Some more Apologetics

Question posed to Dinesh D'Souza:

"You maintain that the Big Bang must have had a cause, as you've been going on and on, however this in effect created the universe that is grounded in such rules as cause and effect. Yet at the same time you also maintain that as humans we are creatures of free will and choice and are therefore exempt from this universal canon of cause and effect. Doesn't that strike you as a gross inconsistency at best?"

Response from D'Souza:

"On the contrary it is completely consistent with my supposition, well hypothesis, let's call it a hypothesis, that a discretionary God who did not have to make the universe, the universe was not created out of necessity, it was created out of free--at least this is the Christian view--out of free will. We are created in the image of God which means that to some degree we have some resemblance to God, in what way? In what resemblance? God's not a material thing, there's no Christian tradition going back to the beginning that holds God be material, God is spiritual. So we don't resemble God in our material frame. That's why I have no problem with the theory of Evolution. Because I believe the material frame of man can be adequately explained by evolution, but I maintain that man also has a moral and a spiritual dimension. And while evolution has made pretty good headway in explaining what could be called 'low-altruism' -- I scratch your back you scratch my back -- or, the mother jumps in the burning car because 'wait a minute, her children happen to share her genes -- that's why she's doing it, disguised selfishness.' This is all very clever. But frankly, it doesn't go very far. It accounts for about 10 percent of morality. If you get up and give your bus seat to a stranger, you know, Richard Dawkins may come and go, 'Well that was a really cunning move - you're hoping the old lady will give you her seat next week.' No, you're just doing it because you're a nice guy. Or you give blood, or Mother Theresa, or 'Give me liberty or give me death.' There are lots of people who do things for strangers where they have no even disguised benefit. And I think evolution hasn't given a very plausible, it's given some implausible accounts of this, but it hasn't really accounted for morality. And I think that many people would admit that."


This debate is getting me fired up about going back to my notebook to finish blogging the notes I took about Dawkins' God Delusion. I'll have to go back and read what I've written so far and go from there.

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Some Apologetics

Here is a quotation from Dinesh D'Souza (Christian Apologist) during a debate with Daniel Dennett (Philosopher and Atheist). D'Souza here is responding to the idea of "materialist morality" which says that everything can be reduced down to the movement of atoms, and that even our morality is determined by the physical world.


"Why would anyone be attracted to a metaphysics, that ultimately denies, if you will, half of our humanity? The whole subjective dimension, the whole moral dimension? I want to suggest that ultimately atheism is not so much an intellectual revolt, because think about it, when it comes to God I would agree that I don't know that God exists, I believe that he does. Now knowledge is not the same thing as belief. I wouldn't say I believe in my brother. I know the guy. You only believe when you don't know. So here's the difference. I don't know, and still I believe. Dan doesn't know, and therefore he doesn't believe. What unites us is both of us don't know. We're actually both ignorant. The only difference is, Dan thinks he's a 'champion of reason and I'm a champion of blind faith.' No! We are both reasoning in the dark. The only difference is he won't admit it."


It's not reasonable to hold debates between Theists and Atheists unless they both first agree that both sides have made conscious decisions to believe something. (Which are hopefully based on observations, facts and experiences.)

Unfortunately Dan Barker didn't do this when he came and spoke at UW - Eau Claire, and it severely cut into his credibility among thinking Christians and Atheists on campus alike.

You can find this debate in its full here. I of course only highlighted one individual point. There is much more background to this statement as well as an elaboration in the video. This quotation came in part 6.

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