Though Christopher Hitchens sucks it up in debate, D'Souza still doesn't get it.

[Beet]

Click here to watch one of the Dinesh D'Souza-Christopher Hitchens debate series.

Christopher Hitchens really surprised me because he looks like he can't debate himself out of a paper bag in this one- granted, D'Souza is a formidable opponent. D'Souza elegantly points out that science, in the end, rests on belief, and that it fails to address the metaphysical foundations of the universe. He also accuses atheism of allowing for 20th century totalitarianism. Hitchens, instead of bringing up the argument that modern tools and populations allow killing on a much larger sale and the example of the Thirty Years' War, tries to pin fascism on Catholicism and communism in Russia and China on lack of Western (liberal) values in those countries. But he is forced to concede that Nazism was mostly secular and communism was explicitly atheist. Hitchens posits that religion is cruel; but what of the alternative? D'Souza points out that God gives man a choice.

The problem is that here you have D'Souza arguing for an elegant, moral and majestic religion in one week, and religious fanatics in Sudan calling for the execution of the teddy bear teacher the next week. D'Souza's rhetoric and education are too much for his own good. In the rarefied world he inhabits, religion is surely a force for good. In the real world, in the ways religion has been applied recently, it has more often been abused; and it is the religious who should see that more than anyone else. Hitchens is too militant on the other side. Because he's too intent on proving atheism and he's to intent on proving that religion is the source of evil, he has no good responses to D'Souza's questioning on suicide bombing and 20th century totalitarianism, nor on the majesty of natural laws, which even Richard Dawkins admits is an interesting argument. If he were less militant he wouldn't have been in the position of having to allow D'Souza to get away with statements such as "Christ invented compassion."

[they don't love you like i love you]

Oh God, two of the most awful douchebags in existence debating each other. I'm going to skip this.

[Beet]

Oh God, two of the most awful douchebags in existence debating each other. I'm going to skip this.

Oh, but what fun would it be to watch anything but the most extreme polar opposites going at it?

[they don't love you like i love you]

Oh God, two of the most awful douchebags in existence debating each other. I'm going to skip this.

Oh, but what fun would it be to watch anything but the most extreme polar opposites going at it?

They are not polar opposites. They're both right wing hacks.

[tik 🪀✨]

Oh God, two of the most awful douchebags in existence debating each other. I'm going to skip this.

Oh, but what fun would it be to watch anything but the most extreme polar opposites going at it?

They are not polar opposites. They're both right wing hacks.

You know, it is possible to agree with the Republicans on something without being a "right wing hack." Hitchens is one who would come to his stance on foreign policy on his own merits with a critical eye and sharp attention to detail. You're certainly (and I imagine proudly) a left wing hack, but anyone who disagrees with you is not the polar opposite.

This debate was very interesting to watch. I don't think Hitchens is a poor debater, but he certainly isn't one for brevity in order to get his larger point across. At the very least you have to give him credit for doing this in largely unwelcoming territory.

Favourite line: "Hell is more severe than diabetes."

[The Man From G.O.P.]

I recently spent the entire day with D'Souza and 2 other students after I picked him up from the airport with them, the Hitchens debate was one of our biggest topics during lunch and downtime we spent with him before taking him to his event that evening, fascinating stuff, he gives Hitches loads of credit for his presentation, but humbly pointed out that Hitchens fully expected him to come at science with a fundy stick, and was totaly on the rocks (pardon the pun) when Dinesh moved farther into science than he did.

Most would say D'Souza won, mainly because Hitchens whisky swill superiority couldnt work against D'Souza, fascinating day with a fascinating man, agree with his message or not, it was a great experience.

[Verily]

D'Souza's argument rests on proving, not that religion is true, but that atheism causes bad things to happen, which is an interesting hypothesis but one for which only inconclusive evidence exists.

Yes, communism was explicitly atheist, but it was so because of the inherent hierarchical nature of religion in most of Europe, which communism opposed more as a hierarchy that oppressed the underprivileged than anything else, at least in its formative stages. Later anti-religious sentiments were mostly hyperpatriotic attempts by communist leaders manipulating Marxist anti-religious class war doctrine, but this isn't particularly surprising given how far Stalin et al. twisted other Marxist beliefs to their own ends.

Nazism was most certainly not secular; quite the opposite, though it did not embrace Christianity in any modern sense of the term. Nazism instead drew on ancient Germanic myths such as Norse mythology in order to cultivate the ideal of the perfect German and the perfect human. Yes, these also had some basis in eugenics, but eugenics as practiced by the Nazis was mostly flawed in its understanding of human genetics, and that flaw stemmed from faith in the German mystical ideal, an inherently religious concept.

By contrast, modern Europe is one of the most secular, atheist areas of the world, far more so than anywhere but current and former communist nations (and in both of those I imagine the number professing a religion is depressed by social stigma and/or government manipulation). It also enjoys the highest standards of living in the world and has been at complete peace for a stunning 62 years, the longest run of any region of the world ever (or, at least, one containing so many countries; North America has been at peace longer but contains only three states) as far back as can be reasonably studied. This would suggest that atheism favors high standards of living and peace, completely debunking any suggestion otherwise.

D'Souza should stick to trying to prove religion; his arguments are full of flaws elsewhere.

[Gabu]

D'Souza should stick to trying to prove religion; his arguments are full of flaws elsewhere.

Which is not a problem if his debate opponents can't point that out.  Reality is irrelevant in every way if you can convince people otherwise.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

D'Souza should stick to trying to prove religion; his arguments are full of flaws elsewhere.

The problem is that instead of looking at the facts and finding a conclusion out of them, he has a conclusion and looks for facts to justify it, and in the process, things that get in the way are marginalised, distorted, taken out of context or just ignored

But you've done that as well. To pick just one example, does it matter why the Communist regimes were secular, atheistic and anti-religion? If the issue is whether or not secularism is "better" than religion, surely the reasons for secularism are totally irrelevent? You aren't making an argument here (or with Nazi Germany), but an exception.
Not as serious as the sort of rubbish spouted off by Hitchens and D'Souza, but it irritated me a bit anyway.

Of course all of this is missing the wood for the trees; Soviet Russia didn't kill millions because it was an atheist state, Nazi Germany didn't kill millions because it was, more-or-less (a slightly qualified statement, but not because of all the pseduo-"pagan" nonsense) a secular state, people didn't die in the so-called "religious wars" of previous centuries because society was totally Christian at the time.

[Silent Hunter]

D'Souza should stick to trying to prove religion; his arguments are full of flaws elsewhere.

The problem is that instead of looking at the facts and finding a conclusion out of them, he has a conclusion and looks for facts to justify it, and in the process, things that get in the way are marginalised, distorted, taken out of context or just ignored

But you've done that as well. To pick just one example, does it matter why the Communist regimes were secular, atheistic and anti-religion? If the issue is whether or not secularism is "better" than religion, surely the reasons for secularism are totally irrelevent? You aren't making an argument here (or with Nazi Germany), but an exception.
Not as serious as the sort of rubbish spouted off by Hitchens and D'Souza, but it irritated me anyway.

Of course all of this is missing the wood for the trees; Soviet Russia didn't kill millions because it was an atheist state, Nazi Germany didn't kill millions because it was, more-or-less (a slightly qualified statement, but not because of all the pseduo-"pagan" nonsense) a secular state, people didn't die in the so-called "religious wars" of previous centuries because society was totally Christian at the time.

At this point it becomes appropriate to quote Doctor Who:

"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Apart from agreeing pretty much entirely with Al (and to point out what he is describing is pretty much the opposite of rational, logic and scientific thinking. So much for using science...)
I have only one thing really to say...

Who really cares what those two blowhards think?

[Verily]

D'Souza should stick to trying to prove religion; his arguments are full of flaws elsewhere.

But you've done that as well. To pick just one example, does it matter why the Communist regimes were secular, atheistic and anti-religion? If the issue is whether or not secularism is "better" than religion, surely the reasons for secularism are totally irrelevent? You aren't making an argument here (or with Nazi Germany), but an exception.
Not as serious as the sort of rubbish spouted off by Hitchens and D'Souza, but it irritated me a bit anyway.

I think you're missing the point of my post a little bit. I'm not trying to make an argument about  atheism/secularism being superior, only that D'Souza's argument falls down flat as an argument against "standard" atheism. (In this sense, yes, it does matter why Soviet Russia was atheist because D'Souza is using it to paint all atheism with a broad brush.)

Ultimately, you can make academic arguments about the merits of religion and secularism, but those should focus on the possible benefits of religion as a Platonic Noble Lie (which applies regardless of whether religion is a lie or truth) compared to its disadvantages as one of the four great social cleavages (alongside ethnicity, nationality and language). This conveniently avoids religion which suppresses science as well as amoral secularism.

[The Mikado]

I saw D'Souza recently.  The man is obviously very intelligent, but his defense of "God" spoke of such an amorphous thing (some sort of creator who established the laws of physics) that it sounded more like a defense of 18th century deism than of modern Christianity.  There was next to no mention of Jesus of Nazareth.