The Bait of Blasphemy

      The other day, while glancing over the news headlines, I noticed a video story about a new website that encourages young people, mostly teenagers I gather, to video themselves blaspheming God and upload it to a video site, all for the prize of a free DVD.  Here’s how the sales pitch goes on the website:  “The Rational Response Squad is giving away 1001 DVDs of ‘The God Who Wasn’t There,’ the hit documentary that the Los Angeles Times calls "provocative -- to put it mildly."  There's only one catch: We want your soul.  It's simple. You record a short message damning yourself to Hell, you upload it to YouTube, and then the Rational Response Squad will send you a free ‘The God Who Wasn't There’ DVD. It's that easy.”

      Yes, it is so easy to mindlessly do something for a free gift. This is all a very dark business, no doubt.  But it still is business, that is, as I wrote, “a sales pitch”:  the marketing of atheism.  Whoever is running the “The Rational Response Squad” is stooping to the level of the unscrupulous TV “evangelist” who preaches in order to line his pockets.  But again it is business, really “smart” business.  As to its rationality, well, that’s a whole other question.

      Take note of one of the young men who got his free DVD, as he, on his video, defaced a Christian Bible by tearing out the page from St. Mark’s Gospel that contains the words of Jesus:  “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin” (3:29).  The fellow then went on to say the necessary “magic” words that would forfeit his soul – strange talk on website purporting to be atheistic – by denying, as he was instructed to do, the existence of the Holy Spirit.  This is, of course, not blasphemy, strictly speaking; it is stupidity, but fortunately for most of us, that is no sin with an eternal price tag on it. 

      I had to hand it to this particular young man, though, for he tried so hard to make his video more than just a brainless parroting of the words dictated by “The Rational Response Squad” – he tried as hard as most young Americans these days are mentally equipped to do.  With a silly grin on his face, he said with a rather stilted accent, something to the effect that “by a process of reason and logic, I have come to see that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and God do not exist.”  Awesome, dude!  I’d love to read this high school junior’s (or college sophomore’s?) rational and logical treatise in which he refutes God’s existence by lumping Him together with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.  I would hope, too, that the young man dealt at length, “by a process of reason and logic,” with St. Thomas Aquinas’ five philosophical proofs for the existence of God....

      But, alas!, there is little hope for this; the young man, I can assure you, has probably never even heard of them.  Nor have the great majority of Christian young people, Catholics included.  They are well-equipped to fly about cyberspace on their computers; many of them excel too in different areas of the hard sciences and fields of practical expertise; and some even attain to some knowledge of literature.  But most, the great majority, will never study logic, learn the mind-sharpening Latin or Greek languages, never be introduced into the great story of Western philosophy.  But they will be encouraged to debunk on YouTube something they’ve never even given much thought to. 

      And that’s why I don’t think these poor young people are blaspheming:  such a hideous act requires a vicious rejection of the truth understood as the truth.  Many a Scripture commentator would even say that such a sin as described in St. Mark’s Gospel is no longer even possible (except perhaps at the very end of one’s life, when a dying person sees the truth and still, with obstinate will, rejects it with spite and hatred), because our Lord was referring to the rejection of His words and works that showed so clearly that He was speaking the Truth:  Christ would raise the dead, and His enemies still refused to listen.

      Young Americans, in spite of such antics on the web, are not stupid; they are deprived, deprived of the priceless treasure of real Christian teaching, especially deprived of the traditionally apologetic of the Church.  Christianity, in its more pervasive and popular form, has become rather easy to intellectually despise and reject, because it has become so mindless and dependant on gimmicks – kind of like this gimmick to popularize an anti-God DVD and market it or like the emotional tactics used in revivalist campaigns to sign-on new believers (and donors).  The true appeal of Christianity, however, has always been simply the Truth, Christ Himself, whose teachings and claims are eminently defensible.  There is any number of fascinating works by solid and intellectually accomplished Christians that are available to young people to read and study, works that are convincing and would offer the young believer a stable foundation upon which to build one’s faith life.  But they go unread, sit idly on the shelf, as young people are encouraged by a present-day culture to disregard anything that might intellectually challenge them in the areas of religion and philosophy.

      It is easy and, in a twisted fashion, “exciting” to go on the web pronouncing one’s unbelief and proclaiming a personal atheism; but it is not done as the result of rational and logical consideration of the claims of Christianity, particularly the claims of Catholicism.  I cannot help but think that most of these young people would be amazed at the Catholic Church’s ability to defend in debate all of her beliefs.  I know I was, and I was convinced.  And I am convinced that at some level this pathetic “Rational Response Squad” is aware of the intellectual rigor of Catholicism; and that’s why it stoops to such base tactics to garner the support of the new generation by marketing to them an easy and mindless way out of dealing with the most important question of all – the existence of God.