Modesty is one of my great virtues, and that is why I am always worried when people praise me too much. I'm starting to become concerned I'll end up like that atheist megalomaniac Nietzsche, whose autobiography Ecce Homo contains such chapter titles as "Why I Am So Wise" and "Why I Write Such Good Books."
This past weekend I debated atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, at the FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas. Hitchens is probably America's leading atheist and is widely regarded as unbelief's best debater. Richard Dawkins raves about Hitchens' oratorical prowess. Entering the debate, the odds seemed stacked against me: the organizers warned me that the vast majority of the 1,000 libertarians in the audience would be in Hitchens' camp.
Yet when the debate was finished the moderator called for a vote on "who won the debate." By a show of hands, I did! In order to be magnanimous, I said that what really mattered was how many people were on each side prior to the debate. But Hitchens burst in to say that he would have lost anyway! Later several atheists came up to me and said that although they were rooting for Hitchens, they had voted for me because they felt I had prevailed decisively.
I also spoke at a special luncheon event at FreedomFest. My talk was introduced by atheist Michael Shermer, the eidtor of Skeptic magazine and author of Why Darwin Matters. Shermer commented that with the passing of William F. Buckley, I am one of the leading defenders of conservatism and freedom in America. He also added, "Whatever your beliefs, you should read Dinesh's book What's So Great About Christianity. It is the best defense of Christianity that has ever been published."
In addition to dealing with atheist accolades, I also have to contend with the same from fellow conservatives and Christians. The July-August issue of the American Spectator contains a review of my book written by Matthew Kenefick. With the title, "C.S. Lewis, Move Over," the reivew begins this way: "In his new book What's So Great About Christianity Dinesh D'Souza stakes his claim as one of the great Christian apologists." The review ends thus: "In any case, D'Souza has written a book that both G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis would have appreciated and that perhaps even Billy Graham and Pope Benedict XVI could agree is a masterpiece of modern apologetical writing destined to set the standard for years to come."
With comments like this, I am in serious danger of getting a big head and losing my reputation for self-effacing modesty. I suppose I should take consolation from the fact that I have some vitriolic detractors on this blog. But what credibility do these poor fools have with their unimaginative insults and wishful "Hitchens owned you!" declarations? Then an audience biased in favor of Hitchens votes me the winner and Hitchens himself admits that he lost the debate!
Atheists like to think of themselves as akin to champions of the round earth, confronted by religious ignoramuses who keep insisting that the earth is flat. But is it even conceivable that a round-earth advocate should lose a debate to a flat-earth advocate? To put the question differently, if atheists are truly the party of reason, and believers like me are truly the party of "blind faith," how come reason keeps getting its butt kicked?
Reader Comments ( Page 21 of 22)
301. 296. Why is it that you Dinesh haters can't seem to get enough of him?
Abrondon at 8:37AM on Jul 16th 2008
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For the same reason that people are fascinated by car crashes and train wrecks. Oh, and to talk to the fundies, in order to learn more about that dangersous psychosis and expose it to others so they can see how evil it is. Oh, and the other atheists that post here are smart and I've learned a lot here. It can be frustrating when the author is particularily immoral and idiotic, as he has been lately... But it's still a fun place. More in spite of Dinesh than because of him.
Godless Heathen Brian at 12:47PM on Jul 16th 2008
302. According to the 2001 Indian Census, Christians are 2.3% of the population. They are growing at a faster rate than Hindus (who are 80% of the population) but not faster than Muslims or Buddhist.
Ryan Anderson at 12:56PM on Jul 16th 2008
303. 297. GHB: it was very similar to Ahmadinejad making a joke that he loves Jews. It wouldn't be funny and you wouldn't really know how to take it.
Ryan Anderson at 8:38AM on Jul 16th 2008
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Good analogy, because that's exactly how I felt.
Godless Heathen Brian at 1:22PM on Jul 16th 2008
304. Ah, I see that Dinesh himself has now confirmed everything I said yesterday about his use of irony in his blog post.
Now, I'd like to address the more interesting question: Why did I get it so easily -- at first, glance, in fact -- while nearly every one of Dinesh's critics got it so embarrassingly wrong? The answer, I think, is simple: I have a much more healthy, honest, veridical and realistic view of Dinesh himself than most of the critics who post here do. You all seem to see him through the prism of "neo-con/Christian," and of course most of you think that both neo-cons and Christians are evil (put them together, and watch out! Interestingly, most of the people who are regularly called neo-cons -- the 'definition' of which seems to be exhausted by its instances -- are not at all religious). In other words, you judge him to be evil because of *your understanding* of his politics and his religion (never mind the simple fact that none of you could even define, with any precision, just what a 'neo-con' is, since there *is no* intellectually credible definition, and never mind the fact that most of you have an infantile understanding, at best, of just what Christianity is). Also, most of you have admitted that you have never read any of his books. I, on the other hand, am familiar with much of his work, and have long been impressed with both his intellect and with his abilities as a writer. This doesn't mean that I agree with everything he has ever written, but at least I approach his work with some degree of objectivity, and am ever ready to apply the 'principle of charity' http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/charity.shtml when reading his words. Most of you, however -- as this post on modesty made patently obvious -- are either unwilling or intellectually unable to apply the principle of charity to a text written by D'souza. It's a shame. You may disagree with him, which is fine; if you haven't noticed, Dinesh not only welcomes intelligent disagreement, he actively -- indeed, *vigorously* pursues it (no Christian who avoids intelligent, hard hitting disagreement routinely calls out intellectual powerhouses like Richard Dawkins to debate!). If you approach this blog with a bit more -- dare I say it? -- *modesty* and charity, you may learn something from Dinesh.
Renzo at 2:36PM on Jul 16th 2008
305. I'm not 100% sure he intended it as a joke. Mainly because it's just not that clever.
Ryan Anderson at 2:59PM on Jul 16th 2008
306. Renzo; I know many good Christians, many good conservatives and many who are a combinations of the two (and many who are not a combination).
DD is bad (not evil) because he continuously, and dishonestly, attempts to malign atheist.
That's my beef with him anyway.
Ryan Anderson at 3:02PM on Jul 16th 2008
307. Renzo; just out of curiosity and I'm not trying to be insulting, but how can you argue the minutia of a point when the foundational premise of the point cannot be proven?
It seems like the same thing as arguing over the physics behind the Death Star's ability to blow up Aldeeran or how the Millennium Falcon is able to jump through hyperspace. I'm sure you can get into a very detailed and 'worthwhile', discussions on everything involved, but in the end, it's just a movie.
Ryan Anderson at 3:12PM on Jul 16th 2008
308. 307. Renzo; just out of curiosity and I'm not trying to be insulting, but how can you argue the minutia of a point when the foundational premise of the point cannot be proven?
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every self-appointed 'logician' that I have seen posting here misses that very point and goes hi diddle diddle straight up the middle in an identical fashion.
They walk right into the same roach motel as though they were all trained at the same finishing school. It is so pervasive that others have sworn it had to be the same poster. Lorenzo is apparently a product of the same kool aid stand, for want of a better term. They should offer more than one flavor.
Clif Kuplen at 3:42PM on Jul 16th 2008
309. 307. Renzo; just out of curiosity and I'm not trying to be insulting, but how can you argue the minutia of a point when the foundational premise of the point cannot be proven?
It seems like the same thing as arguing over the physics behind the Death Star's ability to blow up Aldeeran or how the Millennium Falcon is able to jump through hyperspace. I'm sure you can get into a very detailed and 'worthwhile', discussions on everything involved, but in the end, it's just a movie.
Ryan Anderson at 3:12PM on Jul 16th 2008
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He likes the challenge of proving the impossible? Of making it acceptable at least... If it weren't immoral I'd agree. It must be fun to twist the words like that. Like playing verbal chess.
But it is immoral, in the extreme, because people base their lives on this stuff.
Godless Heathen Brian at 5:22PM on Jul 16th 2008
310. They walk right into the same roach motel as though they were all trained at the same finishing school. It is so pervasive that others have sworn it had to be the same poster.
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Guilty as charged. But in my defense, I was hopeful that there couldn't be more than one of them. I wanted to believe that such duplicity couldn't be that common. I think it's likely now that you're right and it's just all like a school of thought that some of them have, and DD is just one of the foremost practitioners.
If any of them are Dinesh, it's renzo, though.
Sad.
Godless Heathen Brian at 5:26PM on Jul 16th 2008
311. Ahd yes. Lorenzo. I remember him. Another one to be sure.
His oil is of the snake variety.
Godless Heathen Brian at 5:28PM on Jul 16th 2008
312. Or do you mean renzo? I seem to recall a lorenzo as well. Maybe I'm just suggestible?
Godless Heathen Brian at 5:48PM on Jul 16th 2008
313. "Renzo; just out of curiosity and I'm not trying to be insulting, but how can you argue the minutia of a point when the foundational premise of the point cannot be proven?"
Ryan, let me lay out the only points I'm ever trying to make (with respect to religion) on this blog. Then, I'll address your question directly (I think my 'points' will help clarify my answer):
1. Most atheists apply a standard of proof to religious claims that cannot be met by the vast majority of beliefs we all rationally hold. They almost always, however, fail to notice this. This mistakenly leads to them to conclude that religious beliefs are necessarily irrational (since they can't meet this extremely high standard).
2. Once you realize that we all hold beliefs -- and hold them rationally -- that cannot meet the standard set by atheists for religious beliefs, you realize that religious beliefs are not necessarily irrational (since we've just collapsed, with counter examples, the arbitrarily high standard; some will want to respond that religious beliefs have such serious consequences that we must hold them to an extremely high standard; however, when you realize that most of our moral and political beliefs -- not to mention our fundamental beliefs about human beings -- are in the same epistemic category, and that these sorts of beliefs, even when secular, are just as consequential as religious beliefs, it's obvious that this objection fails).
3. Once you realize that many of the beliefs we hold rationally *are no more justifiable* (in terms of the scope, quantity and quality of the evidence, and in terms of our necessary use of non-evidential criteria in evaluating the evidence) than religious beliefs, you realize that religious belief can be held rationally (see Alvin Plantinga's "God and Other Minds"; Plantinga argues that belief in god and belief in other minds -- i.e. the belief that other people have minds, or first-person experiences of the world, not just brains -- are in the same epistemic boat; as such, since we all agree that belief in other minds is rational, belief in god -- when it meets the same epistemic criteria as belief in other minds, which it often does -- is rational).
4. Science, as wonderful, awe-inspiring, effective and exciting as it is, simply cannot say anything meaningful with respect to god's existence. Not only that, but science can say next to nothing about much of what we hold most important in life. In other words, science is a wonderful -- even a beautiful --tool, but like any tool, it has its limits, and when we transgress those limits, the results are predictably silly.
Ryan, these four points are necessary, in my view, to move the discussion about god and religious belief onto some sensible ground. As long as atheists insist that belief in god be 'proven,' or that it be justified 'scientifically,' they are resting their claims on a host of unjustified, and unjustifiable, assumptions. All I'm trying to do is bring those assumptions to the surface, so we can examine them effectively and perhaps move the discussion onto more fruitful grounds. So, what you regard as the 'minutiae' I see as the profoundly important first principles which must be discussed before any meaningful, rational discussion can take place. Aristotle famously said that very small errors made early in an argument lead to huge errors in our conclusions; I'm just trying to kill some of these monsters while they're small (or, if you prefer, minute).
Renzo at 8:41PM on Jul 16th 2008
314. Renzo; thanks for the response. I understand what you are saying about rationally held beliefs in the absence of evidence. And I think you are right in many cases. But, depending on how you define god, I think there is a drastic difference between religious belief and belief in gravity (I'm assuming gravity is one of the beliefs you were referring to that we hold rationally without proof). Even if we don't understand the mechanics of what makes mass attract mass in space, we know that it happens and gravity effects us in a very real and profound way every day of our lives. It's an observable force of nature.
Assuming for just a moment that God does NOT exist, religion is then a completely fabricated and man made invention that still effects us in the same real and profound way, but it does so because we chose to let it, not because it's a force of nature.
Now, assuming God does exist, then it's still entirely possible that religion is a completely fabricated and man made invention.
But, if god chose to reveal itself to humankind, that would mean that a particular religion is divinely inspired and not a complete fabrication. But how on earth can you saw which one of hundreds it is? It could also mean that that divinely touched religion is lost to time (like Mithraism or any number of lost religions).
I'm an agnostic however, not an atheist, so I have no problem with your original position. But what I don't get is how you make the leap from rationally believing that God exists to the Nicean Creed.
Ryan Anderson at 9:23PM on Jul 16th 2008
315. "I understand what you are saying about rationally held beliefs in the absence of evidence."
Ryan, perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been on this point. I certainly didn't mean to suggest I was talking about beliefs held in the absence of *evidence* (though there are indeed beliefs we all hold rationally without evidence, i.e. what philosophers call 'properly basic beliefs'); rather, I was talking about beliefs held in the absence of *proof*. While I concede that god's existence cannot be *proven* -- just as the existence of other minds cannot be proven -- I think there is *evidence* for god's existence (if you want to know what this evidence is, I've pointed out before that all you have to do is look at the premises of any of the better known arguments for god's existence e.g. see the premises of these arguments http://philofreligion.homestead.com/files/Theisticarguments.html) and that this evidence is both logically coherent and empirically well-fitted to our experience of the world -- just as our beliefs about the existence of other minds are logically coherent, and fit well with our experiences of the world.
"I'm assuming gravity is one of the beliefs you were referring to that we hold rationally without proof. Even if we don't understand the mechanics of what makes mass attract mass in space, we know that it happens and gravity effects us in a very real and profound way every day of our lives. It's an observable force of nature."
No, I wasn't at all referring to something like our beliefs about gravity. I was referring to beliefs that go much deeper than that, such as the sorts of fundamental beliefs that our ancillary beliefs about phenomena such as gravity themselves depend upon, e.g. our belief that what we observe in some way matches up with the world as it actually is (note your last statement relies on this very assumption: "It's [gravity is] an observable force of nature." But also note that this is the sort of belief we all rationally hold, even though it cannot in any sense -- as Kant famously demonstrated -- be proven).
"But, if god chose to reveal itself to humankind, that would mean that a particular religion is divinely inspired and not a complete fabrication. But how on earth can you saw which one of hundreds it is?"
There's an assumption that this sort of argument rests upon that seems to me to be flawed. For example, the point you're making is often put this way: "Sure, you're a Christian, but if you had been born in Pakistan, you most likely would've been a muslim." Now, what can one justifiably conclude from this obviously true proposition? Well, not much, since it actually backfires on whoever asserts it. Let's say that the person asking the question is an atheist. Isn't it equally true that if the atheist had been born in Pakistan, he most likely would've been a muslim? Therefore, by parity of reasoning, whatever we can conclude from this true proposition ("Anyone born in Pakistan will most likely become a muslim") concerning Christianity applies with the same force to atheism (or to just about anything else). In other words, the argument doesn't really get off the ground.
Another assumption this sort of argument makes is that the factuality of religious pluralism by itself constitutes a defeater with respect to any particular religious belief. But when you realize that 'pluralism' is just fancy way of saying, 'people disagree about such and such' the weakness of this assumption becomes apparent. The mere fact of disagreement in no way speaks to the truth or falsity of a belief or set of beliefs (in other words, there's no contradiction involved in asserting that one million people all hold different views of x, and one of those million has it right).
Now, how do I know that I have it right? Well, I don't 'know' (if we take the notion of 'knowledge' seriously). Rather, I've reached a tentative conclusion after examining the data (and the data includes personal experiences and the like, which, I think, are entirely relevant and epistemically legitimate given the nature of religious belief). This conclusion, however, isn't merely 'intellectual': it has an absolutely essential existential aspect as well. Faith isn't simply a matter of belief -- it involves trust and commitment as well. But, as is always the case, since trust presupposes doubt, my beliefs are open to revision. As I've said before, I'll change my views in a second if, say, Jesus' ossuary is discovered tomorrow; or if, say, someone could actually demonstrate that the very concept of god is logically incoherent (I'm very familiar with the scholarly approaches to this sort of argument, and have found none of them persuasive. I only mention this so someone like Peter doesn't come back with something ridiculous that's been refuted a million times like, 'If god is omnipotent, then can he make a rock too heavy for him to lift,' or some similarly trite nonsense). In other words, I believe that faith must be tempered with skepticism; in a sense, I consider myself to be a believing agnostic.
"But what I don't get is how you make the leap from rationally believing that God exists to the Nicean Creed."
Well, it's not exactly a leap! I would recommend a book by John Polkinghorne, "The Way the World Is: The Christian Perspective of a Scientist" to address this sort of question. Polkinghorne says that he wrote the book to provide a non trivial answer to just this sort of question, one that many of his scientific colleagues (well, the atheists and agnostics among them) frequently asked him. He rightly said that a proper answer involves so much that it simply isn't the sort of thing that can be answered over, say, a two hour dinner (much less on a blog!). I am pretty much in agreement with Polkinghorne here (with the answer he provides to your question, that is; though of course I don't agree with *everything* he writes, and of course some of my reasons are different both qualitatively and with respect to emphasis), so I'd recommend his book as my (rough) answer. It's short -- just over a hundred pages -- and very readable. Still, in a hundred pages, he bearly scratches the surface; now, if this is all a man who played a significant role in the discovery of the quark can do in a hundred pages, you can imagine how inadequate any attempt by me on a blog page would be.
Renzo at 10:58PM on Jul 16th 2008