Tuesday, January 08, 2008

I hereby deny the Holy Spirit. May God strike me down if AAAaaaaaarggghh....

Hats off to the National Secular Society for pushing for the abolition of the laws regarding blasphemy in this country (the full text of the letter can be found here). We are absolutely right to complain about and condemn absurd situations like the one that Gillian Gibbons found herself in in Sudan a month or so ago, but it should be a source of embarrassment that as we do so we still have similar laws on the statute book in this country. Laws which are clearly absurd not only to the rational segment of the community, but should also be absurd to the faith-based community as well, i.e. if you truly believe in an all-knowing and omnipotent deity of any kind, then he can pretty much look after himself, without the need for you to get all aerated on his behalf. Any earthly punishment that could be inflicted upon those who mock and deny him is as nothing compared to the fiery torment that awaits us in Hell, right? Right?

I've added a couple of related links to the blog sidebar - the aforementioned NSS and the Rational Response Squad. If you feel inspired to a bit of militant goading of the faithful after this, then why not take the RRS's Blasphemy Challenge? You could win a DVD, and all it'll cost you is either a) nothing or b) your immortal soul and an eternity of having your flayed entrails stirred into a lake of burning sewage, depending on whether God exists or not. Good luck!

3 comments:

Frank Walton said...

I have a blog against the blasphemy challenge here.

electrichalibut said...

I just watched Jack's "awesome point-by-point rebuttal" under heading 5. I'm going to be wanting that 10 minutes of my life back, I'm afraid.

"It's really....you know...I didn't get...I...er...your point was, like, a straw man argument, and, you know, and....yeah, so, anyways...". Brilliant. Well, I'm convinced. You do realise that quibbling about interpretation of bible passages and suggesting that the modern text may not be a reliable translation of the original Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic totally undermines your own position, I assume? The RRS must be pissing themselves laughing.

Andy said...

The Invisible Pink Unicorn came to me in a dream and told me it would be OK to deny the holy spirit. But it did add that it would be really bad juju to dis the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

That's the last time I eat cheese before bed-time. Then again, Blessed are the Cheesemakers ... or was it the Greeks?