I wrote to this guy and asked him why he deleted the blog, as he should stand behind his position if he really believes it.  This was his reply:

"Hello, I never in a million years thought you people would find my blog entry and go nuts over it. It was never put with the intent of provoking public debate. I mean, yeah I support free speech and all, but that was never its intent. It was merely a reflection of my own personal thoughts I am having at this particular time. I am sorry if I offended you with it, that was not my intention because I never thought you'd find it! I am still very much a n00b to myspace, I realize now that I should have listed it privately.

Good day."

Nonononononono.. it's to test our faith, remember? How could we possibly believe in "him" if he wasn't torturing brown people, both now and for all eternity, for our personal benefit?

dave the dumbass wrote:

Blasphemy challenge: where atheists are forming their own religion/cult
Current mood: thirsty
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Earlier this year on youtube, this thing called the "blasphemy challenge" was taking place where atheists would upload videos of themselves denouncing God and the Holy Spirit - apparently the most unforgivable sin mentioned in the Bible. The people that weren't merely trying to be "hip" and "cool" would also include some of their own "reasoning" as to why they did not believe. I think it was part of the little speech to state something such as "just as I know there is no Santa Claus, I can use my rational mind and observe the world around me and realize there is no God".

The group responsible for this goes by the name "Rational Response Squad".

I know! I know! It has the word "rational" in it!

Ad Homs from the get go! first sign that this should be a joke of a reply.

Visiting their website or looking into any of the activities of the members who run this organization, you will soon discover what are some truly disturbing and lost people.

Whammo! Ad Hom again! This is building up to be some kinda rebuttal.

What these idiots do not realize - or do realize, but choose to ignore and pretend doesn't apply to them - is that they have formed their own religion. Actually I think "cult" is a better word to describe these people.

I believe we may need to break down the words cult and religion as they are clearly not udnerstood at all. 

RELIGION (Oxford Dictionary) - religion

  • noun 1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

CULT (Oxford Dictionary) - cult

  • noun 1 a system of religious worship directed towards a particular figure or object

Now, those are both of the original definitions offered by the Oxford Dictionary. 

Also, I find it particularly ironic that they use the word "rational" in both their organizations name and blasphemy challege as the key proponent of their rejection of God and the Holy Spirit. Why is this?

Maybe, because it's the RATIONAL option?!

Well, it's very simple. What these people do not understand, or ardently choose to reject/ignore/find ways to argue around using rhetoric and pride filled pseudo-intellectualism is that "rationality" is actually better evidence for God's existence than His non-existence. Why is this? Consider a simple argument proposed by my favourite pastor Cliff Knechtle of Grace Commnity Church USA, who is also an excellent theologian and philosopher:

If there is no God, then there is no mind prior to the human mind.

This is not true. There is no mind prior to the PHYSICAL mind. There is a major difference as the dinosaurs had "minds"; albeit much simpler ones than ours.

If there is no God, and we are merely the product of evolution and natural selection. If this is the case then we can strongly argue that rationality and free-will do not exist. Rather, Determinism sounds far more accurate because everything we do, think or feel is already determined to happen. If evolution and natural selection are true, then every thought, feeling, emotion, decision - every impulse we have is the result of pre-determined biological processes. After all, we are merely animals that evolved from slime right?

I'm sorry... did I miss something? As far as I am aware, the validity of an argument is in no way disenfranchised by the consequences of said argument. 

I shall explain using a parallel. Gravity is established fact, established just like Evolution mind you Creationists. Now, as a consequence of there being such a thing as gravity I CANNOT fly!.... I'll repeat it again because this consequence completely sucks. I CANNOT fly! I have no ability to leap bounds and suspend myself in mid-air for long periods of time. This has been revoked by gravity. This consequence has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the theory of gravity. It is sound regardless of how much the consequences suck, and they really suck cause I wanna jump really high. But alas, damn you gravity, I cannot.

So what is this bullshit about "rationality", "reason" and "logic" that these atheists love to refer to?

It's not just Atheists who love to talk about rationality, reason, and logic. It is anyone who is interested in discovering facts about reality. They help a lot more than random assertions made without any evidence to back them up.

Atheist: one who practices rejecting the notion of God due to pride, while insisting that the rejection is the result of a "lack of evidence" for the existence of God.

 

Oh! I see what you did! You gave a little Ad Hom definition of Atheist, quite clever. Let's see what the definition authority has to say.. are they in agreement?

ATHEIST (The American Heritage Dictionary 2000) -  

atheist. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of deities.

FAIL!

 

Lack of evidence? Science has revealed more evidence FOR the existence of a Creator and the events of the Bible. But that is another discussion.

I'm sure you would love to save this for another discussion, as any discussions concerning this as of so far have yielded absolutely NO evidence whatsoever. Interesting.

Many atheists and agnostics love telling people like me that I am brainwashed. O rly? Brainwashed you say? What exactly am I brainwashed into NOT believing? What is this ultimate truth that I do not see?

In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. -- Psalm 10:4

Let their lying lips be silenced, for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous. -- Psalm 31:18

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. -- Proverbs 11:2

The proud and arrogant man-"Mocker" is his name; he behaves with overweening pride. -- Proverbs 21:24

A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor. -- Proverbs 29:23

LOL

You forgot: 

"The fool hath said in his heart "there is no God."

The Good Book. It is a good book, the greatest book of all. The Book of Proverbs contains wiser words than any philosopher of man.

Wait, no one ever said it isn't a good book. It is incredibly entertaining. It just sucks in its attempts towards moral/political guidance.

I.e.: Homicide, Genocide, Lies, Thievery, Jealousy, Beastiality, Incest, Rape, Torture, Suffering, Diseases, Suicide, Child Abuse, Infanticide, Etc. etc.

Anyway, the point is: rationalism, free-will and logic are greater evidence for God's existance. The fools of the blasphemy challenge are arrogantly using that which they have received from God to reject the Holy Spirit. Now there is no greater sin than that!

Sorry, but you need to establish that there is such a thing as FREE WILL before trying to use it as a basis for an argument. It is neither self-evident nor is it an aspect of a priori knowledge. Try again.

If reason is to have any force at all, it cannot be a set of conventions or culturally agreed upon rules of thought because they would simply be arbitrary and therefore could not be imperative. There could be no laws of logic. And if reason was simply a plutonic form - a piece of furniture of the universe - then it could not impose its rules onto thinking beings. Only a person exercising their will - a powerful person - could do such a thing. For reason to be intelligble it must find its source in a transcendant, personal, perfectly ordered non-contigent being who has revealed Himself to us. If reason can not be accounted for a source outside of itself, then you end up trying to ground reason by using reason, and that is a logical fallacy begging the question: an addition notion such as 'right', 'wrong', 'good', 'bad' etc have no real meaning or oughtness if they are conventions or societal norms. They too must find their source in a transcendant personal non-contigent omni-benevolent being. And again the same is true regarding 'universals'. Without a God in which all ideas are grounded, all we can speak of are 'particulars' - individual things that bear no relation to one another despite the appearance to the contrary. And with only particulars there can be no language or communication whatsoever since language is predicated on the existence of universals, on categories.

Reason is not a set of culturally agreed upon group of aspects that lay out what is rational. Reasoning is the process by which, all of us, regardless of race, creed, gender, family line, economic status, social status, education level, etc determine whether or not a particular belief is justified in being held. The aspects of logical thinking are a priori. It is known without being taught that 2 things cannot co-exist/dwell within the same inference/idea/being, etc. if they are complete oppisites. This should be clear at your age. Either ignorance or intellectual dishonesty plagues you. 

One of the most common claims of the 'blasphemy challenge' video so far is the examination of how the world is and that it 'shows' that there is no God. To do this however is to use inductive reasoning. Induction looks at the particulars and extrapolates that 'this is how the world is' without exception. The problem with using induction is that in an atheistic world view it is fallacious. Just because something is true in a given instance does not prove it is that way in every instance. For an atheist to make a claim about how the universe 'is' would require exhaustive knowledge of the universe in all its states of development. And no one can claim such a thing and be taken seriously. For induction to work requires that nature is uniform and that there are patterns of causation. But that uniformity must be accounted for in some way. And again that way can only be in a cause outside of the universe that is acting in it by establishing the laws that govern these patterns and provide uniformity.

Finally there is the problem of the atheistic mind. If there is no soul, then the mind is simply a property of the brain. No brain, no mind. If this is true, then we're just physical entities - flesh machines. And if this is true then we are entirely determined by chemical and biological processes, meaning there is no such thing as free-will and therefore no one can be truly held responsible for anything they do. After all, we'd just be doing what we're programmed to do - such as believing in God or being an atheist. That would mean there would be nothing wrong with rape, murder, theft, lying etc. And of course there could be no such thing as wrong in the first place. In the end, every tool an atheist uses can only be accounted for by the God of the Bible - a transcendant non-contigent personal being who imposes His image on us so that we can use our minds to make free moral choices, think rationally, employ induction and use language. As a Christian I challenge all atheists to stop borrowing all their tools from the God of the Bible and make your case without using logic, universals, induction, morality or your mind. When you can do that, I'll take your claim seriously. Until then every protest you make only proves what you are trying to deny.

I'm Doug Powell and I'm proud to fail the 'blasphemy challenge'.

Doug Powell - a Christian intellectual (and former atheist) who certainly failed the blasphemy challenge.

I plan on going over this dudes arguments and discussing how I understand them because he mentions some really good and interesting stuff. It has been claimed that his arguments follow circular logic - where the premises' implicitly and explicitly assume the conclusion. I am unsure yet, anyway it is the topic of another blog entry when I am in the mood for torturing my mind again due to lack of ability to sleep or general procrastination...

Everything after my final comment was repeated and as such is covered.

You FAIL on so many levels it's actually kind of scary.

Good thing he learned that the internet is a public place early on. If he hadn't had learned this lesson, who knows what would've happend? Perhaps a picture of him shit-faced drunk and puking in a toilet that he put on myspace never expecting in a million years a potential employer and/or significant other would find?

The name calling back and forth is childish at best.  I feel that rational atheists could come up with something better than "Dumbass of the whatever".  Just my thoughts. 

Being "brown" myself, I got a kick out of this reply. It would be funnier if it weren't for the sheeple who actually believe this. 

Oh man this Knechtle pastor is hilarious.

http://www.gracecommunity.info/discus/messages/8/8.html

Check out the link to read his answers to some tough questions such as..

Isn't believing in Jesus irrational?

What's wrong with sex?

(my personal favorite) Why do innocent people suffer?

Doug just might be the dumbass of the day, but dear Knechtle is the dumbfuck of the century.

 

http://www.gracecommunity.info/listen/sermontopic/abcd.html

This is a link to some of his sermons. I can't wait to check out his sermon "Does life stink?" Or how about "Heaven: Comforting Fact or Embarassing Fiction"? Maybe someone should send Doug a link to his best friend's "How to Handle Criticism" sermon...

I'd say more like, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." 

So, I'm gonna take a dive off the deep end and assume you don't believe an eye for an eye is useful, EVER.
What should one expect to receive in return for certain physical or verbal actions?
If I punch you in the eye should i be physically handled or spoken to like a gentleman?
If I spew nonsense at you without evidence do I deserve to have things explained to me slowly or to be verbally beaten into submission?
The answer is, different people answer different ways and different respond to different way of being spoken too. It should be no surprise to you at this point that the way the RRS responds, and the way I respond as well, to verbal assaults, is in the same manner in which the assault was received.
You don't like it? Respond differently.
That's all.

Rofl. Eventually, people will realize that the internet is not the tame and microscopic beast under the bed that it was 10 years ago. You post something on the net today, and there's a great chance for hundreds of people, a medium chance for thousands of people, and a low chance that millions of people will see it. Blogs are on the news FFS.