I haven't heard this a thousand times before. THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE FACT.

I can't answer for magilum, but I think that was the short version of "it really doesn't matter." It's a gesture of solidarity for a sub-culture, not a theological statement.

So... all you really have to do is redefine blasphemy and poof! No blasphemy challenge.

I sense a pattern here.

All you have to do is redefine science and poof! You get Intelligent Design.

All you have to do is redefine faith and poof! All atheists really believe in god and they're just in denial.

Seriously, though, I agree with Loc completely - it was a successful marketing ploy. Period.

It is strange what will cause you to do something stupid. I had this flier on my door when I got home Saturday night and it was about the "Choose Jesus"  Area Wide Crusade in Ponca City, OK, where I currently live. Anyway it was April 13-16 so being that I like to hear what these people like to say, to stay sharp in a way. I went. Much of the same blah blah "praise Jesus" and stuff you would expect.

I took note but I will not go into all that. at least not yet. anyway the Keynote speaker name is Kevin Clarkson from The First Baptist Church of Newkirk, OK. At the very start he went off by saying "Christianity is under attack."

Strangely his evidence for this was two things. The books of authors [he called them atheist authors] Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and The Blasphemy Challenge.

He said that ther is a group of people who are trying to convience "young people" to go into churches and blaspheme the Holy Spirit. The in the next sentence he said,  "I really didn't see anyone blaspheming The Holy Spirit most were just saying they don't believe in God." And he didn't want to go into what "the unpardonable sin" was but he said "That there is still hope for those kids."

Plus he called agnostics Ignoramuses

He said in the ancient Greek it meant that and that is what you should call a person that says they are an agnostic.

So keep up the good work, you are on the front lines on the War on Christanity.

Ravi Zacharias likes to play that card also.

And for Clarkson's benefit, "ignoramus" is Latin in origin, not Greek.

The funny thing is that isn't not even Classical Latin, which might hint at a Greek origin. He has his history and language completely wrong. The French seemed to have used it as a legal term, but its current form, which would mean "we do not know" (first person plural present indicative of ignorare), is known more as a play of the same name written around 1600.

If he means that "agnostic" is derived from Greek, and means almost the same thing, then he's right. But only in the original senses, which weren't invented by the ancients.

Hmm, I didn't realize you'd bothered to reply. It's such old news, and has already been addressed ad nauseam. The short answer is that it was meant to get attention, which it did; and the theological details only matter if someone believes they do, which I don't.

Somebocy has never heard of "imminent critique"

ASSUMING CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE, those who take the blasphemy challenge are guilty of blasphemy.