My new book What's So Great About Christianity, just out, is already an amazon.com bestseller and is currently No. 16 on the New York Times bestseller list. AOL posted the video of my New York debate with God Is Not Great author Christopher Hitchens on its main page, and asked people to make up their minds and vote on who won. Modesty prevents me from disclosing the answer.
Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, watched the debate and reported with some agitation that the audience seemed to be applauding more for me than Hitchens. Dawkins commented on his website that the New York crowd must have been a "dopey" lot. But if you listen to the debate--and if you haven't, you can find it on my website dineshdsouza.com or watch it Saturday on C-Span 2 (Book TV) at 7 pm Eastern time--you will see that both atheists and believers were well represented. The audience applause was initially stronger for Hitchens, and only as the debate went on did it trend markedly toward me. So is Dawkins suggesting that the audience was very intelligent to start with but became more "dopey" as the debate went on? More likely we are seeing evidence of the "Dawkins delusion," an unwillingness to use good sense and face facts when Dawkins' own belief system is called into question.
One of the most interesting questions in the debate was posed to Hitchens by a man from Tonga. Before the Christians came to Tonga, he said, the place was a mess. Even cannibalism was widespread. The Christians stopped this practice and brought to Tonga the notion that each person has a soul and God loves everyone equally. The man from Tonga asked Hitchens, "So what do you have to offer us?" Hitchens was taken aback, and responded with a learned disquisition on cannibalism in various cultures. But he clearly missed the intellectual and moral force of the man's question. The man was asking why the Tongans, who had gained so much from Christianity, should reject it in favor of atheism.
In my response, I noted that when the missionaries came to India, they sometimes converted people by force. Even so, many Indians rushed on their own to embrace the faith of the foreigners. And why? Because they were born into the low caste of the Hindus. As long as they remained Hindus, there was no escape; even their descendants were condemned to the lowest rungs of humanity. By fleeing into the arms of the missionaries, the low-caste Hindus found themselves welcomed as Christian brothers. They discovered the ideal of equal dignity in the eyes of God.
If we look at the history of Western civilization, we find that Christianity has illuminated the greatest achievements of the culture. So there is indeed something great about Christianity. By contrast, does it make any sense to say, as Hitchens does in his book's subtitle, that "religion poisons everything"? Religion didn't poison Dante or Milton or Donne or Michelangelo or Raphael or Titian or Bach! Religion didn't poison the anti-slavery campaigns of William Lloyd Garrison or William Wilberforce, or the civil rights activism of the Reverend Martin Luther King. The real question to ask is, what does atheism offer humanity? In Tonga, as in America, the answer appears to be: Nothing.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 43)
31. by the way I forgot to answer your question on your book? the answer is ' IT WILL KEEP YOU FROM GOING TO HELL" BEING A BELIEVER JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS AND IS THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD THAT CAME TO SAVE THE WORLD, IS THE ONLY REASON!
PV at 5:33PM on Oct 26th 2007
32. The debate in the hall was one thing, but now it's out here for anyone to see and hear, without the partisan components of the audience. For myself, I'm glad to see Mr. D'Souza defend miracles. After all what is Christianity without its miracles? Nothing. So now let's see some evidence that these miracles actually happened, especially the one so important to Mr. D'Souza, the resurrection.
Mr DArcy at 5:30PM on Oct 26th 2007
33. Makes more sense that consequences of mankind's actions are responsible for the changing climate than a god turning the thermostat, which wouldn't be very responsible of him to do.
Mokele Mbembe at 10:21AM on Oct 30th 2007
34. As to the point of social-darwinism, this was a philosophy that came into being in the late 19-th century to justify tycoons and robber barons. Most of those who postulated it were themselves christians. If fact, through history, it was people who prefessed belief in God, although largely not evangelicals, who proclaimed social-darwinism. Contrary to what so many self-declared christians choose to believe, the Naxis were not athiests. Most went to church and most churches in Germany openly supported them
Will at 5:30PM on Oct 26th 2007
35. Trish's comment #24 is a perfect example of how religion poisons things. Rather than admitting that mankind is in the process of trashing the environment, and attempting to do something about it, Trish proposes that we should just accept it as GOD'S WILL. After all, the Bible says bla, bla, bla...
This is precisely the kind of mindset that Christian fundamentalism promotes, and which is detrimental to us all.
Joe Bob at 5:37PM on Oct 26th 2007
36. Christianity is used and believed in for many reasons. Some people use it because it gives their lives order. Some people use it because it gives them a sense of belonging and purpose. Nothing is wrong with any of that. Where you start to see problems is with people who use Christianity as a means of controlling other people, or as a way to justify their actions. I don't like it when people use broad generalizations to define a group. Some of you athiests have done just that. Using broad generalizations to define a group of people that number over a billion. Some of you say christians are against evolution. I'm a christian and I believe firmly in evolution. Some of you athiests say that christians don't like science. I'm a christian and I love science. Christians vary from group to group, individual to individual. Suppose I said that all athiests were like Christopher Hitchens, an angry man who may or may not have a drinking problem. I imagine some athiests wouldn't like that. Christians have done some great things, christians have also done very bad things. I'm sure that there are athiests who have done very bad things, just like some have done very good things.
It all comes down to extremism and forcing your beliefs onto someone else. Sure, there are a lot of christians out there who try to force their beliefs onto someone else. Some people do things like " I'll give you food, but you have to convert to my religion" in 3rd world countries. Those kinds of people, in my opinion, are christian only in name.
In the end, I think most people are smart enough to know that Christians are just like any other group of people, capable of good or evil. Afterall, there have incredible people of faith from different religions: MLK Jr, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, to name a few.
sionx2123 at 5:44PM on Oct 26th 2007
37. Trish's comment #24 is a perfect example of how religion poisons things. Rather than admitting that mankind is in the process of trashing the environment, and attempting to do something about it, Trish proposes that we should just accept it as GOD'S WILL. After all, the Bible says bla, bla, bla...
This is precisely the kind of mindset that Christian fundamentalism promotes, and which is detrimental to us all.
Joe Bob at 5:40PM on Oct 26th 2007
38.
Everyone should watch the Southpark episode, "Go, Go God", which explores issues like atheism and evolution. Richard Dawkins also makes an appearance.
walt at 9:18PM on Oct 26th 2007
39. Whoa, PV, you just scared the F#@K out of me! I don't know if it's the idea of hell, or all those capital letters, but you sure know how to scare a fella...
Joe Bob at 5:44PM on Oct 26th 2007
40. There was no Moses. From 1520 BCE when the Egyptians completed their expulsion of the Hyksos until 1141 BCE when Rameses VI withdrew Egyptian troops from Canaan and Midian to quell a civil war at home, Canaan was firmly under Egyptian control and no conquest by any group (including Israelites) from outside Canaan was possible. What does seem to have happened is that after 1141 BCE the Canaanite peasants staged a relatively peaceful revolt against the Canaanite elite who had served as administrators for the Egyptians. In Midian the Midianites who had been mining copper for the Egyptians at Timnah, 15 miles north of the northernmost tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, tore down the stone temple where they had had to worship the Egyptian goddess, Hathor. Gouging holes in the stone floor where the temple had stood, they erected a dozen wooden poles, covered them with red and yellow cloth, and began the worship of a hitherto unknown, invisible warrior god, Yahweh. The worship of Yahweh spread to Canaan (where those who worshipped Yahweh became known as Israelites) and became the state religion under Israel's first king, Saul.
While there was no captivity in Egypt, the Canaanite peasants were slaves to the Canaanite elite serving the Egyptians. It's fair to say that they were freed by the exodus of the Egyptian troops from Canaan in 1141 BCE. Since there was no exodus in either 1441 BCE (per I Kings 6:1) or around 1263/2 BCE (per Exodus 1:11), it stands to reason that there was no Moses, either. And if Moses did not exist (which he did not), then every time the Bible says "And the Lord spake unto Moses," whatever follows is simply a made-up story. This should be obvious. Isn't it absurd to believe what Exodus 25:1-7 says "And the Lord spake unto Moses, tell the Israelite people to bring me gifts . . . (and the acceptable gifts are) gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats' hair, tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood . . ." etc.--especially considering that there were two and half million starving, thirsty Israelites waiting for Moses to come back down the mountain (Sinai or Horeb, take your choice) with some good news? Were these the words of a compassionate, all-powerful god or were they the words inserted into the Bible by some priests in the fifth century BCE?
As for Christianity, just what god was being bribed with the sacrifice of Yahweh's firstborn son? Wouldn't that have been the ultimate in child-sacrifice? Looked at objectively, isn't it an altogether disgusting story?
Fred Glynn at 9:55PM on Oct 26th 2007
41. YEAH! And what have them poeple who don't believe in pixies ever done? huh?!? And don't get me started on them people who don't believe in fairies!!
God Be Gone at 6:24PM on Oct 26th 2007
42. You're right, Sionx. It's not fair to wave the generalization brush for the sake of argument. I always try to acknowledge that christianity has merit in the eyes of an atheist for that very reason.
Understand, though, that people who write these books, like Dinesh and Dawkins, aren't interested in being fair. They're interested in being right. And to achieve that they have to banish nuance, rationality, and make the strongest and some times most generalized arguments possible. They want people to agree with them, and so trying to identify people, be they christians or atheists, as a blend of views and ideas doesn't help.
Me? I'm not interested in proving God doesn't exist. I tried going to church and believing in God and whatnot with my love... it was one of the most boring and frustrating times in my life because I wanted to believe, for her, but in the end I simply couldn't. So if I'm wrong and there is a God, whatever. I am who I am and will be judged accordingly.
What I am more interested in is christians that want to make my world more christiany. These christianists not only don't see anything wrong with the ten commandments in a court room dedicated to secular law, but think they should be in every court room. Never mind that the law is blind in matters of faith. To me, the atheist, the only rational nation is a nation whose laws and operation are secular... not recognizing any faith as priviliaged over others. This is, to me, the basis for modern society. It doesn't outlaw religion, places of worship, or expression of faith. It simply operates without the acknowledgement of divine agency, christian or otherwise.
I believe these christianists are a minority. That belief is reinforced every time I see a christian here condemn or disagree with dinesh, or others who want to inject christianity into everyone's lives. And ultimately I think that, where Jesus real, that would be what kind of followers he would have appriciated.
Somber at 6:04PM on Oct 26th 2007
43. Fred Glynn...
So basically Exodus is like the Lord of the Rings with "Gandalf said to Frodo..." ?
Somber at 6:07PM on Oct 26th 2007
44. That man is close-minded.
What zealots tend to assume is that atheists cannot be "moral," that we have no empathy or love or hope. This is not true.
Atheists are perhaps the most level-headed persons on Earth. Why? Well, in addition to being human in their concern for other peoples, they apply LOGIC.
...and the world need a hell of a lot of logic right now. Not the irrational hatreds and ambiguous unfounded stigmas that religion brings. Religion isn't bad, no, but religion CAN be bad; religion can justify a lot of disgusting things.
And Steve, #6, is right: "As atheism is defining someone solely by something they're not, you could just as easily say: "What do people who have names that don't start with the letter C offer humanity?""
Ariel at 7:27PM on Oct 26th 2007
45. I often complain that Christians are "gullible" rather than "stupid." The Truth is, Christianity is so obviously a con game, you would have to be incredibly gullible not to see it.
For example, the simple statement "Jesus is my Savior." What is Jesus saving you FROM? Why, from the unholy wrath of the Creator of the universe, who created a FIERY PIT to punish the angels who followed Lucifer in a rebellion against the authority of God.
The contribution of Atheism is... it offers you a set of TOOLS to separate lies from credible statements. Instead of relying on Faith, you TEST reality.
There are a lot of easy ways to demonstrate that Christianity is a con, but let's start with Micah 5:2. A single sentence, it promises "One born in Bethlehem will rule Israel." Did Jesus rule Israel? Did Jesus restore the Kingdom? Did Jesus restore the political independence of Israel?
Forty years after Jesus died, Titus burned the Temple of Jerusalem to the ground. As a result, many Jewish cults embraced the concept of Resurrection. As a symbol that the Temple would be rebuilt, or an actual event on the Day of Judgment. That's WHY the con game exists. Christianity was a Sales Pitch for an End of the World cult, trying to make people believe Judaism was credible after the Romans destroyed their Temple.
William Hays at 6:21PM on Oct 26th 2007