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 22 of 22)
316. 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.
xxx
synchronicities! ARRRRGGGHH!
This goes back to as long as I've been here. The names and prose and general knowledge change some but that same lunge and clampdown on a mouthful of feathers while the 'prey' escapes is trick one thru whatever they're up to now.
Clif Kuplen at 2:36AM on Jul 17th 2008
317. 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
xx
Neither is he.
Especially hard to recognize as humor when the guy goes all church lady at the mention of Monte Python.
I guess a butt knows it's a butt and if he's not a monte butt, there's no minister of silly walks.
Clif Kuplen at 2:39AM on Jul 17th 2008
318. I would recommend a book by John Polkinghorne, "The Way the World Is: The Christian Perspective of a Scientist"
-Renzo
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Great name for a christian scientist. Or a catholic priest.
Godless Heathen Brian at 8:44AM on Jul 17th 2008
319. Renzo; I hope you had a good night. Our baby slept for 6 hours straight for the first time. Although we were worried when we first woke up, it was wonderful to get an actual night’s sleep.
I now understand what you meant by ‘proof’ vs. ‘evidence’. I still don’t see most of the arguments from Plantinga’s lecture as ‘evidence’. The exception is the Argument from physical constants. Personally, I believe we are simply seeing order because we are inside and part of the system. But it’s still a compelling argument for a designer. Also, CS Lewis’s Argument from Nostalgia is by far one of the weakest of the bunch, but for whatever reason it speaks to me (probably from personal experience). I would argue that it’s ancestral memory that creates the nostalgia though and not “god” as Lewis suggests. But belief in ancestral memory requires as much faith as belief in god does. Either way, I obviously don’t have the academic chops to seriously refute any of these arguments though, especially not given a couple of hours.
Also, anyone born in America will most likely be Christian, just like anyone born in Pakistan will most likely be Muslim, and yet there are atheists. I realize this doesn’t prove anything regarding the truth of god, but it does speak to the human inclination to create god in our own image. My point is the utter incompatibility of most religions to me precludes the idea that god had a hand in the creation of any of our religions and indicates that they were created by man and grew out of very specific and local social and environmental conditions.
I don’t think I ever really lost my belief that god does exist, but at some point in my early adult years, I lost my faith that the authors of the gospels and the early church fathers had good and honest intentions. And with that went by belief in a personal god. I will check out Polkinghorne’s book though.
The fun thing about this blog is that we can argue for days because we never bother to define what we're arguing about. Are we arguing about the existence of a first mover, a designer, a loving personal god, Jesus, Mohammed, etc..?
The 'minutia' you work in is where you set the parameters so you can have productive arguments. Correct?
Have a good day.
Ryan Anderson at 9:31AM on Jul 17th 2008
320. It is rough when you have a newborn... getting sleep is essential to well-being in my book.
What one perceives as evidence for God is usually what we debate about on these blogs and I usually enjoy it.. except when it turns into a whose more stupid debate.
Shannie at 2:24PM on Jul 17th 2008
321. Salaam Aleykum!
We wondered if you would be able to put a link to our website on your website please?
modestswimsuits.co.uk
We are selling the Original Hijood Burqini from Australia (Now in stock in UK)
We would of course be willing to return the favour :D
Many thanks
Best regards wa salaams
Jacqueline
posmena at 5:49PM on Jul 22nd 2008
322. WTF, who said you could spam this blog bee-otch!!
I'm the only one who is allow to come out of the shadows.
I'm the last one here, I'm going for a drink.
Cheers
TJ at 11:23AM on Aug 20th 2008