Daniel Dennett vs Dinesh D'Souza: God 7of14

Dinesh D'Souza, Christian and best-selling author, faced off against Tufts professor, author, and atheist Daniel Dennett in a debate on the existence of god.

Was God created by humans? Daniel Dennett and Dinesh D'Souza will offer up two different answers to that question in the Cabot Auditorium during a debate hosted by the Freethought Society.

In addition to being a philosophy professor at Tufts, Dennett is "one of the most well-known atheists around," according to Freethought Society President Pat Andriola. Dennett will be arguing in favor of the resolution, which states that God is a man-made invention.

D'Souza, a conservative Christian and best-selling author, will oppose it.

Provost Jamshed Bharucha will moderate the debate.

"Each debater, starting with Professor Dennett, is going to get 20 to 25 minutes to open up his case," Andriola said. Following these statements, they will get two five-minute rebuttals each.

Finally, there will be a question and answer session during which the debaters will field inquiries from the audience.

Check out these books,

"Darwin's dangerous idea" Dennett,
"What's so great about Christianity" D'Souza

Category:

Education

Tags:

• daniel
• dennett
• dinesh
• d'souza
• god
• christianity
• atheism
• evolution
• creationism

[TrueUnishred]

It's painful to watch Dinesh talk, He hardly understands what he talks about and what  professor Dennett says.

[EnigmaHood]

You can't kill in the name of atheism. You can't kill in the name of not believing in something. That makes as much sense as killing in the name of not believing in Santa.

[GjVj]

Holy fucking /FACEPALM, Dinesh.

"...done in the name of atheism."

Are you really that retarded?

[benthemiester]

@MomoTheBellyDancer His opposition to a creator concerning whats referred to as the fine tuning problem is that invoking a creator begs the question of infinite regression (who created the creator). We don't use this self defeating logic in paleontology, anthropology & forensic or other similar earth sciences.

When we find artifacts that show specified complexity like a cave paintings we cant just pretend that natural forces created them because we cant know who painter or his parents were.

[MomoTheBellyDancer]

@benthemiester

"n. Even Dawkins doesn't hand wave the the fine tuning of the universe and admits it is the best evidence for someone believing in God."

He does no such thing. He merely says that he understands why someone would come to the conclusion that a god did it, but we would still challenge that notion.

[benthemiester]

Dennett is mistaken, big bang cosmology came long after Darwin and in fact has nothing to do with Darwinism or the modern synthesis of evolution. Even Dawkins doesn't hand wave the the fine tuning of the universe and admits it is the best evidence for someone believing in God. Coming from Dawkin's that is an amazing statement. The Stalin argument is weak. A cult of personalities is not theism. Stalin never declared himself a God & If that's the case then Dawkins is a god. Strawman arguments.

[powderhunter127]

Dennet is a bumbling fool. He had no valid points to offer refuting dinesh's assertions in his opening statement. Elitist Intellectualism=pride.

[Bigbeechbum]

Dinesh D'Souza is parroting the typical apologist diatribe with the ad hominem attack on atheists. Marx's Communist Manifesto was, in my opinion, based on the biblical verses (Acts 2:44-45) & (Ex. 16:16-18). Hitler, Stalin, Mao et al. never killed anyone because they didn't convert to atheism, unlike their Christian, Muslim, or Jewish counterparts. Also, never has an indigenous peoples been considered non-human, therefore acceptable to slaughter, because they didn't follow the atheist precepts.

[Bigbeechbum]

D'Sousa is the #1 abuser of the strawman fallacy, but it is simpler just to call him out & let it go at that. The anthropic principle is a canard, in the 1st place & he is conveniently mis-stating it in the 2nd. If the 'knobs' where fiddled with we would be a different us. We could still be mono-cellular, apes, fish, maybe even reptilian, but we are here because the universe is in this configuration, it's not in this configuration so we can be here. That is so arrogant & anthropocentric. Silly!