Dawkins Can't Blaspheme

Christian Voice have taken a year - a whole year - to discover that Richard Dawkins is corrupting 'children' by encouraging them to blaspheme.

DAFFY DAWKINS FAILS TO BLASPHEME HOLY SPIRIT - Link to the press release

I can't be bothered to explain the details, so I'll get Christian Voice to do it for me:

"On www.richarddawkins.net the campaigning atheist has republished 'the blasphemy challenge' by a youth group calling itself 'Rational Responders'.

The idea, which dates from December 2006, is that anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit on video on YouTube is rewarded with a free copy of a DVD called 'The God Who Wasn't There'."

Yes, that's right, last year Richard Dawkins' website regurgitated a press release from another website. What a fuss over nothing. Oh, by the way, if you want to see the offending article on Dawkins' website you can look at it here.

More:

"[T]he campaign claims to go further than foster renunciations of belief. It 'encourages participants to commit what Christian doctrine calls the only unforgivable sin - blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.'"

At this point Stephen Green gets into a bit of a tizzy (notice how he assumes that Dawkins' regurgitating something is tantamount to him endorsing it):

"Dawkins thinks that by encouraging young people to blaspheme the Holy Spirit he can keep them out of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of a God in whom he claims not to believe.

A superficial look at Luke 12:10 would appear to indicate that speaking a word against the Holy Spirit is enough to commit the said blasphemy and remain unforgiven, but Matthew 12:22-32 and Mark 3:20-30 set the Lord's remark in context.

To blaspheme the Holy Spirit, it is necessary to ascribe Jesus's casting out of a demon to Satan rather than to the Holy Spirit. Some would say it was only relevant during our Lord's time on earth and such a sin can not now be committed. It is certainly clear from the text that the Lord's fire, as it were, was turned on a group of unbelieving Pharisees who were watching the event.

However we read the passage, merely saying 'I deny the Holy Spirit' doesn't come close to what the Pharisees did and would appear to be entirely forgivable. It is not actually blaspheming the Holy Spirit. The crucial point however, is that Richard Dawkins thinks it is, and that he is trying to convince young people in particular to commit a sin against a God in whom he does not believe and for them to surmise they will never be forgiven by the same God whom he says does not exist."

I'm sure Richard Dawkins gives a massive shit about that.

Honestly though, it's the Richard Dawkins' website copy-and-pasting a press release. Get over it.