk.
i am, of course, massively pleased by the whole thing.
what do you people make of this?
This is currently linked on Richard Dawkins' website. It is a contest being run encouraging young people to 'blaspheme the Holy Spirit' on a video submitted to youtube, and thus condemn themselves to an eternity in hell, or so some people believe.
i'm embroiled in a lively pissing match on xwalk about this right now, and my stance is that it's basically a form of publicly "coming out" as it were, and showing a certain amount of solidarity as an unbeliever. naturally, some others have equated it to cross burning and the like, while some more moderate voices have said that it lends itself to being unnecessarily offensive to religious folk.
i am, of course, massively pleased by the whole thing.
what do you people make of this?
Loren Michael on
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Because the referrals will probably get you banned.
do this soonest, there has already been drama between here and xwalk and I believe permabans resulted
For me, it seems like yet another pompous and self-important attempt to do something useful in the most arrogant and asinine way possible.
ah, good call.... but i think that was 123, unless i was away for a while when it happened. regardless, link's gone. everyone knows where xwalk is if they want to see. it's not terribly interesting, as elks noted, but a lot of people are being moved to convulsions and tears and such. i'm thinking it's the omnipresent sense of victimization that some christians seem to carry.
When it comes to religion, Dawkins seems to be more interested in riling people up and polarizing debate than he is in contributing to the collective progress of mankind.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
...it's not really his doing. he simply linked to it. his thoughts on the matter:
EDIT: actually, here is the actual site, my apologies for the confusion:
http://blasphemychallenge.com/
At any rate, they are "encouraging" people to come out against their faith. The encouragement is the subsequent gift of a free DVD movie for everyone who does it. Remind me again how this is a good thing?
I stand corrected. I just read your description, and got the impression it was his idea.
I just find Dawkins such a disappointment that I tend to react somewhat negatively to his work at this point.
I'd go so far as to say that Dawkins acts like he aims to become Atheism's response to Pat Robertson.
i'll withhold judgment on that matter until he calls for someone's assassination or accuses the jews of lincoln's murder. outspoken =/= lunatic fringe.
On the other hand, it is inherently antagonistic and focuses on the affirmation of an atheist identity by negating and belittling other views.
All in all, I'd rather it was more "Rah Rah Reason" and less "Fuck off Jesus you improbable fiction."
Good but dickish I guess.
Another great example of how Richard "garrison fucking" Dawkins is a freaking idiot who couldn't tailor a message to an audience if his life depended on it.
I've never experienced a person who is more idiotic when it comes to communicating a message.
"Religion: The Root of all Evil?" + starting a movement to call atheists "brights" == lunatic fringe.
As a side-note, do you have a link to Robertson accusing Jews of Lincoln's murder? I never heard that one, and I could use a good laugh.
Surely your brother has told you all about it?
THAT'S IT! That's what I've been trying to say!
He's adopting the same dogmatic and idiotic zeal that the religious fundamentalists maintain only he's focusing his dogmatism on anti-religious-dogmatism.
He's being a shitbrain in the same way fundies are being shitbrains. They're just talking about two different things. But they're each equally shitbrained in how they talk about it and deal with it.
This is the first I've heard of it.
I admire the broad nerve of it.
1) i think we've discussed "the root of all evil?", and he didn't start the bright movement. outspoken =/= lunatic fringe.
2) in "the new world order" Robertson accuses "european bankers" of wanting to "nip this burgeoning capitalist experiment in the bud" or somesuch.
There is a banker conspiracy involved?
Stock value of Dawkens plunging! Sell! Sell! Sell!
er, robertson. not dawkins.
1) If someone offered to help me make a movie to present and explain my religious views, on the condition that it be called "Atheism: the cause of child rape?", I'd refuse.
EDIT: That's not counting all the criticism of the movie's content.
1b) If someone started a movement to call all Christians "Geniuses", I'd refuse to join, much less become a vocal supporter. (I was under the impression he had started it. My bad.)
2) That makes sense. I mean, if one group was hurt by capitalism and would benefit if it never existed, it's bankers.
Oh.
Robertson is already in permanent penny stock status due to his ongoing moral and intellectual chapter 11.
It turns crazy preachers funny colors.
"Many religious fundamentalists are prentious/condescending/mean and I think Dawkins is pretentious/condescing/mean and therefore Dawkins is obviously exactly the same as them."
Anything concerning validity of argument or intellectual honesty is completely ignored when many people talk about Dawkins. They just kind of dance around and go "see, see, he's pissing me off, so he can be directly equated to a religious pundit."
The difference is that wacky religious fundamentalists like Pat Robertson ignore rational arguments, whereas Dawkins uses them. If you can show me something where a religious person made an argument against Dawkins and Dawkins could only respond by saying "fuck you, guy, that would go against the 'tenets' of atheism and therefore is wrong because atheism is right no matter what you say and I know this just trust me on this one," then talk about them being equivalent. Otherwise, stop trying to equate them. Say he's a dick if you want but stop trying to pretend that Dawkin's brand of atheism is basically like religion just because he's very outspoken.
On-topic, I don't see the point of this. To me it justs seems like thoughtless rebellion. "Ha ha, do you see what we're doing, religious people? We're denying the Holy Spirit! Fuck yes we are awesome." I'd like it more if they relied on using actual argument instead of just pissing off religious people (it's not like anyone's going to go "My, there's a lot of people denying the Holy Ghost today! You know, although I was previously a fervent believer, I think I'll deny it too!"). Nothing seems to be accomplished here.
In my case, I had two pseudo-sentient douches trying to call a bluff I didn't have.
So I made sure to tell the whole trinity to go fuck itself, and said I renounce all evil fictional beings, such as... etc.
Similarly, I had to say "I renounce any and all saviors, etc." so that my roommate would stop pulling this "Well you were baptized..." BS.
Get it through their empty little heads well enough.
--
Thanks titmouse.
Oh, and, Fuck the holy spirit.
Thanks again, titmouse.
As for the project, a little more tact might be good to sway people to their opinion, but that might not be what they're trying to accomplish, at least directly.
I'll be fine, just give me a minute, a man's got a limit, I can't get a life if my heart's not in it.
Well-said.
I'm kinda tempted to send one in just to get a free copy of that movie, since it looks kindof interesting. I dunno, too lazy right now, and I don't really need a movie to tell me about atheism; i think i've got it down pretty good.
Well since you want to go there, here's some criticism of the arguments he used in his very measured and rational pondering on whether religion is "the root of all evil?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1681235,00.html
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/articles/501
It's not that he's outspoken. His arguments against religion rely on a black-and-white view of religion in which all religious people are equivalent and represented by Southern US Christian fundamentalists. What's more frustrating is that we all know he is an intelligent man. He could do much, much better than that. In fact, he does much better than that on a daily basis on a wide range of topics. But when it comes to religion, he turns green and yells "DAWKINS SMASH!"
Essentially he gets very, very pissed about religion. When he does, he leaves reason behind. That is what makes him equivalent to Robertson and the like.
When you say that religion is worse than sexual abuse of a child, you've gone past the "asshole" category, AND you're off in left field. That sort of assumption isn't reasoned and it isn't intellectually honest.
have you considered that she may very well be a retarded hypocrite?
what exactly has he said of the matter that you know of? he's equated religious indoctrination to child abuse, yes. but he's backed that up with an argument as well. it's not simply polemic for the sake of polemic.
True.
Some of them can be pretty horrible people.
I basically swore vengeance against the primary preacher on my college campus after he made a girl in my class cry after he yelled at her for being a sinner for wearing pants (seriously); she was having a hard day, and was a devoted Christian herself.
So I spent two years turning him in to a laughing stock every time he stepped on campus.
Humor works so much better than anger.
I had hundreds of people laughing at him; and the non-ass Christians played cleanup for people who were too scared of hell to snicker.