Debate - Dinesh D'Souza vs Christopher Hitchens - Is Christianity the Problem?

[tsunchoo]

The crowd's a bunch of idiots. Why listen to reason just to celebrate their disdain of it.

[1991rayder]

D'Souza is a very intellectually dishonest debater. What he is doing is very similar to what Bill O'Rielly does however he is masking his dishonesty in academic vocabulary and ducking questions in a more cunning and sarcastic manner. At least bill is straightforward. 

[wallstreetatheist]

D'Souza is the master of strawmen and misrepresented turned arguments

[hemeranox]

D'Souza got to end with his repulsive atheist's rebellion note.

Religion imposes a chain of morals that binds. Such that, when good is done, it is out of fear of hellfire or for the promise of salvation.

IMHO, when the faithful claims not to be motivated by these religious facts, they move with the same ideas and rationale an atheist does constantly.

An intuitive understanding of justice & obligation.

(If a god seeded this the, albeit not-so-nice, 10 commandments wouldn't be needed.)

[JMC9884]

Dinesh D'Souza owned Hitchens. Praise God forever! I love you Lord and I thank you for your intimate relationship with me. You are my father and my best friend. I pray that those who do not know you will come to know your amazing love. If only they would believe. If they seek you they will find you.

[SophiasHeir]

So, after all God has chosen ones? Dinesh is totally oblivious that GOD is just, fair and preaches equality. How come, would GOD send a chosen one and give him special powers? :\

[CharlotteElliot]

Dsouza is thick a completely laughable ignorant floating turd about to be flushed down down the toilet. Im dsouza Im a floating brown turd, im smelly and brown, slippery and i come out of mens bums

[jamaicanification]

well, on the issue of the speed of light, cern certainly proved dinesh right

[PhilMyth08]

I've not come across this Dinesh D'Souza before but I find him the most contemptible man I've ever had the displeasure of listening to. His arguments are ignorant and laughable. I'm a little disappointed Hitch didn't subject him to greater scrutiny or tore him apart with the ferocity I've seen him do elsewhere. But as I gather this is the third time he has debated him, I daresay Hitch may have given up countering his idiotic statements as the points he's made in the past just haven't sunk in.

[Lijacote]

Dinesh is an annoying moron. 

[russellrummage]

Here's my two bits on the fine tuning. It's assumed there are many different dials to tune, yet we come from a near perfectly symmetrical state of high order. THAT is the basis, and everything else is a manifestation of it after symmetry breaking (or phase transition). So when thought of that way it doesn't really seem like a problem, as it's not that the seperate things are tuned, more that each parameter is the same thing. So hard to explain, but I hope at least one person gets what I mean.

[aPpLeJuIcE37RainLucy]

@russellrummage i think i somewhat understand what you are getting at. please correct me if i'm wrong (i've had a few beers) but you are saying these things come in a "package" and that this package must coordinate with itself in-order to even exist?... i'm probably way off haha

[russellrummage]

@aPpLeJuIcE37RainLucy Yeah you're getting it, I'm no scientist myself, just an enthusiast. But when people say the gravitational force can't be altered, they're keeping the other dials the same. I think that if you change one dial, the rest are tuned proportionally, as we only have the finite Universe. To keep the other dials the same is the same as having 'something out of nothing'....maybe haha.

[aPpLeJuIcE37RainLucy]

@russellrummage very interesting! you could be right!!

[russellrummage]

@aPpLeJuIcE37RainLucy Thanks! But I doubt it. It's a fanciful answer, but no more fanciful than the question, as who says any dial can be tweaked? For all we know it's impossible.

[aPpLeJuIcE37RainLucy]

@russellrummage haha i like the idea! i really like the multi-verse hypothesis. unfortunately it's probably impossible to ever test or examine. but i really do think it could be true.

your idea of change one, they all change is pretty clever. we may never know!!!!

[russellrummage]

@aPpLeJuIcE37RainLucy Well my idea is that you can't just change one, because we are from the same initial state, so there really aren't any different dials to turn, they're all the same thing. But yeah, that they'd (maybe) change proportianally even if you could...hypothetically of course. I like the multiverse too, wave collapse needs an explanation. Off topic, but may I suggest you look up Bohm's holographic principle if you really want your mind blown!

[aPpLeJuIcE37RainLucy]

@russellrummage ahh i see. yes that makes sense. wave collapse? i don't think i know what that is. i might have to look into that too.

but yes i will definitely look at Bohm's holographic principle! nothing better than a mind blow! haha

[TACaMAC]

Dinesh was much more enjoyable to listen to than Hitchens. I enjoyed his humor, manner of speaking, humbleness, and especially the content.

[JerzeeDevil09]

For all those writing Dinesh off, Hitchens himself calls Dinesh a "formidable opponent", so clearly he sees some intellect in some of dineshs points (even if he doesnt agree with them) so either you far surpass Hitchen's exceedingly high intelligence, or you came to this video with absolutely no intention to take in any form of new information.

[2yung4grey]

@JerzeeDevil09 ya, i think dinesh did a pretty descent job(compared to some of the other ones) but i honestly think hitchens wasnt really trying on this one!.

[emilram]

Dinesh= idiot.

[MrSB1274]

Hitchens: "theres a promise of eternal life if you only make the right propitiations...and to teach that is at the height of immorality..." He is very talented at one thing: demonstrating that he has no idea what christianity actually teaches...

[geneolune]

@MrSB1274 -"He is very talented at one thing: demonstrating that he has no idea what christianity actually teaches..." - I am certain that Prof. Hitchens knows exactly what Xtianity teaches, as do I -- take no thought for the morrow, kill disobedient children, kill those who would not have Jesus "reign", pluck out your eyeballs if you are attracted to a woman (what about "be fruitful and multiply"?), women cannot teach or speak in church, Jonah lived in a fish, we all come from Adam and Eve...

[MrSB1274]

@geneolune : And your comment proves my point.

[geneolune]

@MrSB1274 - No - no, it does not prove your point. It shows how credulous and superstitious -- and even moronic -- the characters of the times were. Pluck out your eyes?? Jeez!

[SophiasHeir]

@MrSB1274 no. That's what christianity fends for. That's pure propaganda of fear and it has a pertinent meaning if you contextualize yourself. God doesn't say he's going to save us all. He's going to destroy the iniquious and send them to hell. That's so primitive coming from an omnipotent, omniscient God. One that could simply erase all evil in the world...

Oh but wait... here we go with the old argument of free will...

[MrSB1274]

@SophiasHeir : If you understand the bible, you'd find that we send ourselves to hell. Its self chosen. In the same way that we separate those who oppose obedience to society, in jails, God also separates those who oppose him from those who obey him. God would not be loving if he did not separate those who love him from those who dont.

[SophiasHeir]

@MrSB1274 No it's not. People who were raised believing that killing nigros is OK, because that's what GOD commanded them to do, won't be sending theirselves to hell only because your new GOD decides it's not ok to kill nigros. And who the hell created hell? Wasn't it GOD?

[MrSB1274]

@SophiasHeir : So your argument is that Hell is not self chosen. To support that assertion, you then use an incoherent run on sentence stating something about how God says its ok to kill "nigros" because he commanded them to do it, as if God commands people to do evil? Are you slow? Your logic above is the reason I dont even bother to respond to the idiots who patrol youtube trying to kill a God they dont even believe in. You need a life.

[SophiasHeir]

@MrSB1274 it's obviously you don't know your bible, the horrors it made people do and the progression it had until we got a benevolent GOD which cares and bla bla. I gave an example of how culture influences an individual... and now what? You seem to forget examples like the mayan, the natives that americans and Portuguese people forced and raped under the name of GOD.

It wasn't wrong to kill nigros, it wasn't wrong to enslave and rape. Read your bible... the old testament.

[MrSB1274]

@SophiasHeir: So...the bible made people do unspeakable horrors? Maybe it was PEOPLE who did unspeakable horrors. Dont blame a book for the problems that humanity faces. Its obvious you didn't listen to the debate, because you would have learned something about protestant christianity and the positive effect it has had as a force for good around the world. Note: when you make an argument, you have to back it up with reason and/or evidence to legitimize it. Both of which you dont seem capable of

[SophiasHeir]

@MrSB1274 While it is a fact that people commited those horrors against others based on utmost ignorance, we should also bear in mind, that people were greatly influenced by such cultural genetics inspired by the bible. It is clearly not a surprise when all the institutions were also supportive of such a primitive book and just for the case, we still got christian homophobics getting their influence on the name of GOD. Not to mention other issues that are detrimental to our society.

[MrSB1274]

Hitchens: "the problem is faith over reason and evidence" Well, sounds like d'souza gave far more reason and evidence for his position on the topic of this debate than hitchens did.

[MrSB1274]

"quite some design...and quite some designer" after not answering the question. Wow hitch, you are incredible. Let me bow down to your intellect and strawman arguments

[gauravnainwal]

I must say, although Hitchens usually has an upper hand over his opponents, in this debate Hitchens got owned !!

[BunnyMan456]

I will say nothing yet about the subjects debated, I'd rather focus on something that you will hear at about 0:59:03. Did you hear that laugh in the background? I've been to a few religious debates and each time I have been seated in front of that someone who thought it was ok to either comment or chortle or laugh out loud at EVERYTHING SAID IN THE DEBATE. Try not to be this person. Shut the hell up.

[gekritzl]

Hitch: "...and can't be believed by a thinking person." LOVE IT.

[Elayis2765]

D'Souza, like all other theologians, either hasn't done proper research on religion (by mistake or by choice) or he willfully lies about it to make Christianity seem great. He truly is ignorant. I'm constantly having to pause his segments, due to the unbearableness of his stupidity.

And on a purely superficial note, I hate his accent.

[samusssbm85]

Did D'Souza just claim that Christianity is the basis for democracy? Is he forgetting those ancient Athenians he was earlier bashing? The idea for democracy was born in ancient Greece. Christianity naturally lends itself toward monarchy. Just as there is an almighty king in heaven, there is an almighty king on earth.

[treasuredroperX]

I question whether D'souza exists?

[McLarenF1God]

Dinesh D'Souza is one of the worst debaters I've ever heard. He's not nearly as bad today as he was in this video, but my god, this is embarrassing.

[gekritzl]

@McLarenF1God - I know, D'Souza is terrible, yet in one debate (not sure if it was this one) my boy the Hitch actually says D'Souza is one of the best debaters Hitchens has come across. Maybe "best" means "easiest to beat." Love the Hitch.

[McLarenF1God]

Dinesh D'Souza is a conman.

[TheShadow20101]

Reasonable thinker: "Hey! this makes sense!"

Religious thinker: In one ear, out the other.

[sgunsgun2]

Obscurantism is required to justify any kind of religion.

[MaskedMarvyl]

Hooboy. Dinesh interprets Hitcens self-description of being an anti-theist, as "he hates God! He hates Jesus!". Uh, no, Dinesh. He is against theism, i.e., organized belief. That is a bizarre leap you are making there, and a dishonest one.

Also, if Christianity is BASED on "resurrection", that means that all of its truths hinge on that miracle, and that they can't stand on their own without it. That's a very insulting thing to say about Christian principles....

[sensimania1]

D'Souza is a good comedian thats about it you lost this one at every point long live Christopher Hitchens. I really cant believe you are serious D'Sousa 2000 people killed in the crusades where did you get that number this reference says over a million sounds about right it is really disgusting to see how nasty these so called religious defenders are full of lies and deceit.

[jq747]

D'Souza's opening arguments are laughable. "Atheists don't oppose unicorn-believers." Well unicorn-believers don't blow up school buses or start crusades, or go around stating that if you don't believe in unicorns you'll burn in hell. If they did, then... As for D'Souza's quoting a list of Christian scientists, especially Galileo, I nearly shot coffee thru my nose.

[Poxlajetik]

@jq747 Galileo was Christian, just because he got in trouble with the CATHOLIC church doesnt mean otherwise

[MrSB1274]

@jq747 You're right. Us christians are so scary...I guess we dont have to worry about those atheist/communist regimes led by men like mao, stalin, Hitler, pol pot... by the way, those men killed hundreds of millions....in one century. I'm glad you know you're history.

[MrSB1274]

@jq747 : Dont forget Roe v Wade as well. That death toll is 45 million and counting...yay for skirting personal accountability!

[MrSB1274]

So dinesh opens with a carefully and effectively stated argument and hitchens opens up with statements based on conjecture about christian theology of which he creates a very very attractive strawman. Last I checked, hitchens isn't a theologian, and demonstrates he knows nothing of what Christianity actually teaches. How can this guy even pass these words off as intelligent discourse? BOOK SALES

[JMC9884]

@jq747 i really feel bad for you. honestly