The Great Debate: Dinesh D’Souza v. Michael Shermer (part 1)

[gokschi]

Is he aware of the fact that all of his arguments are invalid, simply because there is no and never were an "atheist commmunity" on which he blames all those horrible things. He is treating Atheists like another religion. I hope you all understand that it isn't.

[tamaduni]

All the Greeks were educated in Egypt

[tamaduni]

Civilization is much older than Greece

[tamaduni]

The Egyptians were more advanced than the Greeks ---they had MAAT

[ElPapasitoLopez]

This is just foucking great

[kg6120]

No, without God you could not be good because without God you wouldn't exist. Simple...

[sykregen784]

At 20:40 you can hear Michael Shermer laughing

[vietorkorean]

the Indian guy speaks English superbly well for someone who came over to the US in his adulthood.

[amstellori]

@vietorkorean Lots of people in India speak good English. What backwater do you come from?

[vietorkorean]

@amstellori

i come from the "backwater" that is called Silicone Valley. A lot of Indians live here and only the ones that were born here can speak without an Indian accent like Dinesh. Learn ur shit before writing a comment fucktard.

[amstellori]

@vietorkorean Your command of the English language proves my point. Did you go to school or were you home taught by your illiterate parents? lol.

[kablamo9999]

Can we be good without the firebreathing dragon in the garage?

[Seigu007]

To all atheists: your arguments from fallacy of exclusion in all of your posts dictate that you cannot provide sufficient proof where I have filled in the gaps for you, and you are not believable sorry, though I have tried I cannot take the giant leap of faith that you do. A tornado in a junkyard building us a Ferrari,talk about an even wider leap of faith!

[Surroundx]

@Seigu007 "sufficient proof"???

[Seigu007]

@Surroundx *Waits and wonders if you’re going to tell us what your degree was, or if you’re going to evade again*

[Surroundx]

@Seigu007 What my degree was??? "If your going to evade again"??? Perhaps you're mistaking me for somebody else, because we have never conversed before.

[sonykroket]

@Seigu007

Fuck off, dickhead

[Seigu007]

@sonykroket Have you tried the pink-Unicorn forums yet? Much lighter reading, and much better suited to your logical understanding, and comprehension.

[VeritasLuxMea100]

I think Dinesh's main problem is that he wants to group all atheists together into one group. Granted sometimes atheists make this mistake of lumping all christians or muslims or hindus etc together, but I think if he understood that atheism is simply a response to a theists claims and not a comprehensive set of truth claims itself, his argument would need revision.

[VeritasLuxMea100]

8:02 "So where did the christians get this anti-slavery idea, they got it from a theological premise: we are created equal in the eyes of god"

Question: Where did this premise come from if not from their holy religious texts? If from the texts, where is this premise found? If from scriptures, did he not say he would not argue from scriptures?

Discussion: It seems to me from my reading of the scriptures that god was indifferent towards if not in favor of slavery.

[WayneLynch69]

"100 million deaths in 50 years" ("The Black Book of Communism", Harvard Univ. Press-2010). Atheism was MANDATED by every Communist country. If they'd killed 70, but dictated Catholicism, the deafening chorus from asstheists would be "RELIGION KILLS"

Ok! Let's try to make it comprehensible even to moron atheists:

Where's your Walden Pond-Potemkin Village where atheism has demonstrated it's benign virtue? Not hot-house flowers like Sweden..extant ONLY because of "theocratic" U.S./U.K.'s

[Surroundx]

@WayneLynch69 Yes but whether atheism is benign or destructive has nothing to do with the TRUTH of atheism. The two are completely unconnected.

[EsenHanIm]

Mmaaan, I couldn finish listening, this man is so condescending. It is all the more annoying since his convictions are nothing but sanctified misunderstandings, as JCampbell put it beautifully.

[Requiemxtoxinnocence]

If King david had the technology we had today he would've certainly killed more, same goes for the crusaders, and everybody else with a religious regime. Not to mention atheism can't be blamed for those tyrants, perhaps communism, stalinism, and whatever actual ideology could be blamed instead seeing as how they are ideologies unlike atheism.

[Thayer79]

Imagine Bin Laden or the Spanish inquisition with the tech and resources of the US in just the 1940s. They would make Hitler proud. Pathetic

[Thayer79]

Dinesh uses "atheistic" regimes commonly, but what he forgets is two things. There is a distinction in the technology available between the two examples (if they had the ability then the religious would have killed more WITHOUT a doubt) AND the fact that those regimes were either religious OR only wanted religion gone, so that there was no authority beyond their own. in effect they created their own religion that placed them at the top as deities, instead of another deity.

[Thayer79]

Keep in mind that Dinesh intentionally lies and quote mines people. Not trying to skew the argument, just being truthful about him. He's been called out on it many times, but he has refused to acknowledge it. That's the problem with doing it to people who are STILL ALIVE.

[sonykroket]

Dinesh is a snakeoil-salesman

[kaunaskas]

Bravo Dinesh! We all should know our assumptions, we don't have proofs for all around us, what is that we take by faith, betting on - learn and evaluate how 'reasonable' our beliefs are!

[c6gunner]

@kaunaskas yes, bravo arguments from ignorance!

[kaunaskas]

Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate

[554466551]

Dinesh demonstrates that he still does not understand why Hitchens brings up North Korea as the present day example of why the so-called atheist regimes are not valid examples of atheist societies. The Caligulas involved do not oust religion for the sake of purging superstition from their society. They do it so there is no other gods for the people to focus on but the dear leader. Dinesh's argument is not against atheism but tyranny. Atheism is not tyrannical by nature. Religion is.

[TheSlothHead]

I think if you want to make this Atheist regime argument, you lose for being a fucking idiot. Not to mention that atheists have to have faith about the rational world. You wanker Dinesh, go jump of a cliff. I can give you the prediction without faith. It just follows the experimental record.

[excsa62]

islam rule the world!..only islam can bring peace to the world.

[bubbah]

Atheism is not an ideology, you dumb fucking moron.

[Pahkasika0]

Y U SO DUMB?

[MrRedthief]

Compassion was brought into the world by christ? Once again Dinesh lies.

[SezSays]

Why are people convinced that anything good comes from religious doctrine? Isn't it PAINFULLY obvious that these teachings are cherrypicked. Not just in modern times, but historically as well. So there was a social movement to abolish slavery. Than when asked "on what authority" they cherrypicked the bible for passages which support that claim. How can anyone even BEGIN to defend themselves for cherrypicking? How can anyone even BEGIN to claim that any social movement originated from scripture?

[d3st88]

YHAAAAAARGH, D'Souza, you dumb fuck.

[Linkous12]

I can't believe people still pull the whole "atheist regimes" argument.

[Blackopjeff]

@Linkous12 Is it false?

[Linkous12]

@Blackopjeff It is. Anyone who believes regimes such as Mao's, Pol Pot's, or Stalin's were as brutal and deranged as they were was because of their rejection of religion doesn't know much about history, nor about how similar their personality cults and ideologies were TO religion. These regimes went so badly because they were TOO MUCH like religion.

[Blackopjeff]

@Linkous12 @Linkous12 So again religion gets the blame? Lol come on bro be intellectually honest with yourself. The majority of religion talks about love and the golden rule... The only ONE violent religion i can think of is Jihad and those muslim sects but they werent as big if not at all during those times when Stalin and Mao reign....

[Linkous12]

@Blackopjeff 1) Jihad isn't a religion. 2) In the case of these regimes, religion doesn't get the blame, ideology does (which religion is). Believing things without evidence (faith) is very dangerous. 3) Even if it were true that the majority of religion talks about doing good things (which may be only true because secularism has dragged it kicking and screaming out of the dark ages), it says nothing about it's validity.

[Blackopjeff]

@Linkous12 Where is your evidence for secularism doing that?

[Linkous12]

@Blackopjeff Nothing to say about my other responses? Religion, especially Christianity, has been made to reevaluate itself time after time due to modernity and secularism. We would still be living in theocratic despotisms (like in the Dark and Middle Ages) if we didn't have mass secular movements like the Enlightenment, which was largely a scientific movements.

[Blackopjeff]

@Linkous12 Sorry I forget all about this. Interesting you brought up the Enlightenment, that was during Sir Issac Newtons time right?

[proximaism]

@Linkous12 why not?,you pathetic atheists keep talking about the crimes of religion in the past,then why not talk about the crimes of atheism too.

[Linkous12]

@proximaism You must not be following the conversation between Blackopjeff and myself, or you would have found my response already. (I usually don't respond to comments that start with an insult, but here I am.)

[photodube]

5:44 in and I'm already rolling my eyes at D'Souza. What dumb arguments he makes.

[DirtyScab]

Did anyone else giggle when he said "do do" at 13:58?

[jaca1]

Liar or insane? You guys decide

[Kadathian]

Bold claims. But then again, religion tends to lean that way when making some.

[Brandt761]

Isn't Dinesh the biggest clown? Didn't he write that weird book about Obama?

[gashyna]

@PostITnoteGUY We will not agree on this. Chacun son goût.

[marcarmstrong88]

he seems to talk a lot about what hes not talking about

[PT109Boat]

Is telling the truth a Christian value?

I would have thought it was, being one of the ten commandments, but is Dinesh serious?

Can he really claim that compassion, a value brought by the monks in India, the Japanese, Chinese and even the bloody Aztecs who had rules for compassion on the elderly and children, was a Christian value?

How did the Aztecs apply Christian compassion on their laws? Unless Christ visited the Azt...

OMFG!!! DINESH IS A MORMON!

[marcarmstrong88]

@PT109Boat have to agree.. this guy doesn't bother to look 2 seconds in to how his points may stand up under slight scrutiny.

[gashyna]

@PostITnoteGUY I do not see people anyone addressing his points. They are attacking his character. People are saying things like they support the death penalty in Dinesh's case, he is a moron, he is uneducated, he is racist, he is misogynist, he is homophobic, he is elitist, he is a douchebag, he induces vomiting, his perspective is f*ck, and he is dishonest.

[dreadpiratedan]

@gashyna if you would like someone to address a point feel free to ask them. youtube comment sections aren't notorious for in depth criticisms, they're more often used for people to blow off steam and express their own opinions. you've not scored any points by saying that people are being rude.

[PT109Boat]

@gashyna He broke the ninth by saying that pre-Christian cultures did not apply compassion. Either he is completely ignoring all the social behaviours of the Arid-American Indians and Rules of the Meso-American Civilizations where compassion to nature and animals (Arid-Americans) and children and elderly (Meso-America) were essential...

or he is extremely ignorant.... a common product of your worldview.

Should we also add the pre-Christian Hindus and other Asian monks?

[keyser33]

Dinesh is alright, dont get me wrong, i'm an atheist but as far as defender of religion goes, this guy does have decent arguments versus spewing bible crap.

[gashyna]

I am not surprised to see a stream of profane, rude, and arrogant ad hominem comments coming from Michael Shermer followers. You probably do not see anything wrong with this behavior. This is the product of your worldview.

[dreadpiratedan]

@gashyna actually an ad hominem is an insult used in place of an argument. if anyone said here "i think dinesh is wrong because he's a big fat smelly head", then you'd have something to work with.

you probably don't have a problem with being an uneducated ass. this is a product of your worldview.

[dreadpiratedan]

i actually enjoyed watching dinesh bury himself under this pile of unstomachable drivel. he just handed the debate to shermer on a silver platter.

[ILYIAB]

I'm firmly against the death penalty. But in Dinesh's case.....

[manmadesounds]

Man, Dinesh is so difficult to listen to.

[Thayer79]

Christianity brought preciousness and value of human life? That's way we are all considered depraved sinners and need some objective source to be worth anything. Tha only value human life has, to christianity, is SOLELY dependant upon their god.

[aquietfire]

This intro has unleashed all the power of the casio demo button

[DebatesAndLectures]

that´s incredible ... even Kirk Cameron Bananas´argument is more convincing, than that kind of real-satire this guy is preforming

[DebatesAndLectures]

come on ... he not really believes the crape he is saying ....

[kablamo9999]

Is this guy even educated?

[kablamo9999]

The idea that there was no compassion before Christianity is so stupid it's not possible to even consider the possibility.

[checkunderyourbed]

This is quite ironic...I'm currently awake as of now at 2 am EST, writing an collegiate paper about just how moronic this racist, misogynist, homophobic, and elitist douchebag known as Dinesh D'Souza is. As you can all imagine, writing this paper makes me want to regurgitate everything I've eaten today on my PC. So I took a break and wandered onto YT only to find this f*ck on my subscription newsfeed. While his douchebaggery is horrible in skeptic debates, it only gets worse in political science

[etazra78]

Painful to watch this moron for 20 minutes straigt

[gashyna]

@etazra78 You obviously do not comprehend the definition of a moron. This man is highly intelligent and articulate.

[etazra78]

@gashyna not quite, I'd say highly deluted

[Micahthetatter]

@etazra78 whats painful about it? truth hurts huh

[etazra78]

@Micahthetatter Not as much as ignorance and selfdelution

[etazra78]

For some reason the beginning reminded me of a porn movie

[AlderDragon]

These "Atheist regimes" he speaks of were not harmful because of their atheism, but because of authoritarianism. They were power-hungry and had little care for human life. Christianity, on the other hand, has a holy book that instructed them to do those horrible things in the name of their religion.

[tinylittlegnat2]

18:45 Godwins law invoked. He is an educated individual and KNOWS Hitler was not an atheist yet calls his regime atheist. He is intentionally dishonest. He then goes on to try and tie communism to atheism. He lost the debate before Shermer even took the mic.

[jarden69]

How can Michael Shermer be a "Good Friend" of DINESH DOUCHE!

[jacobromu]

HA he said "Christianity was abolished" when he meant "Slavery was abolished".  Which is a wonderful freudian slip

[AR333]

Thanks for uploading this! I was just watching your debate with Sam Harris against Deepak Chopra.

D'Souza is skilled in the art of rhetoric. It doesn't make what he says any more true, but at least its not an incoherent puzzle of words a la Chopra.