My Debate With Dinesh D'Souza
I'm doing some preparation for my upcoming debate next Tuesday at the University of Illinois. What's interesting is that I've got to find a way to answer his arguments succinctly and in just a few sentences. While I have my own answers, how would you respond succinctly with an economy of words to the following types of claims?
The big bang leads us to God.
Intelligent Design.
The Stalin/Mao objection.
The Hitler objection.
That Christianity gave rise to democracy, science, and human dignity.
Christianity is beneficial to society.
Objective morality can only come from Christianity.
Pascal's wager.
Man is more than matter.
The big bang leads us to God.
Intelligent Design.
The Stalin/Mao objection.
The Hitler objection.
That Christianity gave rise to democracy, science, and human dignity.
Christianity is beneficial to society.
Objective morality can only come from Christianity.
Pascal's wager.
Man is more than matter.
50 comments:
Seriously, 'Christianity gave rise to democracy'. Is that really a topic. How can any Christian lay claim to that. Have they not heard of the Greeks?
The Big Bang leads us to god: It leads us there if we want it to. Even if it could be said to be a proof for a god (and I don't believe it is Question, yes. Proof, no)it is no NO WAY a proof for a Christian god. It could be argued to be a proof for any religious society that claims a creator.
The Stalin/Mao objection: Was their primary identity atheist or communist? Did they do the things they did BECAUSE of their atheist agenda? The catholic church has perpetrated numerous horrors directly in the name of their god.Spanish Inquisition, etc.
Hitler Objection: His writings claim him to be a Catholic. We could argue whether it is true, but that opens the same question for every politician that has done anything wrong.
Christianity gave rise to.... Please refer to ancient Greece, Mr. D'Souza.
Christianity is beneficial... Can it be proven to be more beneficial than the amazing horrors carried out in its name, even today? It is beneficial to Christians. Ask an African homosexual if it beneficial to society (I forget what country off the top of my head).
Objective morality... Or from Islam. Or from ethical reasoning. Or from Buddhism. Or from just not wanting to treat people like crap.
Pascal's wager... is cynical in the extreme. It is a cowards position. If I said I was a Christian because there was a chance you might be right would you respect that?
Man is more than matter? Cool. And that would be...? A soul? What is a soul? What am I without the biochemistry that defines my very identity? Who am I without the chemistry that lets me love my children?
That's my thinking anyways.
EDIT: Hitler Objection: His writings claim him to be a Catholic. We could argue whether it is true, but that opens the same question for every politician that has done anything wrong and claimed a religious identity. Pretty much all of them in America.
Christianity has given rise to democracy, science, and human dignity. We had to fight the Christian church tooth and nail throughout history to obtain those basic freedom. The Christian religion has overwhelming supported slavery, the oppression of women, the oppression of gays, was responsible for the dark ages, used as justification for wiping out Native Americans and taking their land. Women did not get the right to vote until 1920. Black Americans were segregated until 1960 and enslaved until nearly 1900. D'Sousa can try to wiggle away from these, but there is too much evidence to show the direct positive correlation between those injustices and the Christian religion.
I'm sorry John, but there is not ONE argument there that directly tries to verify that the Christian God exists. All there are: arguments of why we SHOULD PREFER to believe in the Christian God, regardless of whather it is true.
And the democracy thing....give me a break. Christianity has been so opposed to democracy its entire existence. Hell, it's opposed to democracy right here, right now, in this very country.
If that's the best Dinesh has, he's engaged in the wrong debate, as far as trying to find the truth goes. He may win over some people with his smooth talk, but he's not doing anything to buttress his belief with empirical evidence.
Man is more than matter? As suggested earlier the claim that follows is that man has a soul. One wonders what becomes of this soul with an individual who has a brain injury. Some change dramatically. Has the person's "soul" changed? The "immaterial soul" is just a result of the action of our brains.
The big bang leads us to God.
Why? This is the god of the gaps answer again. We don't understand how the big bang happened so lets just say "goddidit."
Intelligent Design.
Really? It seems like the universe could have been designed much more intelligently. Why did God incorporate natural disasters into his "finely tuned universe."
The Stalin/Mao objection.
Many theistic dictators in the history of the world have also murdered people. Its not the religion or lack of the same that caused them to do this. It was a thirst for power and control.
The Hitler objection.
Hitler was a disturbed man. What does this have to do with a belief in god? In addition, if god is so loving, why didn't he strike Hitler dead of a heart attack and save the world from much suffering?
That Christianity gave rise to democracy, science, and human dignity.
Ridiculous. The Catholic church, which D'Souza belongs to, is arguably the most undemocratic institution in the world.
John, have you ever have seen Dinesh in a debate before? If not, you should prepare yourself by listening to and viewing recordings of past debates.
He has a very distinct style, weaseling himself out of tricky questions by changing the subject or concentrating on something irrelevant.
He also has some subjects and themes that he likes to mention often, so he has them almost memorized like a routine.
You can start for example here:
(More debates can easily be found by googling.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-471219088532317812
http://www.youtube.com/user/tothesource1#p/u
The big bang: The big bang leads us to so many unanswered questions at the moment. The big bang is observably true given the nature of the universe and its current state that we can peer back into via the recesses of space but neither science nor religion has any proof or justified ideas of that which came before that event. That won't stop us from trying to find out and we will update our ideas as data becomes available, but we will not claim any state or causes as real until we can verify it; that's just good science.
Intelligent Design: Just many good examples of very unintelligent design, see Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True", such as the recurrent laryngeal nerve being direct in fish, but in humans, giraffes , etc., it stretches down into the thorax wrapping around the aorta before going back up to the larynx. That's severely inefficient in humans, but downright stupid in giraffes given how far it goes before returning to where it provides function.
Hitler: Not only was he vocally christian, but he was also explicitly against atheists and darwinian principles as books on the topics are in the list of those to be burned and he explicitly stated that the ideas should be wiped out. Despite that he was vocally christian and used christianity and god beliefs to further his ends, that really does not say much since he was also really just extremely disturbed on so many levels and demonstrates that he was effective at whipping up a highly destructive nationalistic fervor.
Objective morality can only come from Christianity: Christians demonstrate that they do not believe that not one jot or tittle of the law will go away until heaven and earth pass away. Christianity as practiced by those that claim it is the source of all morality explicitly reject much of what the bible says to follow, obviously using society and their own reasoning and desires to form their own morality rather than the bible. The words and actions of christians show the bible is not a good moral source since even they don't believe it is.
Blaming new atheists for communism is like blaming Christians for 9/11.
Fundamentalist Islam is a theistic belief. Communism is an atheistic belief.
But, just as Christianity is not Fundamentalist Islam, New Atheism is not communism.
The big bang does not lead to God. Author Victor Stenger does a great job explaining this topic in a few books, namely God- The Failed Hypothesis. The universe need not have a beginning. The big bang could have easily come about naturally. Stephen Hawking said in A Brief History of Time, "In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show the negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero." Ergo, conservation laws were not violated by The Big Bang. The big bang could have arisen from natural causes based on the idea that "Nothing" is unstable. Imagine a vacuum on Earth, remove the barriers and it immediately fills up. Yes, there exist vast vacuum voids everywhere in space, but even these voids are full of photons(light particles)...and over time matter will pass through them.
On Pascal's wager: Is there sin in Heaven? If God's desire is for humans to "choose" to worship Him in Heaven forever, but there is no sin in Heaven, He must take away either our ability, or our "will" to sin. God's offer of eternal life is then an offer of eternal servitude on pain of eternal death.
John, when you mention evidences of bad design, Dinesh will probably try to weasel out by claiming those are evidences of how sin corrupts nature.
But, hit him off that pass. Point out that things like the recurrent laryngeal nerve don't do us any good, but they don't do us any specific harm either, meaning the laryngeal nerve is evidence against ID and against ID corrupted by sin.
It's evidence for evolution and NOTHING more.
I think most of the comments here confuse religion (or abuse of religion) with the core teachings of christianity (any religion for that matter) itself. Probably Dinesh may point out how abuse of religion cannot be used to disprove the claims of religion, and that does not hold ground logically!
On the same note, he will also point out how the perceived incompatibility between the character of God (as potrayed by theological interpretation) and existence of evil does not disprove the existence of God. It can only say there is incompatibility between what we see (evil) in the world and what we expect God should have done to remove the evil! that does not disprove the existence of God logically! Add to that, life after death where everything is going to be set right!!!
Be prepared to answer these claims!!
my 2 cents!!!
The big bang leads us to God.
So, if a multiverse cosomology proves out, it will necessarily lead us away from God? Cosmology can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. Big Bang is an unsound basis for their argument because it's subject to scientific disproof at any time.
Intelligent Design.
Unfalsifiable, makes no testable preductions; argument from personal incredulity. Quantum theory is much weirder than natural selection, but it's impossible to design a microprocessor without taking account of quantum effects. Yet no one wants to teach a "controversy" about QM, purely because it lacks theological implications.
Perhaps you could attack ID via ensoulment... "Dinesh accepts microevolution, and he also believes that humans possess a soul whereas animals do not. Perhaps he can tell us precisely which Designer-initiated mutation(s) caused God to declare "yep, that's a human, better give that fetus a soul!" The baby gets a soul, the mom carrying it doesn't. And do only homo sapiens count as soul-worthy humans? How about Neanderthals? They had bigger brains than we, and they had burial rituals suggesting belief in an afterlife, so they must have had souls. What about H. erectus? H. habilis? etc.
The Stalin/Mao/Hitler objection.
Turn the issue from religion versus non-religion to reason versus non-reason. Ignorance, superstition, uncritical thinking, and believing things on authority are what kill. Lysenkoism killed millions, but so did the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch hunts, and the useless prayers in the face of the Black Death. Minds trained to accept religious doctrine on faith early in life are prepped to accept other unsupported doctrines later on. The antidote to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and the rest is not faith, but critical thinking. A Francis Collins, Ken Miller, or John Jones would never accept the assertions of a Mao the way the superstitious, non-theistic, non-critical-thinking commoner of China did.
That Christianity gave rise to democracy, science, and human dignity.
The Greeks would disagree. If not for Islam, science and human dignity wouldn't have progressed at all for hundreds of years after the fall of Rome. The Church did nothing to promote democracy; it was the power behind every European monarchy for more than a thousand years.
Christianity is beneficial to society.
As are Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.
Objective morality can only come from Christianity.
If divine command is true, then we can only infer the massacre of the Canaanites was moral, along with slavery, rape, and the rest of the horrors of the OT (Euthyphro)
Pascal's wager.
Okay, but where do we lay down our chips? Christianity? Which flavor? Judaism? Islam? Hinduism? Sufism? Zoroastrianism? Ba'hai? Gaia? With so many bets to cover we'll all go broke.
Man is more than matter.
So is every form of life, but the God hypothesis gets us no closer to penetrating the mystery.
"The big bang leads us to God.
Intelligent Design."
No it doesn't. Its a backwards extension of known events in concert with verified physics principals. There is no indication of, nor need for, any special cause or intereference.
"That Christianity gave rise to democracy, science, and human dignity."
Oh brother. How about a little anthropology? For science, offer Antikythera, dated to 100 BC or so.
"Christianity is beneficial to society."
Rephrase, christianity HAS benefits to society. It also has detriments.
"Objective morality can only come from Christianity."
What is objective about dogma?
Why has christian morality changed over time?
What's up with that inquisition?
Are you wearing mixed fibers?
"Pascal's wager."
If you really believed your BS you wouldn't need such a crutch.
"Man is more than matter."
So then is a centipede. Does a centipede have a soul?
Why don't you pre-empt these talking points and put them on paper with a quick answer and a website or book to review, then have a couple people pass them out at the entrance of the debate. FFRF has handouts also. This should take you about 10 minutes to do.
Not much to add except don't play nice, this guy has never been nice so no need to be a gentleman. Also the truth is on your side, I can't emphasize this enough.
Best.
>The big bang leads us to God.
We know little about the big bang, we see 5% of the universe, the rest is unknown, does the unknown lead to god? It did before we knew what we know now.
>Intelligent Design.
>Id says dna is complex so it was designed. What makes complex come from intelligent? A diamond is complex.
>The Stalin/Mao objection.
Communism ( economic model ) is not atheism.
>Christianity is beneficial to society.
How does that prove god is real?
>Objective morality can only come from Christianity.
Did it originate from Christianity or society? If it didn't then how does it come from Christianity.
>Pascal's wager.
Apply it to Xenu
>Man is more than matter.
How do you measure that and have a reasonable reason to believe it. We can measure most of the electrochemical reactions in the brain and know what they are. One is a claim and one has evidence.
The Stalin/Mao objection.
Atheism is no more to blame for these atrocities than "theism" is to blame for the Inquisition. What matters is not someone's profession or rejection of belief in a God, but the moral system they operate under. The moral system of communist Russia was a highly totalitarian one... similar in nature to the morality of the Christianities which have committed atrocities.
The Big Bang: Read through Stenger and Quentin Smith and come up with 7-10 rapid fire reasons why big bang cosmology could be seen as proof AGAINST the existence of god (for example, the concept of a bounded universe, exptreme randomness when the inflationary force comes into play, etc). Whenver you can, flip your opponent's attacks around to counterattack.
Objective morality: What evidence does he have that such a thing exists? He can point to shared moral intuitions across cultures, but how do we know these accurately reflect some kind of eternal platonic morality? We don't. Everyone has to think and reason about morality, and apply morality to shifting cultural circumstances. If you say you don't have to do this because you have "objective morality" from the Bible you are lying, because you still have to make the decision for yourself which interpretation of the Bible to follow.
Man is more than matter: How would this support theism? There are atheists who believe in some kind of emergant soul... this doesn't really have much bearing on the God question, even if true.
One additional piece of advice after viewing a little bit of one of your previous debates: Step away from the podium more, look away from your notes more, and make eye contact with the audience more. Dinesh is a professional performer. You need to have a strong "stage presence" to debate with him.
Also, draw yourself up to your full height when speaking and wear shoes or boots with some lift to them. You want to look as tall as possible.
"Why don't you pre-empt these talking points and put them on paper with a quick answer and a website or book to review, then have a couple people pass them out at the entrance of the debate. FFRF has handouts also. This should take you about 10 minutes to do."
That's a great idea. You should also put your "case" into simple handout form and distribute this as well. It really helps people learn and follow an argument when they have a pre-read to prime their brains for new information.
On the communism thing, it should be mentioned that there were CHRISTIANS who were communists at the time Stalin took power as well and although they were uncomfortable with Stalin, were definitely cheering him on in the early years. There are portions of the Bible that have strong class-based language in them as well (Amos, anyone?) Communism didn't work out so well in practice, but let's not pretend that it was a purely atheistic invention simply because this is the final form it took and some of it's great thinkers were atheists. Christians share some blame too.
morality:
the golden rule was accounted for by Confucius 500 years before JC. It has been accounted for in every society in the world. this is because it is natural. it underpins the laws of reciprocity - you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours. primates do it, we just do it with language.
hitler / stalin / mao:
despite what d'souza claims, if the crusaders and conquistadors and inquisitors had access to: weapons of mass destruction, technology, mass transportation devices, larger target populations...etc, then the death tolls under christianity would be astronomical. the crusaders ate their enemies for crying out loud, not even stalin did that: "Reports of cannibalism were also recorded during the First Crusade, as Crusaders fed on the bodies of their dead opponents following the Siege of Ma'arrat al-Numan. It is also possible that the Crusaders staged such incidents as part of psychological warfare. Amin Maalouf also discusses further cannibalism incidents on the march to Jerusalem, and to the efforts made to delete mention of these from western history"
fine tuning:
d'souza HAS HIS CAKE AND EATS IT. cosmos is not fine tuned for humans - in fact, it is incredibly hostile to life. our solar system can only sustain finite life until our sun burns out. thus god has only finitely designed life into this solar system. he has also created a monster cosmos / multiverse that is pointless for his apex of creation - we can't live there. we can't even get there. thus it is not fine-tuned for us. also, multiverse theory undermines fine tuning argument:
http://www.closertotruth.com/video/Did-God-Create-Multiple-Universes-Anthony-Aguirre-/387
http://www.closertotruth.com/video/How-are-Multiple-Universes-Generated-Anthony-Aguirre-/386
Briefly,
>> The big bang leads us to God.
To say that the universe required a cause would commit the fallacy of composition, because it assumes that a property of entities IN the universe (e.g. require a cause) also applies to the universe AS A WHOLE. In other words, just because entities within the universe all require a causal antecedent does not imply that the universe as a whole does. That would be like arguing that since atoms are invisible, then human beings composed of atoms are also invisible. Just a plain fallacy.
>> Intelligent Design.
No good evidence for ID. Period.
>> The Stalin/Mao objection. The Hitler objection.
Fallacy of red herring. The issue is not whether they were religious or atheist, but about their tendency to dehumanize their opponents, fail to exercise their empathy and compassion, and induce a state of blind obedience with the absence of critical thinking in their followers. ANY system, whether religious or atheist, which performed those things would lead to horrific consequences. The issue of atheist versus theist in this matter is an utter red herring, because belief in God is not the issue at all, except in the sense of determining if theism or atheism has a higher likelihood of dehumanizing lack of compassion and absence of critical thinking. My money’s on theism, because it demonizes unbelievers, relishes in their eternal punishment, and suppresses critical thinking for the sake of blind obedience. I don’t believe that atheism, per se, does this.
>> That Christianity gave rise to democracy, science, and human dignity.
First, the Greeks existed before Jesus, and have more right to paternity of those phenomena.
Second, just because Christianity was PRESENT when those phenomena began to flourish does not imply that it was the DRIVING FORCE, especially when it was actively suppressing them on a number of levels. Oxygen was also present, but no-one would argue that oxygen gave rise to democracy, science and human dignity. This would commit the fallacy of complex cause.
Third, even if Christianity gave rise to those phenomena does not imply that it is still required to sustain them. My mother gave birth to me and sustained me in the early years of my life, but it does not follow that I still need my mother to take care of me.
>> Christianity is beneficial to society.
Fallacy of non-sequiter. It is irrelevant to the TRUTH of Christianity whether it is beneficial or not. The truth could be horribly depressing, after all.
>> Objective morality can only come from Christianity.
Factually false. Objective morality can be deduced from a large number of non-Christian religions and spiritual traditions. Many objective morals that exist in Christianity existed in religious traditions preceding its existence, including Eastern traditions that are agnostic about God, at best.
>> Pascal's wager.
What if God DIDN’T want us to worship him, and was going to punish those who worship him eternally if they didn’t use their reason to reject him for the sake of being mature human beings? The point being that one can come up with any fantasy and say that the consequences of not believing in it are worse than believing in it. Also, any of the other religious traditions could claim the same thing about their traditions.
>> Man is more than matter.
He IS more than matter. He is the emergent property of matter when it is organized in a particular way. However, it does not follow that he has an immortal, immaterial soul.
Objective morality? Whoever says that Christianity offers it hasn't read the Bible. Sure, it SAYS don't kill, but then those lessons were thrown out the window when God had His armies kill the infants and children of the Midianites (Numbers 31), the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15) and Joshua's taking of Jericho.
This was an era of hand-to-hand combat, not smart bombs. If it isn't "murder" to stick a sword into an infant, then I'm not sure what is. Yet, were any of these actions condemned by God?
Nope!
So much for "absolute morality!"
Objective morality? Whoever says that Christianity offers it hasn't read the Bible. Sure, it SAYS don't kill, but then those lessons were thrown out the window when God had His armies kill the infants and children of the Midianites (Numbers 31), the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15) and Joshua's taking of Jericho.
This was an era of hand-to-hand combat, not smart bombs. If it isn't "murder" to stick a sword into an infant, then I'm not sure what is. Yet, were any of these actions condemned by God?
Nope!
So much for "absolute morality!"
bobius>
"Step away from the podium..."
No offense bobius, with all your good intentions I think people are best when they are just themselves, relaxed and give their best. So to John, no pressure. You're still good and things will still be where they were whatever the outcome, the war has already been won since the Enlightenment, we're just here to affirm the position.
The big bang leads us to God.
Stenger points out in The NEW Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason
Theists think they have a gap for God provided by the big bang that requires a supernatural creation. I have shown that this claim is based on the mistaken notion that the universe must had a beginning of infinite density and infinitesimal size called a "singularity." They wrongly interpret this singularity as the beginning of space and time.
Stephen Hawking was one of the authors of the original "proof" three decades ago that such a singularity follows from Einstein's theory of general relativity. Two decades, in his best seller A Brief History of Time, Hawking explained that the original calculation did not take into account quantum mechanics and that, when this is done, the singularity does not occur.
Even in their most recent books and lectures, theists continue to ignore Hawking and propagate this error. They don't seem to care since they believe their audiences are generally too unsophisticated to pick it up.
[page 240]
Intelligent Design.
There is no science behind ID; it is a religious marketing and propaganda scheme only. We observe that the general public has a poor understanding of science, but they accept the authority of science to provide explanations for phenomena based on evidence. ID leaders leverage this by interjecting false evidence from which they draw false conclusions. Complexity is one such body of false evidence.
Complexity itself does not constitute evidence and none of the conclusions ID'ers assert based on complexity-as-evidence - reasoning from irreducible complexity, or complex specified information - are accepted by the relevant bodies within the science community.
In biology ID's complexity-based arguments all fail as scientific explanations and none lead us to conclude the need for a designer. Chemistry and physics are sufficient to explain life as a phenomenon.
Outside biology, ID's fine-tuning arguments, having complexity at their core, fail to the equivalent of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Simply observing that arrows are on a target tells us nothing about the target, the arrows, why the arrows have the arrangement they do, how the arrows came to be there at all, and certainly does not allow us to claim to know that some archer caused what we see.
The Stalin/Mao objection.
Sedition was their primary target. Both wished to impose their ideal social structure. Divesting churches and temples struck at sedition since churches were places where people congregated and openly talked amongst themselves, but anyone and anything viewed as a threat to state power and authority was a target: atheist, believer, science, demand for justice or equality. Both could be considered charismatic leaders of personality cults.
The Hitler objection.
Gott mit uns.
That Christianity gave rise to democracy, science, and human dignity.
Democracy? Greeks.
Science? Christianity, having been forced to accept that science offers real insight into nature and humanity, whereas Christianity does not, has decided that it would benefit more by claiming to have invented science. Science has become clearer, better defined, and of greater benefit to mankind over the past few centuries while Christianity becomes more diverse, more vague, and its only usefulness comes as a humanitarian labor force. Its supernatural claims are useless to mankind. Science and technology existed for many centuries before anything Christian. Thinkers in China, the Middle East, India and North America were making headway in explaining and harnessing nature long before Christianity appeared. That science in the West arose in societies that were predominantly Christian is not surprising when one considers that failure to profess Christian beliefs in those societies was until the last few lifetimes a death warrant. Nothing Christian-specific initiated the rise of science.
Science arose out of humans beings with a strong will to better themselves and the willpower to satisfy their curiosities in making that happen.
Every tribe of man that has ever existed has gained expert level knowledge of their local flora, fauna, climate and geology. Scientific knowledge of the ecosystem of which they were a part was of paramount importance. That they did not keep written records or systematize that knowledge according to modern standards does not mean it was not science. They were not insulated by society from the foodchain, so their immediate priority was survival, which was only possible through their expert level local scientific knowledge. Scientists today recognize the importance of the knowledge and understanding inherent in the cultures of non-literate tribes and are trying to study and record it before it goes extinct.
Human dignity? Always a part of humans everywhere. Christians base their beliefs on a human sacrifice so they don't distinguish themselves as morally better than other human groups. Archeology shows that humans have been taking care of themselves, their offspring and other members of their tribes for tens of millenia. Love and compassion did not originate with Christianity. Today we see human dignity recognized all over the world in human relationships. The most notable exceptions occur where humans are required to interact with political and religious systems. Aborigines versus Australia, and Africans versus Pentecostalism or Roman Catholicism come to mind.
Christianity is beneficial to society.
Such benefits as might derive from Christianity are only those which are manifestly human. All peoples perform humanitarian aid in exactly the same ways, but Christians attribute it to their god rather than the observable inate goodness of man. The two largest countries on the planet by population, China and India, have achieved that distinction by people helping people, and ostensibly not through Christianity.
Objective morality can only come from Christianity.
Christains do not agree on what constitutes morality. In the book The Family, about real Christian legislators in Washington today, we see those Christians holding up Hitler and Mao as positive examples of how to achieve religious and political ends.
All people kill when they feel the need to kill. All people steal when they feel the need to steal. People everywhere are adulterers. Those who call themselves Christian are not exceptions. Human values have existed since the advent of humans and we see goodness in all human peoples. But, we do not see dogmatic adherence to any objective morality even by those who claim such a thing exists and that they live it.
Pascal's wager.
Many who choose to adhere to Christian beliefs have observably abdicated their power as moral decision-makers. For instance, Roman Catholic aid workers who burn or bury condoms - shown to reduce HIV transmission by a factor of 10000 - rather than going against the churches teachings by distributing them as the donors intended, are knowingly exacerbating a plague. The resulting human suffering in inestimable. These workers have lost their empathy, compassion and human dignity through church teachings.
So, directly regarding the Wager, we can see that, as illustrated by Roman Catholics in Africa, one stands to lose much by accepting it.
Man is more than matter.
Though water is distinct from the hydrogen and oxygen that composes it in terms of its behavior, it is still matter. Proteins, fatty acids and nucleotides are behaviorally different than the atoms that compose them, but they are nonetheless still matter. Single celled organisms are complex aggregates of matter, but still only matter behaving different from its atomic components. And, so it goes up the levels of cellular integration and differentiation, but at every stage what we see is matter exhibiting behaviors different from the atomic, molecular, and cellular levels preceding it.
Man demonstrates behaviors, some behaviors being internal to the brain, all of which have observable material causes. Emotional behaviors called spiritual have shown themselves to derive from material causes, and are subject to change through injury, disease, and drugs. States associated with love, trust, generosity, and maternal bonding have a chemical bases. Oxytocin, for instance, is one chemical that plays a role in mediating all of these states.
Man is matter - heart and soul.
Thanks all. I finished my opening statement a few days ago and got some helpful advice from, well, I shouldn't say just now.
After you hear it you'll think it's one of the better cases made against Dinesh and his Christian God in just fifteen minutes that you've probably heard.
1. What do the Big Bang theory and Intelligent Design have to do with the existence of the CHRISTIAN God?
2. The First Commandment and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are diametrically opposed. Also, I am sure that you can think of numerous instances where religion has impeded science.
3. Morality comes from our evolution as a social species, not from some Big Eye in the sky.
Whatever you do, *don't* take the advice of those telling you to counter Dinesh on Christianity and democracy by bringing up the ancient Greeks.
First, anyone familiar with the debates concerning the drafting and ratification of the Constitution will tell you that the one thing the founders feared almost as much as monarchy was an ancient Greek-style democracy. That's why the established a republic, not a democracy.
Second, ancient Greek democracies were *conceptually* consistent with slavery. Our republic did allow slavery at its founding but, unlike ancient Greek democracy, it wasn't consistent with it.
Third, when D'souza uses the term 'democracy,' he doesn't mean something as narrow as "every citizen has a say in how the government acts and how it's run"; rather, he means the much broader, contemporary notion that includes the idea that all people are inherently equal -- a claim foreign to ancient Greek democracies (but one made plausible by the premise that we're all created in God's image).
Finally, D'souza doesn't claim that we owe democracy as such to Christianity, but that we owe many of the grounding premises of contemporary democracy (such as the inherent equality of all) to Christianity, so a "the Greeks get the credit for democracy" response will be targeting a straw man.
In fact, I'd advise you to ignore this claim. Remember, Dinesh's strong suit is political science. Why waste time on what is at best a tangential point with an opponent who almost certainly knows far, far more about the subject than you do (unless, of course, he blatantly lies about it)? It doesn't sound like good debate strategy to me. I'd stick with your strong suit, John -- theology and philosophy, which are areas you're almost certainly much more familiar with than Dinesh is -- and avoid wasting time talking about the history of democracy.
For the ID argument what about cases of over engineering? The funnel web and redback spiders can be lethal to humans, especially children yet cats and dogs are highly resistant to the venom. Why? The spider cannot eat a human. Does God care more about cats and dogs than children?
John,
I hope you're prepared for this debate. D'Souza needs somebody to really put him in his place. If you have a chance in the next few days, you might take a look at "Morality Without God?" by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. It is a relatively quick book to read, and it will help you get succinct answers to some of the points you ask about. Armstrong also specifically addresses some of the crazy things that D'Souza says.
Thanks some more everyone. Just to be clear here, while I do have my opening statement already written. I am still working on the best succinct answers to these arguments, for I'll also have a rebuttal to offer, a one on one with Dinesh, and the Q & A from the audience.
Anthony, I very much hope that John has his recurrent laryngeal nerve intact for this debate, or his hoarse voice will not not do his case any good at all.
It is a very important nerve, and one that is carefully protected during thyroid surgeries and radical neck dissections. In terms of evolution, I think it is more to the point that it seems to travel an unnecessarily long route to innervate the larynx, rather than it simply being of no use to us.
John,
Let me briefly offer something for your use. I still recommend checking out Armstrong's book if it's available at a nearby library.
(1) "The big bang leads us to God."
Dinesh D'Souza does not know what came before the big bang. He is not a cosmologist, and I would tell him that flat out. Cosmologists do not overwhelmingly agree that contemporary cosmology leads us to the conclusion that God exists because so much is uncertain. If D'Souza wants to argue that science shows that there must be a beginning, simply offer some quotes from physicists who have said otherwise.
"The observations confirming the big bang do not rule out the possibility of a prior universe."
-Victor Stenger
"[the interpretation that the big bang marks] the beginning of space and time...is an assumption, not a proven fact."
-Neil Turok and Paul J. Steinhardt
"A growing number of physicists suggest that our universe did indeed spring forth from a fiery cataclysm, the big bang, but that it also coexists in an eternal ocean of other universes. If we are right, big bangs are taking place even as you read this sentence."
-Michio Kaku
In fact, you should (in addition to quoting actual scientists and pointing out that D'Souza is not a qualified cosmologist) take a few cosmology books and hold them up as you make your points. Take a copy of "Endless Universe" by Turok and Steinhardt when you explain that they argue against D'Souza's view.
(2) For Stalin/Mao and Hitler, see the book I mentioned earlier. Armstrong deals with this point in one of his early chapters.
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(3) "Christianity is beneficial to society."
Even if we accept that, it has nothing to do with whether or not Christianity is true. Remind D'Souza to stay on topic, and to stick to making arguments in favor of the truth of Christianity, not the usefulness of Christianity. Point out that he has a tendency to stray off topic and talk about irrelevant things--for example, see his idiotic opening statement in his debate with Peter Singer. Remind the audience that D'Souza's obligation is to show that Christianity is true, not to show that it is useful.
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(4) "Christianity gave rise to democracy"
This was not a Christian invention. The Greeks had the idea five hundred years earlier. Even if it was a Christian invention, it wouldn't show anything about the truth of Christianity.
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(5) "That Christianity gave rise to science"
Draw on some of the points that Carrier makes in his chapter for your anthology. Also Carrier recently wrote a lengthy blog post discussing this to an extent.
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(6) "Objective morality can only come from Christianity."
Dinesh D'Souza is not a moral philosopher, no matter how much he fancies himself to be a jack of all trades. Challenge him to name one mainstream contemporary moral philosopher who argues for this position. Point out that a number of moral philosophers have explicitly argued otherwise, and it's not even a question to them whether or not there can be objective morality if Christianity is false. Michael Martin ("Atheism, Morality, and Meaning"), David Brink ("Moral Realism and the Foundation of Ethics"), Russ Schafer-Landau ("Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?"), Walter Sinnott-Armstrong ("Morality Without God?"), etc. They, and many others, all demonstrate that D'Souza is wrong (if he does claim this). Ask him if he's read these books, and if so, where we can find his refutations of all of these philosophers. Even the great Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne rejects this crazy claim. Who are we gonna trust, Richard Swinburne (arguably the greatest Christian philosopher of the past half-century) or Dinesh D'Souza?
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(7) "Man is more than matter."
If he means that there are more things that make up a human being than just material things, then he's accepting some sort of metaphysical dualism. Way more philosophers are physicalists about the mind than non-physicalists.
"The Stalin/Mao objection.
The Hitler objection."
John
1, apart from the fact obviously these 3 people were deranged lunatic tyrants that in the least were definitely not so normal,which statistically hasnt yet been proven to be actually correlated with atheism.
2,
If D`Souza trys to lay this old tired bleat on you.How about nailing him down a little by demanding he first supply and explain what (doctrine) of atheism with (suggestive material), he thinks these 3 shared? that indeed can be said might have "led them" to act the way they actually did.Which can then be allowed to give D`Souza room to try to suggest it was then likely it was actually the atheism that led to their actions.
Point out! the difference.In that faiths actually DO have a supply of their own actual special (suggestive doctrine) which often details much abuse! and nastiness! that its followers often do read this as (suggestive material to follow!).And whether it be through right or wrong interpretation,this suggestive material has then often been whats actually led to the abusive actions!.
You are familiar with the suggestive doctrine scripture thats been used to induce some abusive attitudes by the faithful.
Maybe point a few of these verses out out!, ask D`Souza if he thinks he can please supply some doctrinal scripture of atheism for some sort of honest comparison?.
John,
Good luck. I would like to add that along with Anthony's comment about the uselessness of the laryngeal nerve, ask D'Souza to explain male nipples and why our fruit basket is not better protected. Not so smart of a designer, if you ask me.
Again, if people don't know what they are talking about with regard to biology, they shouldn't try these arguments about things like the laryngeal nerve being useless, or they could be made to look as silly as Ray Comfort.
Anyway, all the very best John. You have a lot of people pulling for you around the world!
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Stephen,
I apologize for my poor wording. I didn't mean to imply that the laryngeal nerve does us no good. Of course it is a very important part of our anatomy.
What I meant to express, and I should have been more explicit, was that the positioning of the laryngeal nerve is neither evidence of ID (in that it takes a ridiculously indirect route to get where it's going), nor can it be considered evidence of a fallen sin nature that has corrupted ID (in that, even though its positioning is inefficient, its inefficient design, on the whole, does us no more harm than if it were more efficiently designed).
Vestigial organs, like the latent muscles in our ears for ear mobility that most people can't use are another example. How is that evidence of ID or of a fallen sin nature? They do us no good being there. They do us no harm being there either. They are just...there. Evidence for evolution; evidence against ID.
I bring up the sin nature addendum because I've had Christians throw that back at me when I tried to argue against the existence of God by pointing out things that are not well designed. They just say, "That's just the effect of sin making what was once good, no longer good!"
I don't see any reason to think we'd be any better off if the laryngeal nerve were more directly placed than it is now, so I only see it as evidence of evolution; not ID and not ID corrupted by sin.
I completely agree Anthony :)
John:
Science, compassion, democracy all pre-date Christianity.
Science and democracy are of Greek origins, and were thrust out of the intellectual life of Western civilization by the rise of Roman Christianity, only to be preserved by Muslim scholarship.
Compassion/human decency pre-empted Christianity by at least several hundred years in Buddhist and Confucian thought.
Hope that helps.
The word "republic" came from a pagan nation: the Roman Republic. Some of our Founding Fathers had admired the Roman Republic; the authors of the Federalist Papers used a Roman-Republic politician's name as a pen name: Publius. When Madison wrote a book defending the US Constitution, he acknowledged the widespread pretension of the divine origin of government before moving on to defend a completely secular Constitution. He discussed lots of republics both ancient and recent, and his book was devoid of theological or Biblical argumentation.
There's zero support for democracy/republics in the Bible -- most of the leaders are either monarchs or warlords or theocrats.
>The big bang leads us to God.
How strange it is that most big bang-deniers are Christians, while most cosmologists are not. One could easily get the impression that the Bible and science are saying two contradictory things.
>That Christianity gave rise to ... science
You stand before me as one of the select few Christians who is not living in denial of the last 300 years of science, and you ask me to believe because Christianity helped promote science. On what planet do you spend most of your time?
>Pascal's wager.
If you believe your own argument, then you would continue claiming to believe even if doing so was academically dishonest. That's a very damaging revelation. While I fear your threats no more than I fear Allah's threats, there is no doubt that millions of Christians appreciate the weight of your reasoning.
"The big bang leads us to God."
I don't know if this comment will just get lost in the masses but I figure I would throw my two cents out there anyway, maybe it will help John.
The big bang does not lead us to God, it leads us to an unknown.
Most people who put forth the argument that something cannot come from nothing (in this case the big bang), fail to understand that the idea of "nothing" may be a flawed idea in itself. Even in a vacuum, the space inside is riddled with sub-atomic particles that are phasing in and out of existence. Blank space, nothingness is simply a human concept that may not exist in reality because empty space is filled with activity at the quantum level.
Maybe before the big bang was quantum fluctuations which are actually part of a multi-verse (supported by string theory), and maybe that multi-verse itself is eternal, therefore eliminating once again the need for a god to create.
We just do not know enough about such things, so putting forth that any argument is "the best explanation" is a very great misrepresentation of the limited understanding we have of this issue.
Looks like it'll be a good debate John. I'd put more time dealing with the objective moral values issue. It's one area where I feel atheism is particularly weak in explaining. Every time I hear an atheist try and defend objective moral values they end up spiralling towards subjectivity not objectivity. So, I'd show him why your basis for ethics is absolutely right and binding on all people at all times. Maybe flesh it out with an example like child abuse. Show D'Souza why child abuse is always wrong. Don't just tell him why you feel it's wrong. Instead treat it like a fact and give him irrefutable evidence from something objective.
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