1. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81169 by darek on October 24, 2007 at 10:16 am

I just finished hearing the debate.

Dinesh D'Souza is terribly disingenuous in each of his arguments. It makes no surprise that he is in line with the likes of the Neo-Cons of America, in fact, this influence is revealing in his detail of how public schools are treated amongst atheists and theists in the audience question segment in which he expresses is views of how atheists are trying to influence the young. His views on science and how science works is particularly deranged, and I think, once again, his political background influences this as well.

The fact that the audience (to my understanding already in line/favor of D'Souza's views even though this debate was available to the public) supported Dinesh on his accounts of the terrible acts 'in the name of atheism', or his anthropomorphism of how the universe is fine-tuned with us in mind, among some of his other points shows a great deal of ignorance on the part of the audience. It reminds me of the line in Star Wars where Obi Wan says, "Who is the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?"

Clearly, all that is needed to repudiate almost all of D'Souza's points and arguments is a dedicated sit-down and research of history and science of the topics discussed.

In an interview with Sean Hannity, D'Souza states that all he is trying to do with his new book is put things into perspective to refute the 'new atheists'. Well, if rewriting history to the way one wants another to understand how history should be viewed in the lens of a religion, in this case Christianity, then yes, D'Souza is putting things 'into perspective.'

It's a shame he stoops to such levels of intellectual dishonesty (at times even bankruptcy), but such is the way when you mix politics with religion (and in his case, science).

I tried not to reveal too much about the debate, definitely view it for yourself, its a good one, and I don't think the article from The Observer was fair at all in its summary, Hitchen's didn't by any means destroy Dinesh - but I don't think he lost the debate either - it was a stalemate which required the observer to look into the talked about matters further...

2. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81014 by darek on October 23, 2007 at 10:43 pm

Inoculatedcities wrote:
"...it seems as if very very few credulous religious people have read widely or devoted much time to thinking on the matters they speak so loudly and resolutely about."

Well stated and exactly the heart of the beast which preys upon situations like these - a debate about religion. The beast, of course, being ignorance - but more specifically, a lack of an onus to further one's understanding.

It's pretty said, really, especially with the internet being available, you REALLY have to be lazy in this regard...