Dinesh D’Souza on atheism, his debate with Christopher Hitchens, and his book What’s So Great About Christianity.
Dinesh D’Souza is one of the most famous conservatives in America. He is a prolific author of works concerning politics and society. After college, he worked briefly in the public sector and was, in the late eighties, a senior domestic policy analyst in the Reagan Administration. As an author, he has always been a controversial figure due to his arriving at positions well ahead of the conservative consensus. Illiberal Education and The End of Racism made him a hated figure by the Left; but it was not until 2007, with the release of The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, that he found himself criticized by some members of the Right. His latest book, What’s So Great About Christianity, should restore his status among conservatives, however. It is a meticulous and exquisite defense of both Christianity and belief in general.
BC: Congratulations to you, sir. I just finished What’s So Great About Christianity and was quite impressed. Obviously its subject matter is timeless, but what about our present day makes the work so imperative?
Dinesh D’Souza: I think we’re seeing something very new right now. For the first time, atheism is being presented as a serious option for young people. A generation ago atheists were represented by the likes of Madeline Murray O’Hare who was not a very attractive poster child for the movement. Today atheism comes in a stylish disguise and is defended by witty debaters. They have mounted a strong attack on religion and claim that atheism is more moral than Christianity. Atheist works have dominated the best seller list for the last two years, and so I thought the time was right to mount a serious counter attack.
BC: In light of the recent spate of books attempting to debunk Christianity and God — such as Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon — how much is Christianity “on the ropes,” so to speak, in America? How successful have atheist attacks on religion been with the general public?
Dinesh D’Souza: Well, the Christians have been a little passive here. Many Christians feel that we should practice our faith at home but should abandon the public square. They had no way of knowing that atheists would end up taking their campaign into the public schools. Christians need to respond seriously to this threat because if we don’t we’ll find that our most intelligent young people will be led astray. The young want to believe in God but when they go to college their professors try to indoctrinate them into thinking otherwise.
Too many Christians try to deflect these arguments by using scripture. That is not going to work. Scripture works when you are arguing with other Christians but it will not be effective with atheists as they do not care about what the Bible says. When you’re speaking to someone indifferent to scripture you should use reason, logic, skepticism, and evidence. These are the tools atheists use and are also the ones I use for myself in What’s So Great About Christianity.
BC: What would you say is the most potent argument offered by atheists? By this I mean the one most difficult to refute.
Dinesh D’Souza: The goal of my book is to not only fortify the believer of Christianity but also to challenge the atheists while showing the seeker that they are rebelling against a childhood version of Christianity — one that they learned in Sunday school and catechism. Their opinion of it now is rooted in what I call “crayon Christianity.” What we must also realize is that when atheists use the word “fundamentalist” it is but a big ploy. When they say fundamentalist and mount attacks against fundamentalism what they really are attempting to do is to go after traditional Christianity.
That being said, I think the atheists make two arguments which must be responded to. First, they posit that Christianity is opposed to reason and science which it is not. My historical chapters show that Christianity had a lot to do with the origins of science. Most of the leading scientists of the last 500 years have been Christian. We should not go on the defensive when the name of science is invoked. Second, atheists claim that Christianity is a major cause of violence and war in the world which is also untrue and I illustrate why this is the case in my book.
BC: For readers unfamiliar with its pages, why do so many people continue to perceive Christianity and evolution as being mutually exclusive? What’s wrong with the notion that God created us and we evolved from there?
Dinesh D’Souza: There is nothing wrong with that notion. I have no problem with it. I do think that the intelligent design advocates have raised some interesting questions though. They have found some vulnerable points in the atheist critique. Evolution does not undermine the argument of design, however. You look at nature and in it you can see the handiwork of the Creator. The existence of God is supported by astronomy, physics and modern science in general. In modern biology, it is evident, in a most comprehensive way, through the complexity of the cell. The simple cell has enough information in it to compare it to a supercomputer. The cell already has built into itself the capacity to replicate. Evolution is true so far as it goes but the problem is that it does not go that far.
I make a distinction in my book between evolution and Darwinism. I see evolution as being a scientific proposition but Darwinism I see as being an ideological proposition. We have all these scientific laws but no one calls themselves Keplerians or Newtonians so why do so many insist on calling themselves Darwinists? Their doing so puts an atheistic spin on evolution, and this spin is what the Christian community finds itself reacting too.
BC: It has been suggested by Richard Dawkins that atheists now term themselves “brights” in keeping with their supernatural-free worldviews. That is a loaded term to say the least. In your estimation, how closely is atheism tied to elitism? Could it be that a certain segment of humanity is offended by the notion that anyone or any entity stands above them?
Dinesh D’Souza: Well, this whole business about the brights goes back a couple of years. Atheists sat around and said to themselves “we sound too negative” because to be an atheist means being against something. How could they rephrase their identity in a positive manner? Well, “brights” is what they came up with. They must have thought, “We all agree that we’re extremely smart,” so that’s where the term comes from. Dennett and Dawkins wrote articles about this. The term conveys a comical pomposity but when you look at their work it is understandable. Atheists stand on a metaphysical platform grounded in faith but they are the only ones who don’t recognize this fact. They assume that our five senses give us complete knowledge of reality. Why is that automatically the case? All evolution says is that our only imperative is to survive and replicate. There is no evolutionary mandate to seek truth or do any of the other things so many of us find ourselves doing. There is no reason to assume that the thoughts in our heads precisely match the mandates of nature.
BC: I was very pleased by Chapter 19 in which you responded to the absurd idea that the atrocities committed by Hitler and Stalin had something to do with the faith into which they were born (but later renounced). In the hopes of disseminating your arguments to the larger population, why is it no accident that the world’s greatest mass murderers — Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot — maintained anti-religious regimes?
Dinesh D’Souza: I think it is no accident that the worst bloodbaths have come from anti-religious regimes because religion provides a framework of accountability. This framework was not present in the twentieth century totalitarian states. You have had bad guys in the past but they were somewhat restrained by the fact that they had to be externally accountable for what they did. That is why the totalitarian states behave in the wanton manner they do. There is nothing to restrain them from committing egregious acts. It harkens back to what Dostoevsky said in The Brothers Karamazov: “Without God and the future life? How will man be after that? It means everything is permitted now.” Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris do somersaults to prove that atheist crimes cannot be blamed on atheism which is incorrect.
BC: In your chapter, “The World Beyond Our Senses: Kant and the Limits of Reason,” you take issue with the idea that human reason is the finest, and only, way to comprehend reality. What other means are there? Why should we be deferential to what we cannot understand?
Dinesh D’Souza: Well, within the domain of human experience, reason is supreme. The problem is that the atheists try to use the same empirical techniques to prove what is outside the realm of human experience. Here’s the point: none of us know what comes after death. The believer says I don’t know but I believe in God, the atheist says I don’t know therefore I don’t believe in anything. In reality, both positions are derived from faith. Both groups make a leap of faith but the believer is humble enough to recognize this fact. The atheist can’t or won’t.
BC: One phrase really stuck out with me from your debate with Christopher Hitchens. It was the revulsion he felt over Christianity due to it forcing us to maintain a “posture of permanent gratitude” towards life and the Lord. How revealing of the atheist mindset are these words?
Dinesh D’Souza: The thing is even Heidegger recognized that we are thrown into this world without our asking to be. We find ourselves alive but have done nothing to deserve such an opportunity. This is how one could say there is no merit attached to existence . . . yet life remains precious to all of us — even to the sick who cling to life. Those close to death still cherish life, so if you don’t want to thank God then I say at least thank your parents.
I don’t know why atheists don’t want to view existence in a gratuitous way. Dawkins put the [Hitchens vs. D’Souza] debate on his website and AOL had viewers vote to determine who, in their opinion, won. When they took the final tally, I was the winner. Now what is important to remember here is that most Christians are not the ones generally surfing the web, yet, amid all those viewers, I was deemed the victor. I came determined to stop him in his tracks and I think it came out pretty well. Ironically, the debate was held in an atheist auditorium that looks rather like a church. If you watch it again you’ll find that in the beginning the audience seemed to be favoring Hitchens, but, as the debate moved on, the applause moved heavily in my direction. I have issued a debate challenge to Dawkins as well. We’ll see what comes from it.
BC: Thanks so much for your time, Mr. D’Souza.
What's So Great About Christianity is available on Amazon.com.
Mr. Burnett,
You said “Just as creationism and "creation science" were ruled by the US Supreme Court to be religion in 1987 and therefore forbidden to be presented in public schools, in 2005 intelligent design creationism was similarly ruled to be not science but religion. Intelligent design creationism has no theory, no hypotheses and is not testable – it is simply not science, unless you dumb down science to include astrology and other pseudo-sciences, as was famously explained by a Dishonesty Institute Fellow in the Dover Trial.”
You appear to think because SCOTUS has said so, that makes a thing unassailable. When did we start thinking that way? What can possibly delude whole generations of Americans, inheritors of the greatest freedoms yet known to man, to think nine men in robes are so perfect and incorruptible we can safely leave to them every question respecting our freedoms? The prudent man guards his freedoms jealously, is never so rash as to trust them to others, and when rogue justices violate a freedom is quick to react. I’d sooner trust such others with a huge stash of untraceable money than my freedoms.
Atheism is subject to precisely the same criticism as creationism. It has no greater foundation of proof than does Intelligent Design and is no more science than is creationism. Yet, our courts fail to place a similar ban on teaching the credo of atheism within our public schools. It is not the place of courts to determine what shall or shall not be taught in our schools or what we can or should teach our own children. That was and is judicial activism and theosophical partisanship of the worst kind; the very sort our 1st Amendment is supposed to prevent. Were the courts favoring creationism and banning atheism, I have no doubt you would be arguing the irrationality and perfidy of the courts.
Intelligent Design does not pretend to be a complete story of creation. It is merely a fresh approach attempting to synthesize the best of ideas from both sides of the evolution-creationism chasm. As such, it should not be lumped in with either creationism or atheism. Its adherents hope to get beyond the tit-for-tat animosity so much in vogue. Even if you don’t agree with the premise, I’d think you’d at least welcome the attempt at open-dialogue between people of faith & science and those of ‘pure’ science. Instead, you lump ID with creationism and smugly denounce both as superstition while ignoring your own ‘unscientific’ assumptions. I find the ID proposition intriguing, if not entirely persuasive; and believe it deserves a place in the overall debate.
How can I say atheism is not science? Atheism is no more than an antithetical proposition to creationism based on the same available evidence as is available to those of us who appreciate the accomplishments of science without rashly denying substantial evidence for the existence of a creator. That makes atheism somewhat unscientific in that it categorically excludes some types of evidence while relying on remaining evidence to jump to a forgone conclusion which, itself, does not stand any test of proof. The basis for this exclusion is an assumption that: if a thing cannot be absolutely proved, then it has no substance and can be safely discarded as superstition. When evolution was first proposed (Darwinism), it assumed some things that turned out untrue. By comparison with today's evolutionary theory, Darwinism would be regarded superstition. Atheists, nonetheless, took Darwinism for gospel. Today, evolutionary theory has evolved, yet atheist make no acknowledgment of the shifting position on this and other unproven unscientific postulates. A great deal of atheistically ‘sound’ science thus starts from immature assumptions, some of which cannot be proved ever. They are impervious to proof because they are fundamental assumptions not accessible to proof other than by reference to themselves (circular). Thus, atheism, too, is ultimately an article of faith, one that denies the existence of G*d sans perfect proof; yet accepting as perfect proof assumptions dependent on imperfect evidence. You, thus, have to dumb down science every bit as much to reach the atheist conclusion of the ultimate reality as you say creationism and ID do.
The atheist-religion has become every bit as smugly intolerant of contrarian views as the Judaic and Christian religions once were, and claim an absolute monopoly over what is now taught our children. Rather than being the force for freedom of conscience and free-thinking, it has become an entrenched and intolerant ideology. As a Jew, I respect and tolerate differences and dissonances between my religion and that of various Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Intelligent Design theorists, &c. I even respect and tolerate atheists, and recognize your right to your opinion (though I do see in it some dangerous tendencies). Can atheists who assert religion has no place in our schools, laws, judiciary and public forums honestly say the same?
Dr. Jackson – You seem to want to have it both ways. You cite claims that "the period they take as their starting point — around 1880 — was colder than average", but you also claim that "To say that the world has 'gotten warmer by one degree over the last 100 years' is to pretend that the figures of 1906 are just as accurate as those collected in 2006."
Either we can pin down a range enough to state that the Earth was colder by at least a degree since 1880, or we can't say that. You can't claim both.
You repeatedly ignore my point that less precise data is not the same thing as no data. The data from a century ago doesn't have to be as precise as today's to be able to draw conclusions from it. (Your quote also confuses accuracy and precision.)
As to prediction… being able to predict the total rainfall for a season does not require predicting exactly how much rain will fall on each day.
This is not a dodge – your original question was ill-posed; in fact, I was stating that "generations of human observations are" not "required to draw any meaningful conclusions" in both biology and geology… as I explicitly clarified in comment 11. And, with the caveats I've noted (such as that I'm not particularly well-versed in that topic) I've extended that to climate science. I've given examples and explanations of what kind of data is available to make conclusions about, and I've even pointed out conclusions that I don't think we can make yet – like the anthropogenic hypothesis.
If you don't like me being careful about what I say, then don't ask me about politically-charged topics that I haven't studied in detail.
Raymond: All I asked was a simple, straightforward question: “I don't think I ever asked your opinion about the ‘existence’ of man-made-global warming. Do you apply the same standards of critical thought to that analysis as well [as the topic covered in this essay] (i.e. generations of human observations are required to draw any meaningful conclusions)?”
That’s all I asked. That’s all I wanted to know.
If anyone wants to read what I actually wrote about the way politics and hidden agendas shape the global warming debate, please have a look at http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/07/31/an-even-more-inconvenient-truth-the-myth-of-man-made-global-warming/ where lay out my assumptions and methodology in a straightforward way. You can decide for yourself whether what I've said makes any sense.
And Raymond, I again apologize for my confusion.
I assumed that when you said that "large-scale changes DO generally take more than a couple human lifetimes, not unlike in geology" [Comment 8] you meant that "generations of human observations ARE required to draw any meaningful conclusions" about natural events like global climate change [the subject of my question to you], rather than "in fact, I was stating that 'generations of human observations are' NOT 'required to draw any meaningful conclusions' in both biology and geology."
I now understand that "large-scale changes DO generally take more than a couple human lifetimes, not unlike in geology" means that “’generations of human observations are' NOT 'required to draw any meaningful conclusions' in both biology and geology."
Dr. Jackson – That's right! You've got it now! We don't necessarily need generations of observations to draw conclusions about long-term processes… because the processes themselves often leave traces that can be examined in one generation (or less). As I explained, with examples, in comment 11. Glad you're on board.
Raymond — always glad to concede a clear, coherent, well expressed point.
Of course, I was talking about whether you can apply this same logic/conclusion to global climate change and not just "long-term processes" in general. The answer I believe you've given to my actual question is: maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
As for not asking you "about politically-charged topics that I haven't studied in detail", you always had the option of saying "I don't know".
Oh, and I just realized on reading your comment further, that where before we were talking before about "accuate", "precise" or even "meaningful" conclusions, were now just talking about "conclusions" ("… to draw conclusions about long-term processes.")
So I further agree with your position. One doesn't need any real data at all (accurate, or even "meaningful") to draw a "conclusion". People do this all the time. It's called offering an opinion, or advancing a pre-determined agenda.