I debated atheist Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, yesterday on the Michael Medved radio show. It was a two hour debate, and conducted at a high level that is not characteristic of radio programs. The main focus of the debate was my bestselling book What's So Great About Christianity, and in the course of the discusson we covered a lot of topics from the fine-tuned universe to why humans evolved morality to whether Adam and Eve were real people.
Shermer, always ready with his ream of data, uncorked some fascinating statistics about how Christians are more prone to social pathologies than non-Christians. For example, the more-religious United States has higher crime rates than the less-religious Europe. In America, evangelical Christians are apparently more likely to be uneducated and to have higher violent crime rates than non-Christians. Shermer even cited a study showing that secular doctors were more likely to do voluntary work than Christian doctors. Shermer went on and on about all this, and I was waiting for him to reveal that Christians have a greater tendency to bestiality than secular folks, but to my surprise Shermer had no data on this subject.
Actually U.S. crime rates today are not substantially higher than those of Europe. That's because there has been a marked decline in violent crime in America. But even the old statistics prove nothing, because the U.S. is an ethnically diverse society, immigrant societies always have higher crime rates, and European countries typically don't have the black-and-white problem that is peculiar to America. Yes, evangelical Christians in America may be poorer and less educated than non-Christians, but that may be because evangelical Christians are more concentrated in the South. One can hardly conclude that evangelical Christianity makes you poor and dumb. Finally C.S. Lewis made the point that a religion like Christianity which advertises itself as a remedy for human sin and brokenness is bound to attract more people who find themselves to be sinful and broken. Christianity attracts sinners for the same reason that doctors attract patients: one can hardly hang out at the doctor's office and then condemn the service because predominantly messed-up people keep showing up day after day.
Shermer and I will be debating December 5 at George Washington University and the public is invited. (I will post the venue and time on this blog.) We will also be debating December 9 at 2 pm at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California. Tickets are available for this event at a nominal price and you can find the details at skeptic.com. Seating is limited so book early.
Reader Comments ( Page 7 of 16)
91. Another reason why religious folks are considered lacking in intelligence is because of the concept of belief. Whenever a non-theist backs a theist into a rhetorical corner during a debate, the theist ALWAYS resorts to some form of “That’s what I believe and there’s nothing you can do to change my mind.” That’s the epitome of ignorance.
Intelligence requires a constant seeking of knowledge. Once anyone refuses to even consider any information that runs contrary to their views, they slam the door in the face of intelligence. The question needs to be asked, “What are you afraid of?” Why cower behind a shield of “belief”? If what you believe is actually true, then it should stand up just fine to scrutiny. If it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, then it was an unjustified belief and you’re better off without it.
Of course, theists are going to try to use this same argument against non-theists. And there certainly are some non-theists that hold unjustified and unscrutinized beliefs. And, yes, they’re just as wrong for holding those beliefs. That’s why I used the word “anyone” in the second sentence of the previous paragraph. Reason, logic, and knowledge are the only cure for the disease of bad beliefs.
As far as the concept of belief itself goes, how often do you truly rely on belief in your everyday life? If you have a very important meeting you must attend, are you going to accept a statement like “I believe it starts at 2 pm”? Of course not. You want a fact, not a belief. Beliefs are good for making quick decisions based on limited information, but in the real world people want to gather more information to verify the belief (depending on how important the decision is). The problem with religion, though, is that people have a mental block against applying the same standard of verification to it that they do to other beliefs they or others hold.
Aaron at 3:30PM on Nov 6th 2007
92. 75. Bo your comment reflects such ignorance if I were you I would not have posted this. Who was C.L. Lewis, who was Martin Luther, who was Josephus,
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Oh, I know Josephus! He was that famous roman historian that mentioned Jesus. Only he didn't say much about him. And then there were several later additions to Josephus, pretending to be him, trying to make it seem that he thought that Jesus was the saviour. They are some of the earliest and most famous examples of CHRISTIAN FORGERY.
Thanks for mentioning him. Good to know where all the lying started.
Brian at 3:31PM on Nov 6th 2007
93. We shouldn't be posting to this blog, yet here I am doing what I think none of us should be doing: helping him flog his book to the public. This self-promoter probably sells enough books so that he doesn't qualify as "poor;" while he isn't violent himself, he is a cheer leader for W's organized violence; that leaves the charge of "ignorance." I'm not going to defend him against that charge. If he isn't ignorant, he's putting on a good act.
As far as I can tell, D'Souza is saying that Christians are indeed poor, ignorant and violent. According to him: that they live in an immmigrant society explains why evangelicals are violent; that they are concentrated in the South explains why they are poor and uneducated.
As to the bestiality question...who's drawing the dirty pictures?
Mort at 3:36PM on Nov 6th 2007
94. Observant..80
says, "..the abillity to naturally select."
LOL... are you just plain stupid, man?
Organisms aren't consciously 'selecting'.
But you ARE consciously willing magic to be true.
... and that IS ignoance.
pboyfloyd at 3:37PM on Nov 6th 2007
95. From Ray:"If you have that experience, then you offer some reasons or causations between evangelical Christianity and "economics, education, and crime".
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Not to insult retarded people, but that sentence makes no sense and sounds retarded. I wasn't speaking to DD's post (not worth the effort); I was responding to your and Ashley's post.
See posts from Clif and William Hays and Brian. I agree with their responses, and they are much more articulate than I am.
And I certainly don't have a LAZY ASS, as you stated. Tsk tsk. Such nastiness.
Linda at 3:38PM on Nov 6th 2007
96. Yeah, there's a question. What if science eventually proves the existence of God? And what if he's not at all like you christians believe he is?
You'd still cling to your version, of course.
Brian at 3:39PM on Nov 6th 2007
97. Yea... what if GOD shows up and HE is just a huge prick to everyone a la FLOOD .. LOL.. what a bummer!!
pboyfloyd at 3:43PM on Nov 6th 2007
98. My point, Brian. Even if God can be proven, it does no merit to religion.
Mokele Mbembe at 3:44PM on Nov 6th 2007
99. It's easy to win an argument with a Christian, since they are based in beliefs rather than thoughts, faith rather than reason, fantasy rather than fact. The hard part is getting them to see that they've lost the argument, for the same reasons.
Beliefs are a handicap to becoming intelligent. Beliefs are set in stone, and cannot change. Thoughts are updateable as new data comes in. Therefore a belief-based personality is incapable of change in a changing world. That's why they're conservatives. They HATE change. They can't even comprehend it.
Brian at 3:45PM on Nov 6th 2007
100. In response to Wiliiam Hayes: What he is saying is absolutely true. In the first centuries of Christianity, the Church was so decentralized and the Empire's persecution so disruptive that we have no idea what was omitted or what was grafted on to the original Gospel texts. And when the Church itself became the official faith of the late Empire it used the state power to savagely suppress and obliterate all competing tendencies within the faith that were not sanctioned as "orthodox" by its councils. And how many average Christians know the history of their faith? Take a poll sometime.The ignorance is outstanding.
gianni at 3:49PM on Nov 6th 2007
101. Everyone was wrong about everything in the past, so why would any sane person not at least seriously question a two-thousand-year-old belief system? Why is that forbidden?
Brian at 3:47PM on Nov 6th 2007
102. Religion is most like a computer virus for brains. It comes complete with instructions for development and propagation of the virus, and code that prevents the person from deleting it or noticing that it doesn't conform to reality. It is orchestrated, organized, and officially sanctioned psychosis, made easily digestible and palatable to the masses.
Brian at 3:48PM on Nov 6th 2007
103. Here's an interesting question. The possibility exists that science WILL eventually prove the existence of spirit, or at least the idea that the universe in it's sum total, is ALL consciousness. It's possible. What then?
To re-post something from an earlier DD thread, here's one possibility. Science is ALREADY proving thst this is a possibility, and many experimental results point to it as being what reality is really like at its most basic level.
Could you christians handle THIS? What if science proved that it was true? It's well on it's way to it already...
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Earlier post:
What would be the simplest explanation for this universe? That would account for the maximum number of observations that we've made of it? I used to ask myself this all the time. I knew it couldn't be something that we'd thought of before, since all of those theories have huge holes in them, even science in a way, though science is the best single one of all so far. But still science sees infinities in time and distance, and quantum paradoxes galore, along with things like the wave-particle duality and entanglement, which are hard to explain. SO I thought and thought, and studied a lot of different sources, and this is what I came up with...
Simplest Explanation for this Universe:
It's all a vast mind, or very similar to one. Now I KNOW that's a hard one for a christian, or most anybody, to ever believe. But give me a chance to explain. Oh, and if you can't follow this, it doesn't mean that it's not true, so perhaps some study would be in order, at least before you dismiss it. Not that you won't.
Imagine it as if we're all complex thought patterns in a vast mind of some sort. We think of ourselves as matter, and the universe as matter and energy and space and time, but if it were all more like a mind, it negates the problems of the infinite. The universe would be as large as we think it is, and as old as we think it is... The more we looked, the more we'd find, but in a mind this is all interplay of consciousness and not the real traversing of space, so infinity is not a problem... We feel as solid matter and a rock feels hard and heavy, but they're consciousness or thoughts too, but since WE are as well, the rock feels heavy and we feel solid to ourselves. As we've developed over the years we've formed this vast mind by our subconscious expectations of it, since it IS us, and all other things as well. Thus it conforms to our expectations of it, follows logical rules, etc. We are individuals, yes, but only at the conscious and near-conscious levels. At the deep subconscious level we all share the same identity, as does everything else, since we're all made of the one thing, mind, in a world of the same. So, the person looking out of your eyes and calling yourself "Me" is, at the deepest level, IDENTICAL with the person that looks out of MY eyes and says the same. God, or the Universe, is ONE, and we're all a part of it, connected at every point. There's only ONE "sense-of-identity" in the universe. That's what that means. We just all have it and think it unique to us as individuals, and it's not. Now if in this vast mind you manage to convince yourself that it's all due to an anthropomorphic God, this reality/mind will accomodate you and give you "signs" that you're on the right track, EVEN THOUGH YOU AREN'T!!! It will give you exactly what you expect it to in your deep subconscious. If I meditate strongly enough, I get the same types of signs, and I'm not a believer in any God, really. Strange coincidences, synchronicities, and actual events taking place that related to my meditation... Even at times, wish-fulfillment... You can produce this with prayers, if you REALLY believe deeply. It won't matter that what you REALLY believe in isn't TRUE, either. You can pray to a big Shoe in the sky, and if you have enough belief, real-world phenomena can and will occurr that seem to be an answer to your "prayers" with no god needed other than this universe, which in it's entirety, can be called God but more accurately is just the mind that we all call home. It's not a human mind, but it's composed of all minds and all things.
Seems simple enough, if you have an imagination. Now tell me why it can't be true. You can't. In fact, it explains EVERYTHING. Not one thing left out. It's the only theory that can even come close to doing that. All scientific problems, the mind-body problem, the placebo effect, miracles, faith-healings, synchronicities, deja-vu, "signs," ESP, clairvoyance, all psychic phenomena including hauntings, and even your belief in your god.
It can’t be proven yet, but it looks like it might be provable in the near future, if it’s true, of course. The beginnings of proof are already there. Look at the quantum realm, with all its strangeness and problems, which vanish if we assume that the universe is all consciousness. But as of right now, it can’t be proven. Neither can your God, or anyone else’s, but since it explains not only your god but all others, and science, and scientific fallacies and paradoxes, and indeed ALL mysteries, and has hopes of being proven in time by science, it’s far superior to any other faith or religion.
Brian at 3:54PM on Nov 6th 2007
104. pboy #88
I didn't say they "consciously selected" you idiot.
Darwin wrote, Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations.
If this is true then they would have the abillity to naturally select. Abillity does not mean conscious choice.
You are the one who looks stupid moron.
Observant at 3:57PM on Nov 6th 2007
105. Dinesh dated Ann Coulter. No theory,secular or faith-based can explain that.
gianni at 4:04PM on Nov 6th 2007