Dinesh D'Souza

In his debate with Daniel Dennett, Dinesh D'Souza argues the reason why god is not just a man-made invention. He also argues that this universe was not only created by god, but created by god for us. His main point is about how even modern science points towards a creator since so much of it is based on exact numbers. If these numbers were shifted even slightly, we, humans, would not exist. He then uses this point to say that god created this world essentially for us and our survival. While such exact results may argue the existence of a creator, they do not necessarily support D'Souza's argument that the universe was created for us. To me, it seems that it instead supports the idea that we developed to survive in this quantized world especially since the rest of the scientific evidence shows that humans are a fairly recent development in the universe. His argument seems strong, since he uses science to support it, but it seems that he outright ignores (with the exception of darwinism) any scientific evidence that doesn't support his beliefs. Is he saying that only certain parts of science are valid?

Besides that, while he provides a valid argument against the idea that god is a man-made invention, he provides no such argument against the idea that religion is a man-made invention. Much of what he says seems to agree with the belief that religion is something made up by humans to insure various things like power and a functioning society. He discusses how Christian morality is necessary by using examples of atheist regimes like the Nazis and Mao to show how many have died that the hands of atheism. He talks about the blood-thirst and sacrifice that plagued the world before Christianity, which to me shows that Christianity rose simply to stop this and better human society. Morality is simply a man-made idea, and religions based off of it came about as a means of propagating it. There is no reason that atheists can't be moral as well; he just chose very extreme examples of atheists that had little value for human life. For him to say that atheism is immoral is the same as an atheist saying Christianity is irrational. Both statements are stereotypical, prejudiced, and bigoted.

There may or may not be a god, this is up for debate, but I found Dinesh's reasoning as to why there must be a god compelling. But his argument for religion is lacking and shows that Dinesh is not as understanding as he appears at first. He may use science to back his arguments, but all of his arguments are laced with prejudices. These prejudices that both religious and nonreligious people have against the other are causing a lot of disagreement today. People like Dinesh who take things to the extreme just help deepen this disagreement that cannot be solved without compromise or a new outlook on the world.