I never tire of seeing Christopher Hitchens eviscerate his less prepared debate opponents. Here’s an older one, a bout with Dinesh D’Souza, whose primary claim to fame is having written a book blaming social liberals for the 9-11 attacks. D’Souza does a much better job than most of his ilk but near the end is reduced to claiming that atheists need to “take responsibility for” the mass murders of Nazi Germany, Maoism, and Russian communism. It’s a despicable display, and it’s one of the reasons why this debate was, in the end, less satisfying for me than some others I’ve seen Hitchens engage in — D’Souza, even though he is no doubt an earnest believer, was being quite dishonest in his performance that night.
Some of his very odd pronouncements:
- People wouldn’t (and indeed, didn’t) have any sense of morals without Christianity. Moreover, evolution has nothing to do with morality; we humans are moral blank slates in the absence of religion. [I was a little skeptical that he really meant to put it this way, but he repeats the assertion over and over again.]
- Because there are physical laws (gravity, relativity, etc.), there must be an enforcer of those laws, i.e. god. In other words, physics is metaphysical.
- The Salem Witch Trials, the Spanish Inquisition, etc. didn’t really kill that many people anyway.
- The speed of light might be variable; science is just assuming that it is constant. Therefore, miracles are possible. (huh?)
- Albert Einstein was a theist. [Note: he was actually a deist, an altogether different thing.]
- Atheism is flawed because it doesn’t explain the origin of the universe, among other things; religion, which has assertions about these things is therefore superior.
- Proponents of specific religious claims (even those that defy common experience or even physical laws) bear no greater burden of proof than those who disbelieve these claims.
- Atheists reject Christian morality because they aren’t moral enough.
D’Souza’s riffs on cosmology and physics are particularly pathetic.
The irony is the D’Souza is very well spoken and from all outward appearances a rational individual. That the same person presented such a glib, dishonest, and ultimately contemptible display was quite jarring indeed.
Update: Here’s a debate between D’Souza and Daniel Dennett, a professor at Tufts University. I was, alas, being too generous of D’Souza in some of my commentary above. The guy is a real sleaze (smart though). He even invokes Pascal’s Wager — you’ve got to be kidding me.