Something called the "Rational Response Squad" is soliciting people, mostly young people, to make a commitment to condemn themselves to eternal damnation by videotaping themselves denying the existence of the Holy Spirit.
Set aside the callowness of the project and the dubious theology that underlies their interpretation of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and explore for a moment the psychology of what these kids are doing. They are proclaiming that they don't believe that God exists, but for what purpose? Someone may believe that space aliens don't exist but most people would hardly bother to send in videos to You Tube declaring the fact. If one doesn't believe that God exists why go to the trouble of videotaping an affirmation of one's doubt? What is it about denying the existence of something that is a source of such pride in the denier?
For some of these kids, moreover, it seems that they're not so much denying God's existence but rather banishing the God they suspect exists from any role in their lives. In other words, it's not an intellectual or philosophical position they're voicing, but an act of defiance or rebellion against the concept of God that they've come to hold. In the very act of denying God's existence they seem to be admitting that they know He's there, but that they resent that He is.
If this is a correct interpretation of what at least some of these kids are doing, then, for all of their pretense at intellectual sophistication, they're making themselves look silly. It's foolish, after all, to deny the existence of what deep down you know to be real. It's foolish to despise what deep down you believe to be the source of all that's good and right in the world. In their attempt to be "rational" they make themselves irrational. In their attempt to be "cool" they make themselves dumb. It's very sad.
RLC
