Dinesh D'souza - what a fucking moron

[mr friendly guy]

FRom Richard Dawkins .net, debate occuring Nov 30

You can follow the links to youtube or watch the quicktime download.

Not only can he not talk without shouting, his arguments are full of shit.

Lets recount some of his bullshit.

1. Lets ignore the inquisition killings because they happen a long time ago and focus in on the "atheist regimes". This is a blatant attempt at an ad hominem tu quoque, and a poorly thought out one at that , since he is referring to communist regimes.

2. The atheist regimes killed people blah blah. When confronted with Richard Dawkin's arguments that communist regimes did not do it in the name of atheism, he resorts to ad hominems and a "bait and switch" strategy, substitution the communist manifesto with atheism.

Sorry loser, but for your argument to work you must find an atheist manifesto which supported the actions of Stalin, Mao etc. Does this dumbass know the difference between communism and atheism. Apparently he is too god damn stupid to tell.

3. Augustine suggested God created time (as in the dimension of the universe) at the same time (colloquially speaking) as he created matter, ie you cannot keep on going back in time, there would eventually be a certain point where time began.

Modern physicists suggests that time began with the big bang. Therefore modern physics support Augustine, Augustine didn't write to make science agree with theology etc.

The problem is, it doesn't agree with the MOST FUCKING IMPORTANT part of the religious teaching, ie that God a) exists and b) created the universe, and to try and bill this as evidence for God "immune" to Darwinian attack is dishonest at best. But isn't this guy supposed to be a neocon whore?

Lets strip away the rhetoric and apply the same logic in another way.

a) God created the universe
b) the universe exists
c) Therefore this supports the existence of God

Notice how D'souza is careful to say support and not "prove", in fact he goes out of his way to differentiate it.

Can you see the problem with this non -sequitar and failure to grasp falsifiability. Apparently if you are Dinesh D'souza, most probably not.

4) He goes on to talk about the anthropic principle.

The universe is blah blah fine tuned for life, therefore a creator must have done it just for us. Aren't we special. Does this guy know what the "cart before the horse" means?

Here is the atheist explanation Dumbass D'souza seems to want. Life (as we know it) evolved to fit in the conditions of the universe, not the universe was set up to fit life.

Along the way he shows like most Christian morons he doesn't understand Occam's Razor. Apparently he not only defines it as the most simplest explanation (which is a gross oversimplification - the razor really is plurality should not be multiplied without necessity), he thinks this supports "The creator did it" argument.

Lets apply Occam's razor properly shall we?

a) God created the universe with certain universal constants conduicive to life as we know it.
b) life comes about because of these constants
c) Oh, by the way, God just exists

VS

a) The universe just exists with certain universal constants conduicive to life as we know it.
b) life comes about because of these constants

Oops, I guess the latter explanation wins out by virtue of parsimony. Dumbshit D'souza loses again.

5) The next argument is so full of rhetorical bullshit, only D'souza seems to understand what it means. But I will attempt to decipher it.

a) We live in a "rational" universe (by rational we mean that nature follows certain laws).

Note - Dumbass D'souza fails to realise that scientific laws he is referring to, only describe, not govern how nature behaves. If they truly did govern how nature behaves, they wouldn't be able to be over turned as new evidence came in.

b) The universe must therefore be "intelligent" because it takes intelligence to follow laws, for example we human beings follow the laws of a country. Insert various statements about how nature following laws is a Christian idea.

c) Thus who put the intelligence in the universe?
d) Why its Gawd. Wah, hear me roar.

Yes this argument is as retarded as it sounds. Stupid false analogy about humans following laws and the universe following laws hurts my head.

6) This next argument is hard to understand, because he wastes a lot of breath before getting to the fucking point.

Evolution can explain how we survive, but it doesn't explain why we believe certain things to be true. Note - what he means by "believe certain things to be true" refers to our ability to reason, our rationality.

He mentions several times prior his dislike of evolutionary scientist who try to use evolution to explain behaviours and think they should just stick to trying to explain why we survive (does this moron think we survive just purely because of physical characteristics and not behavioural ones as well - one only needs to look at the Darwin awards to get the point).

In short, his argument goes like this

a) evolution cannot explain why we are rational, why we can reason things out

b) it can only explain why we survive

c) "God did it" explains why we are rational. God obviously made us in his own image giving us parts of his divine "super rationality" (because apparently regular rationality isn't good enough, how else do you explain why God thinks hailstones are kept giant storehouses in case of war)

Obviously Dumbass D'souza can't see the survival advantage of being smart, I mean he doesn't need to be.

7) D'souza then asks how much time he still has. When he finds out that he has 10 more minutes, he mentions he can do more damage. Well he has got that right. My brain is already hurting listening to his bullshit.

8. The next couple of lines are essentially a huge "appeal to ignorance" fallacy, with a couple of allegories to cave men thrown in for good measure.

Because we cannot detect the afterlife, therefore we cannot say it doesn't exist, (ignoring a moment the presumption of assuming the very thing you are trying to prove exists, which kind of defeats the purpose of proving it).

I eagerly await Dinesh to accept the existence of my God killing dragon, who killed God and ate him for breakfast. After all, just because we can't detect it, it doesn't mean my God killing dragon doesn't exist.

9) He talks about free will and materialist morality. Since I am not sure what he means by the latter its hard for me to comment. Of course it smacks as a strawman, since I thought materialists try to explain why things happen, they don't comment on what is moral per se.

10) Dumbass D'souza admits he has no PROOF God exists, he only believes. Whoopee. Now here comes the laughable part. You see, its actually rational to believe in something where no proof exists. Thats right folks, you heard it straight from the horse's arse.. er I mean mouth.

His reasoning, why its like dating a woman (no I kid you not, he uses this as an analogy). You see, you can't know what it would be like living with the woman even if you date her, but you can extrapolate from experience in deciding whether to marry her or not. So he extrapolates from his experience that God exists.

Never mind that with marriage, you can have a basis for predicting what it would be like living with the woman based on dating. He however has no basis to do the same with God except his own say so. I mean what does he base God's creating the universe on. I mean, did he date God or something and see God create a new life form.

11) Oh my fucking God. He brings up pascal's wager. Oh this is sad. He brings up an argument several hundred years old which has been defeated. Wait for the irony of dumbass saying to believe in God based on evidence yet in the same breath mention the wager which is phrased to convince people to believe regardless of the evidence.



Loser boy just fails miserably.

Its getting late and I have to work tomorrow. I will try and review once I watched a bit more of the debate.

[K. A. Pital]

I mean, did he date God or something and see God create a new life form.

If Dinesh D'Souza... well, let's be harsh... really fucked God, then he shouldn't even need to explain anything to Dawkins. God would use his lightning to burn the guy who dares to oppose God's lover.

He talks about free will and materialist morality. Since I am not sure what he means by the latter its hard for me to comment. Of course it smacks as a strawman, since I thought materialists try to explain why things happen, they don't comment on what is moral per se.

What a fucker. What is "materialist morality"? Materialism is an explanation of how things work in the world. Yes, it might be very useful to deduce your actions from that. After all, waiting for an invisible sky pixie to grant you a heavenly flat with 4 rooms and virgins/old men sining praise to god, depending on religion, is far more ridiculous than making moral decisions based on what we see is happening in the material world. Which, primarily, is all interaction of matter, sentient and non-sentient.

He brings up an argument several hundred years old which has been defeated.

Pascal's fucking Wager - the ultimate argument of fearmongers. "But what if you try and there's really this mass-murdering asshole we told you about, who will condemn you to eternal suffering? You see now?" How is this anything more than blatant scare attempt (and a bad one, at that, since there are thousands like it and neither produces any evidence for it's threats to be real except fantasies!!!).

[Falkenhayn]

I watched the D'Sousza v Denett debate as well, and you've got a lot more discipline than I do.

The five to six minutes of well-poisoning he does immediately after Denett yielded the floor...I haven't experienced something so frantic and degrading since I read The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women for my Tudor England class. Not only is D'Sousza unable to craft concrete arguments, his application of rhetoric is uncomfortable to experience on a physical level.

[wautd]

I just picked a random part of the video and I hear "Maybe Makka becomes Disney's Magic Kingdom of Allah".

Good start? Yessss

[wautd]

I just picked a random part of the video and I hear "Maybe Mekka becomes Disney's Magic Kingdom of Allah".

Good start? Yessss

fixed for spelling

[Sarevok]

Is not Dinesh the same guy who suggests Amercans should abandon democracy to protect themselves from the wraith of islamic terror groups ?

[Darth Wong]

Is not Dinesh the same guy who suggests Amercans should abandon democracy to protect themselves from the wraith of islamic terror groups ?

He's the guy who claims that 9/11 was caused by American women wearing short skirts.

[DavidEC]

He claims that "being a conservative in America means conserving the principles of the American revolution." Is it just me or is it contradictory to try to conserve a revolution, like bottling up fire?

[SirNitram]

Ah, Dinesh D'souza. It's always rather sad to see him slither out. You can kinda get an interesting glimpse of his mind if you read this passage on how he claims Galileo had it awesome.

“Galileo Was A Victim of Torture and Abuse” … is perhaps the most recurring motif, and yet it is entirely untrue. Galileo was treated by the church as a celebrity. When summoned by the Inquisition, he was housed in the grand Medici Villa in Rome. He attended receptions with the Pope and leading cardinals. Even after he was found guilty, he was first housed in a magnificent Episcopal palace and then placed under “house arrest” although he was permitted to visit his daughters in a nearby convent and to continue publishing scientific papers.

You can see that he sees nothing wrong with denying reality and suffering personal humiliation and discrimination if you're allowed to mingle with the right kind of people and be in opulent houses. Dinesh D'souza in a nutshell, right there: It's cool that he's humiliated and hated, because he gets to hang out with cool Conservatives and go to the good dinner parties.

[mr friendly guy]

I will summarise Dennett's reply. Dennet has a tendency of um and um unlike better speakers say Richard Dawkins. However it seems his arguments do get to the point despite his relatively poor oratory skills.

1) he starts by accusing Dumbass D'souza of strawmen, although he uses the term caricatures instead, but the meaning is clear.

2) he kills D'souza's argument that because time had to have a beginning that leads to God having created it. He simply argues that if something needs to be created by something else, then why is it this logic magically stops at God. In other words, why doesn't God need a creator. This logical inconsistency always gets the "First cause" arguments, which retards are fond of using.

3) he demolishes the use of the anthropic principle - simply stating that we wouldn't exist if the laws didn't allow us to, and that there are thought to be multiple universe with different laws, in which case the life in those would be different from life as we know it.

4) he points out that communist regimes had similar characteristics to "proto religions". In a way this is true in that they develop cult of personalities and refused to allow free thinking.

Personally I would have ask Dumbshit D'souza to show an atheist manifesto and hammer in on the Hitler was a Catholic angle, and the German people were predominantly Christian fact.

5) He criticises D'souza claim that consciousness / intelligence can't be explained by Darwinian. Unfortunately Dennett admits he can't go into all that in the time permitted.

As I pointed out earlier, D'souza is too goddamn stupid to see the survival advantage in being smart compared to being stupid.

D'souza had the floor now.

Oh, boy he still singing the same tune.

1) Lets break down his argument

a) If Muslim terrorists commit acts of terrorism, Islam must take responsibility. Both he and Dennett agree to this principle.

b) Thus atheism must also take responsibility for the actions of atheism, eg for the communist killings.

This bullshit analogy breaks down so easily, and it only fools people who can't take more than a superficial glance at what he is actually saying, which by the way is very likely most people I am sad to say.

Lets use a neutral example. If someone hired a contract killer and instructed him to off someone, and he carries out these instructions, then that employer takes responsibility. If someone else did the hiring then that other person takes responsibility. Simple isn't it. You can't be blamed for what you did not advocate in the first place, a concept with Dumbshit D'souza can't seem to wrap his head around.

If passages exists in the Islamic holy book which supports the actions of terrorism, then Islam takes responsibility. If not, its not Islam's fault. Too bad one only has to look at the terrorists recruiting cells to see the how they use the Koran as justification.

Now lets apply that to atheism. If atheism advocates atheists killing non atheists, it takes the blame. If not, it doesn't. So what is atheism's only "tenet". Why the answer is don't believe in God. Oops, D'souza loses again. But that's ok, this dumbshit will have us believe by not believing in God it somehow leads to mass killings.

2) OMG, what utter rubbish. He is now accusing Dennet of saying religion has to take responsibility for whats done in the name of atheism, never mind that he hasn't actually shown these things were done in the name of atheism, just because these people were atheists.

Thats like saying if a White person kills someone, it must have been done in the name of White supremacism because that person was white.

Can you say



3) Everything that has a beginning has a cause. Therefore the universe has a cause. Nature can't have created itself because...

Of course this claim is unsupported by anything except D'souza's say so, moreover the concept that causation is immune to itself, and that it just is, seems beyond his grasp.

Note he makes no effort to explain why God doesn't also have to have a cause. But I can't expect too much from such a douchebag.

4) He attacks Dennett's multiple universe with different laws arguments. (see point 3) in Dennet's reply).

Personally I thought Dennett would be better simply at pointing out the cart before the horse fallacy rather than going into details about multiple universes.

The next bit of his attack is just mind boggling stupid, it must rival the Chewbacca defense. Yes he uses OJ simpson to illustrate his point

i) The DNA evidence points to OJ Simpson killing his wife
ii) but thats only in this universe
iii) In other universe something may be different.
iv) therefore its not fair to prosecute OJ for what he did in this one universe

Confused yet. Fortunately D'souza kindly summarises what his actual point is, which is, that it takes "faith" to believe in the existence of these other universes with their different laws. A few pointers

a) This is a blatant ad hominem tu quoque, ie atheists like Dennet uses faith just like Christians do. Slightly better than his previous tu quoque, but I believe still poorly thought out see point c)

b) why the hell did he have to use this song and dance about OJ Simpson, since the point about different things occuring in parallel universes has JACK and SHIT to do with his claim that it takes "faith" to believe in these other universes. Presumably this is just for the dramatic effect he likes to engage in, or maybe he has a hard on for OJ.

c) I am no physicists, but isn't the existence of these other universes with different laws supposed to be a consequence of applying subsets of string theory.

While string theory seems quite "out there", like all scientific hypothesis it makes predictions and is NOT unfalsifiable. Which is already a heap of improvement about Dumbshit'Souza's unfalsifiable blind faith.

5) He asks for humility from the other side. What cheek, as we can see in his shouting and poisoning the well. His whole manner is the opposite of humility.

6) Just as a car requires a car maker, a painting requires a painter, the laws of nature also require a creator.

Again he just assumes his analogy carries through rather than demonstrating it. It might help if he could demonstrate what mechanisms this creator used, and how he controlled such forces etc.

The other problem with these design analogies, is that we already know the existence of the human creator. We are not using their creations as evidence that the creator exist, we are using the creators as evidence that this device is a human creation. But in trying to argue for the existence of a creator, er I mean God, he is using the opposite.

To elaborate, lets use the example of a painting. We already know before hand, broadly speaking who the creator is - humans, even if we don't know which specific human. Two assumptions are implicit for me to state that a human or humans painted that drawing.

i) humans must exist - We know human being exist even before we saw the painting because we see other humans every day.

ii) humans must create the painting in a certain way, with certain characteristics - note while these characteristics can vary, eg look at artwork in an art gallery, vs artwork in a comic book, they still have some characteristics that distinguish them from non-paintings.
Again we already know this prior, unless you are going to claim one has never seen a drawing or painting before.

Thus these two assumptions are not a problem in this scenario.

We can use the painting to argue that humans draw in a certain way, use certain materials etc. What we cannot do is use the presence of a painting to imply that therefore human artists exist, WE ALREADY KNOW A PRIORI THAT HUMAN ARTISTS EXISTS.

The problem with then using this same argument (ie nature which follows certain rules / patterns requires a creator) is, that they must also make the same implicit assumptions, that is

i) God exists
ii) God creates things (the universe) in a certain manner, with certain patterns (which are different from human creations, thus we have no reference point to judge "God did it")

But hang on a minute, but aren't you assuming BEFORE HAND that God exists, which is what you are trying to prove? I suppose its too much to expect these people to realise when you try to prove something, you can't start off with the assumption that its correct? Thus point i) falls. Point ii) is dependent on point i) so it falls, and just for completion even if point i) magically stands, there is no way to know what the creator will create the universe like so and so, without also assuming before hand his style of creation (unless these people claim to have intimate conversations with him).

[petesampras]

The thing is, D'Souza uses the same arguments, pretty much word for word in other debates. Watch the Hitchens debate. Dennett should have done his homework and had quick and clear responses. As much as we don't like it, style is important, and the public watching the debate will count Dennetts slow and 'um' filled responses against him.

[K. A. Pital]

I have a best case solution, do not run such debates with religious assholes. They'll twist, distort every argument, spew rubbish which requires more time to refute than the soundbyte form it was presented in.

A better form would be a more or less long-reply seminar translation, podcast or a letter exchange.

[mr friendly guy]

I personally prefer the electronic format where anyone can simply look at what previous people have said.

Or if we are going with a public debate, lets have an atheist "nobody", ie someone who isn't writing any books or going to be the guest speakers in atheist meetings. Someone who is quick on their feet, like several members here. If these are the best the Christian right can muster and can't defeat these "nobodies" people will think they will do worse when they try and challenge people like Dawkins etc.

[Rye]

I feel compelled to share the D'Souza/Hitchens debate since I am a Hitchens fanboy. Man, the historic revisionism D'Souza pushes, what a load of crap. Anyway, worth a watch.

[mr friendly guy]

I feel compelled to share the D'Souza/Hitchens debate since I am a Hitchens fanboy. Man, the historic revisionism D'Souza pushes, what a load of crap. Anyway, worth a watch.

So how does Hitchens handle D'Loser?

Because after seeing half an hour of D'souza ranting and raving I would rather watch that Voyager episode with Janeway salamander sex again than have to see another debate from this guy, unless his opponent was particularly good.

[Rye]

He seems to be ignoring D'Souza's bullshit and instead stating specific salient antichristianity points, otherwise he'd be stuck there for ages.

[Rye]

Hahah, he says he believes because he doesn't know in part 9, and he tries to set up a golden mean "atheists are as irrational as christians" type argument, Hitchens dismantles that pretty nicely.

[mr friendly guy]

Hahah, he says he believes because he doesn't know in part 9, and he tries to set up a golden mean "atheists are as irrational as christians" type argument, Hitchens dismantles that pretty nicely.

He tried this also in the debate with Dennett, as I noted earlier.

10) Dumbass D'souza admits he has no PROOF God exists, he only believes. Whoopee. Now here comes the laughable part. You see, its actually rational to believe in something where no proof exists. Thats right folks, you heard it straight from the horse's arse.. er I mean mouth.

His reasoning, why its like dating a woman (no I kid you not, he uses this as an analogy). You see, you can't know what it would be like living with the woman even if you date her, but you can extrapolate from experience in deciding whether to marry her or not. So he extrapolates from his experience that God exists.

Never mind that with marriage, you can have a basis for predicting what it would be like living with the woman based on dating. He however has no basis to do the same with God except his own say so. I mean what does he base God's creating the universe on. I mean, did he date God or something and see God create a new life form.

Now back to listening to this shambles.

[Medic]

Why is it, in any way, more irrational for me to take a position on one side of an issue than for him to take the other side of the issue on which there is no empirical evidence on either side -- I would submit it's a leap of faith for BOTH of us, the only difference is I'm leaping towards [god] *WILD GESTICULATING* he's leaping against him.

Substitute God for any of the following:

1) the invisible pink unicorn
2) the flying spaghetti monster
3) mr friendly guy's god eating dragon
4) Zeus
5) Thor
6) [insert bullshit theistic proposition]

Also unimpressive is D'Souza's constant conflation of any and all ethical and moral advancements in Western society with the fundamental teachings of Christianity. He asserts that the Western world is as much descended from Greece as it is Jerusalem but never even uttered the word I believe in the whole debate (I just listened to it) "Enlightenment." It was hilarious hearing him speak of "respect for women" as among many things that can be attributed to Christianity throughout the ages and yet in this country, that respect apparently only became good enough to equal a political voice in 1920, when Women's Suffrage finally came about.

I'm a little disappointed Hitches didn't at all try to take this issue head-on. It's the type of argument that Dawkins' Moral Zeitgeist would demolish quite well.

The 'atheist crimes' and D'Souza's closing comments WRT 'atheists running away from accountability' though really do highlight Dinesh's pitch in this debate, notwithstanding all the lipspeak he devotes to promoting Christianity and faith on the grounds of REASON -- fine tuning and all that nonsese: atheism's ultimate failings are moral.

Just for that this guy has to be on my permanent shitlist. But excuse me while I go off and do something dastardly, I've not met my quota to make Uncle Joe Stalin proud. He makes a quip comment when Hitchens is filibustering (which he was ) him that the 'atheist conception of fairness is to hog the limelight while slandering religion' but it's people like D'Souza that keep us coming out of the woodworks and will sell the next "New Atheist" book. I had thought or perhaps hoped the 'immoral atheist' tract was finally one that was dying but he's it's most strident champion apparently.

[mr friendly guy]

Dennett now has the floor

So far he

1) points out that scientific laws aren't how D'souza understands it

2) finally points out the problem with first cause arguments - ie that a creator also needs to be explained by another creator according to arguments by proponents of first cause

3) if god is dead => anything is possible. He points out this statement doesn't follow. He also mentions this mindset is easy to take up even by atheist because religious people hark on it so much

4) even if we need God to tell us what is right, he doesn't do it. His representatives do it, thus we humans tell each other what is moral anyway

5) morality is dependent on reason - morality changes as peoples ideas changed, and not because God changed his mind


D'Loser now has the floor

1) he mentions he doesn't want this to be a "mud slinging" type debate, but rather one which he wants a genuine sharing of ideas.

A bit late for that don't you think.

2) OMG - he admits morality is not the province of religious people, and its a universal phenomenum. Give that man a cigar.

But... here comes the strawman.

You see Dennett earlier used the term evolution to describe the changes in morality over time. Any one with half a brain could tell he wasn't referring to biological evolution (change in the population of species over time), but using the layman's terms to indicate change. D'loser's argument is that biologically we have not changed over the last 5000 years, so our change in moral standards couldn't have evolved (equivocation tactic - where he uses different meanings for words which are spelt the same).

The purpose of this equivocation is that the biological evolution also is used to explain why we had morality in the first place - as Richard Dawkins points out, the "I will scratch your back, you scratch mine", or the principle of reciprocity. In other words, morality helps society function and cooperate and gives us a survival advantage.

So it looks like he is engaging in another "bait and switch" tactic - ie I will defeat the strawman claim that evolution is responsible for changing morality over the past few thousand years, and I will in turn defeat the proper claim that we evolved morality as a survival advantage.

How about this explanation for D'souza. Human beings have evolved some intrinsic sense of morality (unless you are a sociopath). However moral decisions are more than just instinct, they are also products of our evolved reasoning.

To use an example, intrinsically we don't like to kill other humans (unless you are a sociopath). This has an obvious survival advantage for the species. This is also why militaries have to "train" people to go against this reflex. What about when we have a convicted serial killer? In this case, should that person be executed, going against this reflex. While I don't plan to derail this thread into one about capital punishment, the debate on whether to execute or not certainly counts as a moral one, and requires the use of reason to reach the conclusion.

3) The lies just keeps rolling in.

D'loser now claims that the improvements in morality Dennett is talking about is due to being in a Western nation shaped primarily with Christian assumptions.

Fortunately dumbass listed which values are due to "Christian assumptions"

a) representative democracy - so does that mean if we vote God out he will leave us alone, and not kill us.

Sorry loser, the Greeks had some form of democracy long before Christianity arose, and the native Americans also had it. Christianity cannot be democratic since Jesus and God were not elected by the majority you dumbass.

b) Abolition of slavery

Right, and I guess Jefferson Davis quoting the Bible as justification for the Confederate slavery was just a myth the atheists made up too.

“let the gentlemen go to Revelation to learn the decree of God – let him go to the Bible and not to the report of the decisions of the courts. I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation…Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments – in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized – sanctioned everywhere.

see what the good book really says about slavery

c) Equal dignity of women

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

Sounds very um .. dignified.

For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.

Calling her husband master? Hey, maybe Abraham and Sarah were just into BDSM or something. Yep, very dignified there.

Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing ... the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home. When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.

Yes, let a woman get raped, after all she is only a slave.

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

Summary - If a woman is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, the men of the city must stone her to death.

I can see clearly now the Bible really treats women with dignity here.

Note, some versions notably the NIV actually use the word rape, instead of the euphemism "lie with her"

4) how do know these values are due to Christian assumptions

You see, if there was a famine, look at the European countries sending help. While other rich countries will do little.

Too bad he doesn't give an example of these other rich countries which do little. Maybe he forgot Japan, who provide a lot of foreign aid and has the second largest GDP.

You see, despite Europe being secular, the Christian assumptions there can't be killed off, so thats why they help by acting in a "christian way". He also points out evolution won't explain helping strangers, as the survival advantage goes only with close members.

But morality is more than something we evolved, its also a product of our reasoning, which he doesn't realise despite Dennett mentioning it.

Perhaps someone should point out to him, that right wing Christian America are more likely to vote against social programs helping the poor, but I guess he is forced to use Europe as an example of charitable work.

5) He goes onto mention that a lot of things blamed on religion are unfair.

For example the political conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians, Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir etc are due to non religious reasons - eg land and self determination. This is a clear black / white fallacy, ie it must either be completely about religion or not.

Never mind that Israel and the Palestinians contest over HOLY land. Seriously, woul any of these sides want a piece of desert if it wasn't for the religious significance.

Fucking loser.

6) These new atheists are debating outside their fields, therefore its wrong for them to debate theology.

So does that mean D'loser would not debate atheism, since thats outside his field. Oh wait, the hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

7) This is intellectual embarrassing. Oh wait a minute, D'souza wasn't referring to himself. Ok. Carry on.

8. atheists are bigots.

Talk about projection and ad hominem in one

9) Atheists don't take religious seriously. Sure I ADMIT I provide no proof, but you still should take it seriously. Come on, give the Christian a break.

Ok, he does seem to feel that his arguments are compelling enough even they aren't proofs, so he asks for the lesser concession of "taking religion seriously" vs "accepting religion". Talk about a golden mean fallacy.

10) Atheists are elitist (so much for the I don't want to get into a mud slinging debate)

Of course, there isn't a bad thing with being elite, and its only seen to be bad by idiots and dumbshits like D'loser.

The thing is, D'souza (from his previous statements) wants to capitalise on the perceived snobbishness of elitists, rather than the actual elite portion of elitist. This smacks to borderline equivocation, where normal people would use elitist as the dictionary definition, while D'souza is using it as synonymous with snob.

11) False analogy, appeal to popularity and appealing to anecdotal evidence.

Basically his analogy is that if he was charged with a crime and he knows he didn't do it despite all the evidence, he should fight the charge. The same is with religion, ie if atheists say religion is bogus, but if a Christian believes really really hard, they should contest it.

Ignoring for a moment that in the first scenario, he really does "know" he didn't commit the crime, while the second scenario they only believes their religion is real. What a false analogy.

Ignoring for a moment that the burden of proof is on the Christian, not the atheist to show God is real, while in his crime analogy, the burden is the other way round, ie the prosecutor (atheist) must prove D'souza (the Christian) did it. This again makes the analogy crap.

He then talks about how considering religion is bullshit is much different from considering claims of seeing UFO is bullshit, because MORE PEOPLE BELIEVE IN RELIGION THAN BELIEVE IN UFOS. In fact, he says if 2/3 of the population suddenly claimed to see UFOs he will believe it.

He truly deserves this card


Its hurts just to watch his bullshit. Janeway salamander sex didn't hurt this bad.

[brianeyci]

D'Souza won it, not because of his logic, but because of his style. He appears to be the underdog too -- a minority, a seeming intellectual, using his oratory prowress to wow the audience. And he looks good in a tux.

Problem with avoiding debating religious assholes is they will win the crowd that way no matter what. Refuse to confront them and they will seep into every aspect of life and make false claims, but confront them and you have to deal with their charisma and underhanded tactics.

Ultimately you need someone with sharp wit, like Dawkins. If someone brings up Pascal's wager, you cannot say it was discredited centuries ago. You have to discredit it yourself, by bringing up an example, say Darth Vader, and saying that if you believe in Pascal's wager you should believe in Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Thor and Isis.

If someone brings up athiests cannot take "leaps of faith" to make friends and therefore make few friends, you have to say there's different types of faith. After all, you take faith when you cross the street that a car won't hit you, but that's not the same as religious faith. You have faith that your seatbelt will work, but again that's not the same as religious faith. And even scientists in training, before the Ph.D. level must have faith in their teachers, because they cannot go out and verify things for themselves. But again, this is not the same as religious faith, which requires belief in a supernatural power.

And so on and so on. You have to come up with your own bag of tricks, canned effective responses because they will keep canning the same spam up and you need to tailor your defenses and attacks to what will come your way or suffer for it.

Dennett failed because he didn't research or anticipate how insidious his opponent would be. I also think D'Souza's speech is physically painful to hear: it is tailored that way to evoke emotional responses with small lies which academics find infuriating because they hate even small lies, but the average person is willing to let small lies go or doesn't recognize them. A debator has to be prepared for that, and either cannot lose his cool or start straight from the beginning with zero respect like Mike does rather than be "trapped" into "exploding."

Ultimately, Kenneth Miller is right: it is not to be won in the science classroom, but the hearts and minds of the American people.

[petesampras]

D'Souza won it, not because of his logic, but because of his style. He appears to be the underdog too -- a minority, a seeming intellectual, using his oratory prowress to wow the audience. And he looks good in a tux.

I was somewhat shocked at how bad Dennett was. Hitchens performance was far superior. I got the feeling that Dennett hadn't taken D'Souza seriously prior to the debate.

[Darth Wong]

A common mistake made by debaters who hold the intellectually superior position is to assume that an intellectually superior position will automatically translate into debate victory without any real preparation or technique on the part of the debater. This is the polar opposite of the typical Pat Robertson-trained debater who thinks it's 100% about technique and who works very hard to perfect his method.

Dinesh D'Souza makes arguments which are so pathetic that they would get a failing grade if submitted as a school essay or project, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't work in a public debate.