Beliefwatch: Blasphemy

[stephanie]

'Hi my name is Lindy and I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit and you should too.'

Images: Youtube
Betting Their Souls: Is there such a thing as an unforgivable sin?

Newsweek
Jan. 8, 2006 issue - With that five-second submission to YouTube, a 24-year-old who uses the name "menotsimple" has either condemned herself to an eternity of punishment in the afterlife or struck a courageous blow against superstition. She's one of more than 400 mostly young people who have joined a campaign by the Web site BlasphemyChallenge.com to stake their souls against the existence of God. That, of course, is the ultimate no-win wager, as the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal calculated—it can't be settled until you're dead, and if you lose, you go to hell.

The Blasphemy Challenge is a joint project of filmmaker Brian Flemming, director of the antireligion documentary "The God Who Wasn't There," and Brian Sapient, cofounder of the atheist Web site RationalResponders.com. Their intent was to encourage atheists to come forward and put their souls on the line, showing others that you don't have to be afraid of God. The particular form of the challenge was chosen because, by one interpretation, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, a part of the Christian Trinity, is the only sin that can never be forgiven. And once something you've said gets posted on YouTube, as any number of celebrities can attest, you never live it down.

For better or worse, though, hell may not be so easy to get into. Despite the seemingly clear language in Mark 3:28-29 ("all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven"), most theologians are reluctant to pronounce anyone beyond repentance and salvation. Richard Land, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, says the passage, read in context, refers to a very narrow and specific definition of blasphemy: maliciously attributing God's miracles to a demon. Merely "denying" the Holy Spirit, by this reading, doesn't qualify. "My response," Land says, "would be to pray for these people: 'forgive them, [for] they know not what they do'."

To which another self-described blasphemer, whose real name is Michael Lawson, replies that he knows exactly what he's doing: he's daring God to send him to hell. "We want to show that we really mean it when we say we don't believe a word in this book," he says. He means the Bible.

God could not be reached for comment.

—Jerry Adler
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16409851/site/newsweek/

[Grumplestillskin]

You think youtube should censor it?

[stephanie]

You think you tube should censor it?

No....
But they've been known have censored other things, before..
Especially things related to Islam...
And Michelle Malkin...

I shouldn't of commented on you tube.....Took away from the story....As that's the first thing you jumped on...

I'll go back and fix it.....

[avatar4321]

it takes alot to blasphemy the Holy Ghost.

My assessment? They are just ignorant fools.

[Nienna]

Preachers cannot pronounce a person to be beyond redemption. They can say the words, but the words have no weight. Only God knows the heart of man. Only God decides who goes to Hell.

That being said, this may describe those preachers:
"For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord (Jude 1:4)."

This is the whole point of what those people are saying:

Their intent was to encourage atheists to come forward and put their souls on the line, showing others that you don't have to be afraid of God.

Fear of God is where it all begins... "But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has the power to throw you into Hell" (Luke 12:5). Jesus said, "Woe to you experts in the Law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering" (Luke 11:52). The KEY is FEAR of God (Isaiah 33:6b). God MAY have mercy upon the souls of those people, those people MAY repent, however, these preachers are not helping them to do so! They take away the fear of God which says, "STOP!!! If you continue this way, you WILL go to Hell!" They imply that it isn't such a big deal; God will forgive any sin. This is true... IF the sinner repents. And the time to repent is IMMEDIATELY. One never knows when his life will end. In being "reluctant to pronounce anyone beyond repentance and salvation," those preachers give out a false sense of security; they pervert the message of God's grace. If those people die in the midst of their unbelief, they WILL go to Hell. If they repent, they could most likely be saved, because God longs to have each of us restored to Him, and He will give grace to those who ask for it in humility and obedience. But the preachers are HINDERING the salvation of those people in not URGING repentance and proclaiming a TERRIFYING God.

[darin]

This post also applies here:

The bible fore-told a time when people would believe lies - it's simply an UnTruth that casual sex harms nobody. It's falsehood. It's fallacy.

It's so weird - I mean, even a non-christian should be amazed.

24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Today's PC crowd...socially liberal crowd fits those words MORE AND MORE as time goes on.

Those kids are Idiots. Simple and true. dee-dee-dee never had a more fitting target.

[5stringJeff]

Idiots, yes. Blasphemers, no. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, etc. all deny the existence of the Holy Spirit, by ommission if not by commission.