Is Christianity Good for American Politics? A Debate Between Susan Jacoby and Dinesh D’Souza

 Does D’Souza ever disappoint?  Did he just suggest that all modernity (or even just America) is the benefactor of the Greeks and the Jews?

Next, he tries to argue that because religious language is evoke to advance purely secular agendas that that suggests that religion is a “benefit” to the progress of these ideas.  What he fails to understand is that is GOOD MARKETING of secular ideas when secularism is in the minority. 

That is, when say slavery is being protected with the Bible, (as it most certainly was — and to a large extent still is):  Then to give the scared sheeple something on which to hang an enlightened thought, you use the Bible (and who among us cannot justify nearly any idea with the Bible contextually or out of context).

To point out that MLK made an ethical argument using Biblical principles would be equivalent to saying that …the many Greek and Roman gods must have been real and fundamental to Freud and other great writers who appealed to those universal (and actually secular) models and metaphors .

I know why he has a career in policy and “conservative” politics.  It’s so the bigots he servers can feel better because …some of their best ‘friends’ are ‘black’… after all they know DD by name.

OH here it is again:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wd2F5mwAWG4#t=1315s 

D’Souza trys to argue that Religious Conservatives are actually rather OPEN MINDED and not “BIBLICAL LITERALISTS” because they manage to ignore the bible on the matters of social justice!  LOL

I’m only going to press play so I can here Ms. Jacoby.  D’Souza is an idiot, a liar, or thinks that his audience are idiots, or maybe all of the above.  I assume Ms. Jacoby will wipe the floor with him.

Long, yes, but worth the listening.  I was surprised that Jacoby did not come off more strongly at first and dreaded listening to the whole thing but the longer I listened (while getting an anniversary meal together), I found myself smiling, nodding, and wanting to shout out to nobody because I’m home alone.  I actually almost cut myself during one remarkably ridiculous statement D’Souza made in trying to corner Jacoby regarding religious groups on college campuses.  Jacoby’s response was predictable and spot-on.

Thank you for sharing this.  I’d not have found it on my own, I’m sure.

I don’t know why any atheist demeans themselves to debate D’Souza. He is so reliable in his lies, his transparent manipulations, his silly corkscrew rationalizations, his blaming atheism for everything bad except the flu, (just wait, that will come next week) and especially his disingenuous whining about how poor, poor Christians are victimized by those meanies who unfairly use reason! Boo! Dirty rotten cheaters! Not only that, they unreasonably demand reason from others! How unreasonable to demand reason! You unreasonably reasonable reasoning reasoners, you!

Dinesh D’Souza is Ray Comfort with a better vocabulary.

I’m sorry, but I’ve heard and read enough of him for a lifetime. For me, two hours, three minutes, and thirteen seconds of listening to him, even when mixed with Ms. Jacoby’s intelligent remarks, are exactly two hours, three minutes and thirteen seconds too long.

I’m going to enjoy that time ripping up some old, dirty, worn-out carpet.

 Jacoby started well with her “which Christianity are you talking about,” but D’Souza was better at spinning nearly everything to support what it is that he’s trying to sell (poor mistreated Christians).  He really is not stupid; he’s quite the tricky weasel, and he knows that his audience are idiots. 

He keeps repeating this claim over and over again … it’s extremely frustrating.

After seeing D’Souza in more debates than I care to recall, I can’t bring myself to sit through another minute of his pseudo-intellectual blather.  I literally would rather have a root canal. I like the comment about him being like Ray Comfort with a better vocab – that’s really how I feel every time I see him.  

I bailed as they finished up banging on about the intent of the Founding Fathers.  It’s beyond me why we should deeply care what the FFs wanted.  None of them would have known what to make of me, a woman with a university degree, a combat record, and her own land and small business.   Ok, there is some  historical value to proving that they meant it when they set up separation of church and state, but if succeeding generations can end slavery and allow women to vote, then (re)establihing the secular nature of our government  is also doable.

I haven’t heard anything from D’Souza in the past.  His logic here is at times twisted and flat wrong, but I think he’s quite a bit better than Ken Ham as some other commenters have suggested.  Jacoby may be brilliant, but she didn’t do a great job in this instance.

When given an opportunity to pose a question to her opponent, she asks (paraphrasing) “name one country with an official state church and a good standard of living for its people.”  Without making some restrictions to the answer, my immediate thought (and D’Souza’s as well) was Great Britain.  Yes, we all know what her point was and that GB is not what she was getting at.  Regardless, that was a sad mistake.

The other big problem with her performance was that she repeatedly dodged D’Souza’s question about why religion is treated differently than secular issues.  Several times he asks in one way or another why we can have discussions about various points of view on political issues but not religious, why we can memorialize secular figures but not religious (even if they’ve contributed more to our society) etc.  Her continual answer is “because the Constitution says so,” which comes across as no better than “because the Bible says so” – see around 1:30:00 for one example.  I can come up with several arguments for that, but Jacoby dodges and retreats to the Constitution over and over.

D’Souza at the end (aroudn 1:53:00) goes stupid.  He says there’s a “skepticism built into religion” because we are “believers, not knowers” – if more religious people would live this way, rather than being completely sure of themselves, we’d all be better off.  He then points out that science can’t tell us why (in the sense purpose) does the universe or life exist.  Correct, but irrelevant.  His closing statement is that separation of church and state discriminates against religious people.

Jacoby’s closing statement almost redeems her performance – she points out that faith groups thrive better here in the US than in other places, due to separation of church and state, completely countering D’Souza’s thesis statement.  She also addresses the actual question of the evening that was really lost in the discussions of 1st amendment rights.

Overall very interesting discussion, but definitely not the floor wiping that some were hoping for.

Add William Lane Craig to your triumvirate and you have a deal.