Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Dinesh D'Souza: Ignorant, Arrogant and Willing To Use Tragedy To Twist Your Ear

Dinesh D'Souza is one of the more outspoken apologetics out there. His diatribes on how Atheism is wrong and it's SO clear to see are nothing more than retread double-speak that would make Orwell groan.

I can give you a million reasons why Dinesh is Ignorant, Arrogant, Etc. Like this, and this, or even this.

But here's the one I came across recently, written just after the Virginia Tech shootings. I'll re-post the entire text right here so the folks over at AOL News don't get the idea that people are reading his crap:

Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing. Even secular people like the poet Nikki Giovanni use language that is heavily drenched with religious symbolism and meaning.

The atheist writer Richard Dawkins has observed that according to the findings of modern science, the universe has all the properties of a system that is utterly devoid of meaning. The main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference. Dawkins further argues that we human beings are simply agglomerations of molecules, assembled into functional units over millennia of natural selection, and as for the soul--well, that's an illusion!

To no one's surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way--molecules acting upon molecules.

If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science.


Isn't that a breath of fresh air? A few things:

  1. Atheists ARE there. They just aren't using the time to shove their personal beliefs on anyone else. They have the decency to recognize that it just isn't the time or place for that sort of thing. It's people like YOU, Dinesh, that can't seem to distinguish between whats appropriate.
  2. Your entire second paragraph is so full of overstatement and blind sarcasm, I can see your eyebrows rising and feel your nudging elbow in my rib while you grin, "Can you believe that? Crazy, right?... I hear they gonna put in on'a them Walmarts down the Route 9!"
  3. You're absolutely right, Double D. Dawkins wasn't asked to speak. Neither were you. For that matter, neither was J.K. Rowling, Danielle Steel, or Stephen Hawking. All published authors, (All of whom have sold more books than you) that weren't asked to speak either. Maybe because it just isn't relevant to have a writer, atheist or otherwise, involved with the event.
  4. How many times do we have to revisit the "Athiests don't know good and evil!" rhetoric? It's so absurd, I don't need to explain how this is absolutely wrong, but I will say this; If you need the fear of retribution by God to stop you from doing "bad things", you just aren't a good person.
  5. "Molecules acting upon molecules".... Do you even have a point you are trying to make? Because if you are, you aren't helping.
  6. And to top it all off, the little post-scritp-esque ending line that HAS. NOTHING. TO. DO. WITH. A N Y T H I N G. Is he insinuating that the shadowy, ominous figure of "science" (like it's a single entity) actually is responsible for the shooting? Or just that it fails to comfort the grieving? "Science" has no place in mourning. It simply isn't part of the realm. It's a process of obtaining knowledge, not of comforting people. It's like saying, "Where was MATH when the towers fell?!!" Utterly absurd.


By the way, here's a Professor from V.T. who is Atheist responding to Double D.


5 comments:

Pat said...

A big thank you goes out to that VT professor who spoke out, because someone needs to put DD in his place.
His whole piece is nothing but blind opinionated bullshit that can't make heads or tales of itself.
And when it comes to atheists and the ideas of good and evil, it is a human choice to be good or evil, and there are many factors that judge whether someone views something as good or evil. It is all based on the opinion of how one perceives either concept.
The idea that someone does evil because they are void of god's light and are instead filled with hell's darkness is such a cop out. "The devil made me do it. Wasn't my fault." That's what you accept with the christian faith. And that phrase only applies when its you who committed the sin. When someone else sins, christians usually say that that person chose to do it. But if they sin, its not their fault.
I feel sorry for DD and others like him and the fact that in a country where we are given the freedom of choice, they have decided to choose to give up that right.

Jesse Hearts said...

Amen, this dude makes me sick!

and people wonder why more and more people are leaning towards atheism.

Mike Nak said...

Now... hum! Where do I start?

First off I'll say this: It's fine if someone wants to try to prove the existence of God/Gods. I think it might even be interesting research. Although, I believe it to be fruitless, human beings DO NOT have the intellect to understand unworldly/supernatural/godly/etc. objects/energies/whatevers. We won't know until we are dead, and maybe not even then!

I stand my ground and say that i will always be agnostic! There was a comment about the professor's post:
An agnostic is just an atheist without the courage of his convictions.

That is complete and utter bullshit! "Courage," what do you know of courage!? I just do not believe a simple, unintelligent human being can make that sort of decision... does God exist!? While i do lean towards the theory that God(s) DO NOT exist, it will always remain a theory! PROOF of either side WILL NEVER be found!

I'll go one step further... everyone, absolutely everyone has some kind of thought/theory/whatever about a God... even atheists, to deny that is ignorant! This forum/blog wouldn't exist if not! I think it is much, much more important to be IRRELIGIOUS rather than identify with being agnostic, atheist, or whatever!

I'm sort of off the topic!

Pure Good does not exist, Pure Evil does not exist. There are balances between good and evil. Both DD and the atheists are wrong, in a sense. I know in my own life, i have seen both evilness and goodness within myself... but I try to live by one common rule: Everyone has the freedom to do whatever they want, as long as it does not infringe on another freedom! So, if I feel like i want to KILL someone (we can probably all agree that killing is a bad/evil thing), i realize in my small, insignificant brain that i cannot KILL someone without it infringing on their freedom to live! My point is Good exist, Evil exists... but we choose what to act upon. Sure I still want to KILL, but i know it's not GOOD!


And a comment on Pat's comment:
I feel sorry for DD and others like him and the fact that in a country where we are given the freedom of choice, they have decided to choose to give up that right. Religious types do not care about freedom, God makes all their decisions! Their just puppets!

Ray said...

Mike,

I agree with what you are saying about agnosticism. I don't think any die-hard Atheist will tell you that they absolutely refuse to bend on the subject and that no amount of new information will sway them. If any form of religious specter came my way and wanted to prove its existence, I would recognize that in a heartbeat.

I feel that, at the end of the day, we're ALL agnostic. How can you not be? We simply don't know, and as you said don't have the ability to know. I simply go one step further and say that if that is the case, then none of the religions we have today can have it right. So if I'm not a follower of ANY of them, and I can't say they "have it right" in the least bit, I'm a non-subscriber; Atheist.

That's the way I see it, and I completely understand how you see it, too. That's the wonderful thing about none denominational existence, we don't have to get pissed off because you think God's hat is blue and I think its Red.

Pat said...

Mike, I agree with your response to my comment entirely
I admit though, that I didn't have the guts to come right out and say it