Date: Sun Dec 16 2007 - 06:56:21 EST
This sounds like a promising development in the culture wars.
John
<http://townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza>
Why Atheists Are So Angry
By Dinesh D'Souza
Sunday, December 9, 2007
If you haven't seen my "God v. Atheism" debate with philosopher Daniel
Dennett, you can view it at Tothesource.org. You should read the comments in
response to the debate both on my AOL blog as well as on the atheist site
richarddawkins.net. From the atheists you hear statements like this:
"D'Souza is a goddamned idiot." "Odious little toad." "D'Souza is full of
s**t." "A smug, joyless twit." "Total moron." "Little t-rd." "Two-faced
liar." Etc, etc. Now admittedly the topic of God v. atheism can be an
emotional one, but you will find no comparable invective on the Christian
side. Why then are so many atheists so angry?
One reason I think is that they are God-haters. Atheists often like to
portray themselves as "unbelievers" but this is not strictly accurate. If
they were mere unbelievers they would simply live their lives as if God did
not exist. I don't believe in unicorns, but then I haven't written any books
called The End of Unicorns, Unicorns are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion.
Clearly the atheists go beyond disbelief; they are on the warpath against
God. And you can hear their bitterness not only in their book titles but
also in their mean-spirited invective.
Here is a second reason the atheists sound so angry. They are not used to
having their sophistries exposed. For the past three years the new atheists
have had a virtually free ride. Dawkins and Hitchens make outrageous claims
("religion poisons everything") and media pundits like Lou Dobbs and Tim
Russert fawn all over them. But in the past few months I've been meeting the
leading atheist spokesmen in open debate, and challenging them on the basis
of the same reason and science and evidence that they say vindicates their
claims.
After my first debate with Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine,
several atheists on Dawkins' site said, "Well, D'Souza won that debate, but
wait till he meets Hitchens. Hitchens will wipe the floor with him. D'Souza
RIP." Then after I debated Hitchens the atheists said, "Oh no, this one
didn't go as planned. Hitchens didn't do so well." Another commented that
atheists could not afford to lose two in a row. Even so, one atheist
hopefully noted that Hitchens was not the right guy to debate me; rather,
Daniel Dennett has the scholarly weight to do the job.
Now after my Dennett debate, what's the verdict? Well, the audience was full
of Dennett supporters who began with enthusiastic applause for him but, as
the debate went on, fell largely silent. Several came up to me afterward and
told me that I had won. Dennett himself seemed dispirited after the event.
Even so, when I posted the debate on my blog, the atheists went into damage
control mode. The debate was instantly posted on atheist sites, and atheists
rushed to my AOL blog to vote Dennett the winner. This effort gave atheists
an early lead, but when the votes were tallied I was the victor.
Interestingly my margin of victory was even bigger than that for the
resolution, suggesting that several people voted that "God Is a Man-Made
Invention" and still thought I won the debate.
A good way to assess a debate is to see what the partisans on each side say.
Among Christians the verdict is unanimous. Here's a sample comment from a
Townhall reader: "My heart went out to Professor Dennett because he was so
totally over-matched in this debate You totally demolished him as you have
the other atheists you have debated." But all you have to do is to go to
atheist sites to see that many atheists also think that I won, although this
is sometimes very grudgingly admitted.
Here is a sampling of comments that I've taken from richarddawkins.net. "I
was at the debate and thought Dennett did not prove his point." "I'm so
tired of these D'Souza debates. The more people we send his way the larger
his smile grows." "I feel such debates should stop." "I love Dennett's ideas
about atheism but I do think he handled this debate poorly against Dinesh."
"Ok, Dennett sucked...Dennett's type of responses just made him look like an
ass." "Dinesh is an amazingly talented orator, considering how hopeless a
case he is arguing." "Hitchens has had a shot, as has Dennett, and neither
has succeeded in demolishing D'Souza. D'Souza has a very effective debating
technique. Not only did a lot of atheists get up and fire straw-man
arguments at D'Souza that he was easily able to counter and make them look
foolish, but Dennett...lost his composure and his train of thought." "Let's
face it, this guy has taken our best shots and still come out looking good.
Maddening."
So where does this leave the atheists? These guys now seem to be 0-3. Some
of the blog posters on Dawkins' site are calling on Sam Harris and Dawkins
himself to step into the ring. Harris seems willing, although he has
approached me about doing a written rather than an oral debate. Dawkins
continues to avoid my invitation to debate on a secular West Coast campus,
leading one atheist to dub him Richard the Chickenhearted. I really hope
that Dawkins proves he has the courage of his convictions. (How brave is it
to beat up on former televangelist Ted Haggard?)
Otherwise the self-styled "brights" are going to face the empirical fact
that when it comes to defending their views, atheists are basically losers.
Remarkably, the "party of reason" is simply incompetent to vindicate those
claims against an advocate of the "party of faith." Now what could be more
embarrassing than that?
Bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza's new book What's
<http://www.amazon.com/Whats-So-Great-About-Christianity/dp/1596985178/ref=p
d_bbs_sr_1/103-7731593-6906233?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191246999&sr=8-1> So
Great About Christianity has just been released. D'Souza is the Rishwain
Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
