Review: What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza is, in my opinion, one of the most intelligent and articulate defenders of Christianity in our day. His book, What's so Great About Christianity, is the best defense of the Christian religion I have ever read. However, there are some major flaws in this book which demand discussion.
The first major thesis of the book is that Christianity is responsible for the successes of Western Culture. He uses Jesus' saying, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" as the basis of separation of church and state. I find this a bit of a stretch, to say the least. He goes on to say that as Christianity declines, so too will the great morality brought to us by Christianity. Yet this is far from true: We are one of the most religious countries in the world, and yet we have one of the highest murder rates (The 24th highest, in fact). More secular countries, such as The Netherlands, have far lower rates of murder.
His book also explains the classic arguments for Christianity: The "Fine Tuning" Argument, The Kalam Argument, The Universal Morality Argument, and, most interestingly, Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager is basically this: You will lose nothing if you believe in God and he does not exist, but you will lose everything if you disbelieve and he does exist. So why not believe, just to be on the safe side? The problems with this argument are numerous. How do we know God favors blind belief over honest opinion? How do we know that God, should he exist, is the Christian one and not the Muslim one, or one of the Hindu gods? If believing in God means sacraficing the benefits of stem cell research, treating homosexuals as inferior, and fear of eternal torture, then perhaps there is something to lose in belief after all. Deciding whether you believe in God must be based on more than this childish reasoning.
Perhaps D'Souza's most prominent point against atheism is morality. He argues that the evils of communist regimes were because of their atheism. That is, the terrors of Stalin and Pol Pot were due to the fact that they believed they would not answer to God. By contrast, even the worst Christian empires never spilled as much blood as the atheistic communists. I am willing to concede that some of the most horrific crimes in history were committed by atheists. I am also willing to concede that the crimes of Stalin, Castro, and the rest of the Communists far outweigh the bloodshed of the crusades or the inquisition. But what I am unwilling to concede is that these crimes are the result of atheism. D'Souza states that Marxism was primarily based on atheistic thought, yet he does not explain this. I am no scholar of political history, so I will not say that it was or was not. My argument is that most atheists today believe in free market, free speech, and freedom of religion. Most atheists place a high value on human life and happiness, unlike Communists. The enemy of humanity is not atheism. Nor is it religion. It is dogma. When you are willing to mercilessly slaughter human beings because they disagree with you, you are evil. As expected, atheists who cherish freedom, such as those in the United States, commit crime far less often than the religious fundamentalists. Only about 0.1% of American prisoners are atheists, yet the general population is about 10% atheist or nonreligious. I am not saying that belief in God compells these people to commit crimes; A certain type of religion does: Fundamentalist religion (Communism included) which places itself above the law and above the rights of other men. Since Fundamentalist Christianity is widespread in the United States (51% disbelieve in creationism, a fundamentalist doctrine) this statistic is no surprise.
Towards the end of the book, D'Souza talks about how christianity helps ease the pain of tragedies, which he finds practical. This is not as irrational as it sounds. Let's look at a parallel: Science assumes that the world operates by constant, immutable laws. It assumes that the universe behaves in a way that can be understood. This is not, even in prinicple, provable. The reason is that no matter how many times we observe gravity, for instance, at work, there may always be an exception to our laws that we do not know about. These assumptions made by science are not provable. They are only made because they allow us to see progress and real results in our studies. The assumptions made by science are practical ones. D'Souza's argument is that since the assumption of God allows us to feel comfort and make it through the tough times, it is a very reasonable assumption to make. I disagree: I believe that comfort can be found even when one does not believe in God. Think of the lives lost at Columbine. What would an atheist say to comfort the families of this tragedy? The victims of this horrible incident are now safe, in a sense, and can no longer be hurt by their murderers. They are not at peace. They have no more to fear. Their lives can motivate people to change society; To inspire people to pay more attention to troubled youth. To insprie people to value the lives of their loved ones and spend time with them. After all, life will come to an end one day. We must cherish what we have.
For more:
To Be Read at my Funeral by Richard Dawkins
Michael Shermer Debates Dinesh D'Souza
