D'Souza begins his final reply to Dennett by saying that he has tried hard to listen because he doesn't want this to be "a mudslinging, cartoon, debate" but one that really engages the issues.
Remember that. It's going to be important later.
He then concedes one of Dennet's points: morality is not the special province of religion—it's a universal phenomenon.
But after a brief complaint (about Dennett using the idea of evolution outside of a biological context), he proceeds to argue the opposite.
He tells us that the reason we (westerners) are so good, and the rest of the world is so bad, is that we have the advantage of a Christian civilization, and they don't.
This takes a bit of untangling:
- It directly contradicts the concession he began with. Morality, it appears, is not only the special province of religion, it's the special province of Christianity.
- It's pure political rhetoric. We (the west=Christians) are the good guys, they (the east=Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucians, etc.) are the bad guys. So you would obviously want to make sure you're on our team.
- Except that it ignores the fact that many members of the other teams do believe in a god or gods, and even the ones that don't are mostly religious. So exactly what place this point has in a debate about religion vs. atheism is, well, debatable.
- It has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of whether God is a human invention, and no bearing on the question of whether God actually exists, or on whether we should believe in God.
- The examples he uses are questionable. He argues that democracy, the abolition of slavery, and feminism were all products of Christianity. But, although there certainly were Christians involved in each of these changes, they were not in the mainstream of the faith in their times. One could just as well (perhaps more easily) argue that these changes were a product of the enlightenment, achieved in spite of the church—certainly in spite of the current orthodoxy.
- This leads to a very strange ability, on D'Souza's part, to argue that when secular Western countries give more aid than religious Eastern countries, the difference is due to the good influence of religious belief.
So, even at this early point in his reply, D'Souza has begun to do the exact opposite of the intention he announced at the outset. He claimed to want to avoid mudslinging and, instead to engage the issues. But his first developed argument is an attempt to avoid the issues while motivating his audience to join his side.
And his method is to sling mud. Admitedly, he doesn't sling it at Dennett yet—instead, he slings it at all religions but his own.
By doing so, he provides us with a clear example of a mentality which he shares with many authoritarians.
- This division of the world into "them" and "us", and the the constant vilification of "them" is more than a rhetorical technique. It is a way of viewing the world. There's a constant need for an enemy, or for multiple enemies—a need to define oneself as "not them", and a moral need to make them stop being them.
- The "them", however, shifts from moment to moment, depending on the current need. In D'Souza's case, in this one debate, "them" has been at various times atheists, accademics, easterners, intellectuals, Hindus, secularists, and Muslims. He has accused "them" of having affairs, killing people, faking concern about others, not sending aid to others, lacking concern for others, being elitist, and sneering at "us".
- "We", on the other hand, has been all religious people (including Muslims and Hindus and worshipers of Baal and Thor and all the gods who required human sacrifice, when he needed to include them to get a majority), Western culture (including the secular west, when he wanted to make a case based on humanitarian aid), intellectuals, anti-intellectuals you'd like to have a beer with, academics, and non-academics.
He follows this bizarre line of reasoning by taking Dennett to task for talking about toxic religions.
Dennett argued at the beginning of the debate that all religions had toxic forms, and that these forms (the toxic ones) depended upon their ability to keep their young ignorant of the general history and variety of human religions.
It's not clear whether he intended, among "toxic forms" of religion, to include such obviously political struggles as those between the Palestinians and Israel. But it is clear that this was not his primary focus—that he was speaking of a broad variety of beliefs and behaviors from female circumcision to suicide bombing that are inspired by religious belief, and depend upon ignorance of a broader world view.
However, D'Souza responds to Dennett's suggestion by first narrowing the examples to wars. By doing this, he accomplishes something he has (falsely) accused Dennett of doing several times: he has cleverly shifted Dennett's point in order to trivialize it.
Specifically, he tells us that the Israelis and Palestinians are fighting over land, not religion, that the Irish are fighting over who will rule Ireland, and that the Hindus and Muslims are fighting over Kashmir—not religion.
Aside from the clever shift from Dennett's real point to a straw man, his point doesn't hold up even in all of the cases he gives. The reason, for example, that the Israelis and the Palestinians are fighting over land is largely because the Israelis believe that God has given them that land, and because they insist that an Israeli state must be defined by religion—in this case, Judaism.
It's not clear at all that Dennett would include Israel as an example of "toxic religion"—D'Sousa is the one who provides it as an example. But it is clear that it doesn't hold up as the kind of counter-example he would like it to be.
He concludes with a series of points, also designed to shift the topic of the debate in the minds of the listeners:
- The new atheists are talking outside their fields. They have wandered from their area of expertise.
The only possible purpose of such an argument is to discredit his opponent—not to address the actual question. Unfortunately, Dennett's field is philosophy—the field appropriate to such questions, while D'Souza's field is English Literature.
Probably because of this, D'Souza makes the target of his attack "the new atheists" so that he can bring to mind others who are venturing outside of their fields, and then spread the guilt to Dennet by association. - The new atheists are bigots, not willing to take religion seriously.
Again, the idea is to discredit by calling names. Notice, by the way, that D'Souza is winding up his final statement by doing exactly what he promised not to do in the first sentence—he is reducing the argument to a cartoon debate, based on mud-slinging. - We should take seriously what most people, for most of human history have taken seriously, and even now. [religion]
Pure political rhetoric again: most people, for most of human history have believed that the sun circled the earth. This is not evidence about the existence or nature of God; it's an emotional argument for siding with D'Souza.
Also note how, suddenly, Hindus and Muslims and worshipers of Thor are all on D'Souza's side. Atheists are closed minded and dismissive because they don't take the idea of Thor, or Bacchus, or Krishna literally and seriously. - "So, ultimately, this provincial, you may say North-Eastern atheism of the academy that snickers at the whole world as being a bunch of idiots..."
This hardly needs a gloss. Political rhetoric, mud-slinging, anti-intelectualism, anti-North-Easternism (horrors!), name-calling... - If you produce 2/3 of the people on the planet who see a UFO on a daily basis I'll take them seriously...
For one brief moment at the end, he returns to a scientific rhetoric. The actual experience of God, by 2/3's of the people on the planet, would be evidence, and it would address the question.
D'Souza doesn't care to develop the point, however, but only makes it in passing. (As an ex-believer, and one who has had those God-experiences, I have a lot to say about them, but this is not the place.)
Unfortunately for D'Souza, the claim he makes here, in the form he makes it, falls to pieces on a moment's examination, It depends on his lumping together a great many people of different religions who have contradictory beliefs and experiences concerning God. (And incidentally points out the wisdom in the way Dennett began the debate.)
Also, his use of UFOs as an analogy is too apt. Yes, if that many people saw a UFO, any intelligent person would take them seriously—but that would not extend to taking their speculations about the object being from Andromeda, or about the moral desires of the pilot, seriously. For that, we would require more evidence. - After that brief flirtation with the actual question, D'Souza returns to name calling. He implies that Dennett thinks he's superior to non-academics, and that Dennetts proposal is frivolous. He then says he agrees with it, in spirit, but that he objects to Dennett being the one to carry it out.
So his attack ends with a final bit of unsubstantiated mud-slinging.
D'Souza manages to close on a note which implies that the debate topic was whether we preferred common sense, ordinary Christian folk, or North-Eastern atheist intellectuals who snicker at common ordinary Christian folk.
This is all to his benefit, since he has conceded practically every important point.
And the debate ends.
I won't be commenting on the question and answer period, but I will be putting together a chart giving the fundamental positions of the two debaters, the nature of each argument, and quality of its support.
