Is Christianity good for the world?

A two-part video of a debate featuring Michael Shermer and Dinesh D’Souza which was held on Monday, October 15, 7 PM, by the Oregon State University Socratic Club.






Dinesh D’Souza is the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Investor’s Business Daily called him one of the “top young public-policy makers in the country,” and the New York Times Magazine named him one of America’s most influential conservative thinkers. Before joining the Hoover Institution, Mr. D’Souza was the John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In 1987-88 he served as senior policy analyst at the Reagan White House. From 1985 to 1987 he was managing editor of Policy Review. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1983. His books include the New York Times bestseller What’s So Great About America. His 1991 book Illiberal Education was the first study to publicize the phenomenon of political correctness. His latest book, What's So Great About Christianity, will appear in early October, published by Regnery. He is also the author of The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno Affluence. D’Souza’s articles have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, New Republic, and National Review.

Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Shermer’s latest book is The Mind of the Market, on evolutionary economics. His last book was Why Darwin Matters: Evolution and the Case Against Intelligent Design, and he is the author of Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown; The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share Care, and Follow the Golden Rule; and How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God, which presents his theory on the origins of religion and why people believe in God. He is also the author of Why People Believe Weird Things on pseudoscience, superstitions, and other confusions of our time. Shermer has an M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton and a Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think even the atheist have to admit that of course Christianity is good for the world. Look at all the money Christianity takes in to help the poor and do charity work, missions, etc. Also Christianity provides a moral backbone for society. There are certainly many people that if it were not for belief in God and His law, would be out in streets murdering and stealing. God's law keeps us safe. All good works of man are through not just faith alone but faith and the holy spirit acting through man.
Anonymous said…
anonymous... we shall never know whether the people who did good in the name of their god (Jesus or otherwise) would not have done the same thing if they had been atheists.
But it seems to me you are implying atheists cannot be selfless.

"There are certainly many people that if it were not for belief in God and His law, would be out in streets murdering and stealing."

Is there something you want us to tell about yourself, son? Because there is no-one else you can say something like that about...

"All good works of man are through not just faith alone but faith and the holy spirit acting through man."

So, atheists and non-Christians in general never do good works?

Next time, try to think before you shoot off your mouth, friend.

-Leonard
Anonymous said…
Oh, here we go again, with the tired, old "Atheists can't be moral because they don't have a god to threaten them into obedience" bullshit.

Oh, and as far as "gawd's Law" goes, there ain't enough hours in the day for me to roam the streets, killing everyone who's wearing cotton-wool blends and walking out of Red Lobster.

You're an idiot parrot who just regurgitates everything Pastor tells you. I'll bet you're not even literate enough to read the Buy-Bull for YOURSELF, are you???
Huey said…
Annoying Mouse said:

"There are certainly many people that if it were not for belief in God and His law, would be out in streets murdering and stealing"

If the only thing that prevents you or anyone else from committing acts of theft and murder, then I an DAMN GLAD you believe in a god. It really would be the socially responsible thimg to do.

Fortunately I have more faith and trust in people than to believe that crap.

Oh, as to your last, ill considered statment, I have two names for you: Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
Anonymous said…
Christian evangelism and intolerance are dangerous to the world. Christians do all the dirty acts in the name of Charity.
Anonymous said…
the famous remark of the physicist Stephen Weinberg:
“Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things�that takes religion.”

I think that about sums it up.
eel_shepherd said…
I can't believe that Dinesh D'Souza was actually sticking up for the clergyman who imposed church law on Galileo. And this guy advises high-level politicians? Do they take his advice? I notice that Shermer just let him run with the ball on that one, and rightfully so. Nothing Shermer could have said could have damaged that guy worse than he was damaging himself in front of witnesses.

I also note that Shermer laid out a whole chronology (projected into the _future_, notice; not revisionism of some past historical timeline; that's important) of the contortions that the churches/religions will live out, like so many lab rats, as they come to an acceptance of the biological bases/realities of homosexuality, years and decades behind the communities that didn't impose stumbling blocks of their own device upon themselves.

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