What could be more fun? Blaspheme and win a DVD!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7QVbJnSPQE]

I just have a few little issues: I don’t have a video camera, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that I deny any and all gods, messiahs and holy spirits. I don’t need the video anyway. I can’t keep up with my NetFlix account as it is.

I hope this doesn’t turn into a peer pressure thing. “Not only do you have cooties, but you don’t have the guts to blaspheme! I dare ya to curse out the baby Jesus.” Don’t fuck with the theists, kids. It isn’t nice, and they’re very sensitive. Blaspheme all you like, but don’t pressure others to join you. You never know — your best buds might believe in deities.

I for one have deep regrets about debating with a rather fragile believer my first year of college. I made him sufficiently uncomfortable that he ended up with a list of questions for his minister and transferred to a Christian school the next year.

Finally, does it count as blasphemy if you don’t believe it in the first place? If you’re really an atheist, saying that you don’t believe in a god is about the same thing as saying you don’t believe in Stan and Inga (more about them another time, but for now suffice it to say that if it weren’t for Stan and Inga, there would be no electricity). In high school, I used to absolutely thrill my friends by looking up and saying, “fuck you, god.” To them (or some of them, anyway), this was beyond the excitement any slasher movie could provide. To me, not so much.

Update: , who made the film (the flick being given as a prize to our brave blasphemers), has a few interesting quotes about the challenge.

Richard Dawkins:

I had not given the Blasphemy Challenge any thought until you called it to my attention. Now that you have done so, I do not seem to feel strongly one way or the other. As that admirable bumper sticker has it, Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime. So, am I going to send in my own film clip denying the Holy Ghost? No, that is not what Oxford professors do, they write books instead. Do I find it offensive that so many young people are sending in their film clips? No. I hadn’t listened to any of them before you raised the matter. I have now done so, and I must say I find them more charming than offensive. They mostly seem rather nice young people, and they are doing their bit, in their own lively and entertaining way, to raise consciousness and set an example to their peers. I am especially pleased to note how young they are, for organized atheists have, until recently, been noticeably and discouragingly grey-headed. I think we may be witnessing the beginnings of a shift in the tectonic plates of our Zeitgeist. I am delighted to see so many young Americans taking part, in a way that suits their age group better than mine or yours.

Creationist Dave Scot (or as it says on his original post, DaveScot):

I found the images of young people in “The Blasphemy Challenge” giving up their immortal souls on a dare disturbing enough to make me weep for them. I’m not rationally convinced we have immortal souls to give up but certainly the possibility exists. Imagine on judgement day that was you in the video and it was being replayed. There’s nothing to gain and everything to lose in this. Please join me in a simple prayer for the young victims of this stunt.

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Brings tears to your eyes.

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