http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...LY-05AK6-NGiCw

i just finished watching this debate and felt it was a very good topic of discussion, as both parties argue very well their sides. while i personally am not convinced by D'souza, his arguments are probably the best i have heard posed for his side and wish i could hear both parties allowed to go on outside the debate format. so SMP, what are your opinions of both sides, there are compelling points from Dinesh even if not based on that of god, then at least of the utility of religion.

I got excited when I saw your post as I had just finished watching the Dinish v. Dennet debate here:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,19...fts-University

When I saw D'Souza's name in your OP, I thought you were going to discuss what I had just spent over an hour watching. I think D'Souza is a great debater for the Christian side. I'll have to watch him v. Hitchens and comment.

this debate is old news.

I've watched most of the famous God debates including this one. I also watched the D'souza vs Dennett debate. As we all know, most people who take the God exists side of the debate don't really have an argument, and it's basically their job to cover up this inconvenient fact through the whole debate.

IMO, D'souza is by far the best debater for the God exists side that I have ever seen. He uses every trick in the book like shifting the burden of proof, bringing up the tireless Atheism leads to Nazism BS, and always arguing for a deist God instead of his Christian God and hoping the crowd doesn't notice the difference. His worse move by far was trying to claim Einstein as a theist. The reason this move was absolutely diabolical is because D'souza is too smart not to know that Einstein wasn't a theist. His only objective here is to give the crowd the impression of a controversy where none exists. D'souza basically breaks all the rules of logic. Almost all of his arguments are appeals to emotion and ignorance, but he is so damn charismatic it just doesn't matter. The crowd loves him. He's the antichrist for atheists.

well i didn't want to get into the debate of god, we all know how that ends around here. what i found most convincing about him is the argument for the utility of relgion. steven weinberg once spoke of a colleague who was an othodox jewish man that followed all the traditional customs of the faith but didn't believe in god. i'm wondering more along these lines of not whether or not relgious beliefs are accurate, but whether or not they are helpful

Long and brutal introduction, but then again, I'm not one for bad anecdotes.

wow i actually love Dennett's argument. i hadn't really known much about him but i actually like his approach much more than Dawkins or Hitchens. it is funny how D'souza uses the exact same arguments against two totally different opponents.

the difference between a lot of debaters and dsouza is that dsouza is a skilled debater and showman...he is very charismatic, speaks very well, knows some debating trickery/tactics/misdirection etc...contrast that to dennett who is merely speaking his part level and calm, he doesn't get over excited and he doesnt play on emotions in his presentation...hitchens is somewhere in between because he oftens plays to the audience w/ some comedy/wiseass/jerk stuff...

during a conversation w/ my dad he admitted that while he considers himself jewish he doesn't know if he believes in god or not...he said he considers god "an imaginary friend for adults" i think he heard the quote on some tv show...

Rating -
as entertainment for a highschool level audience.
D'sousa - 6/10 Hitchens 5/10

as actually making points in a debate for someone that is actually following the "arguments" -
D'sousa - 2/10 Hitchens - 5/10

Overall pretty poor by SMP standards. We see much better ones on here on both sides. ( and lots worse also).

Well I'm sure they are helpful for some people. My grandma once told me She wouldn't know what to do without her belief in God. She loves going to church, singing the songs and the overall camaraderie that comes with it. Religion can be a coping mechanism just like drugs, food, gambling, or hookers. I prefer the last one but to each his own. Do I think humanity needs religion as a coping device? I don't know. I think we need drugs more than religion but now I'm just speaking out of my ass. Since religion is the most likely culprit to end civilization as we know it, I always focus on the reality that in the long run religion is not helpful but very evil and very destructive.

Thanks to the OP for posting this, I really enjoy watching these debates.

Just go into it, watching D'souza's opening statement and I already can't stand the guy. Here's how he opened (paraphrasing)

"I'll open by making a positive statement, and then end the debate by correcting Hitchens' mistakes. We are living in an age in which atheists are becoming militant. I don't go around denouncing unicorns!"

Says he is going to open talking about the + of Xtianity, then IMMEDIATELY attacks Hitchens with a terrible analogy.

Anyways I don't really care about his personality, but hopefully his points are less terrible for the rest of this.

EDIT - then he says Xtianity is responsible for bringing equality, compassion, etc etc into the world? good lord....

i think D'souza is actually a much better arguer vs. Hitchens than Dennett, it is easy to mistake what he says to Hitchens as logically sound but Dennett's argument is so general that D'souza is forced to put words in his mouth, really entertaining

Wow, you’ve just inspired me to create a new T-shirt and sell it on E-bay, that in bright colors proclaims: DRUGS not RELIGION

The unfortunate problem that Hitchens had in the debate, was the technical rule that a debater answer the questioner and the other debater gets the final word. Nearly every ( or every) question was asked to Hitchens. He answered in a straight forward manner, then D’Souza got the final word, even if his final words were full of logical errors. Hitchens wasn’t allowed to challenge any of this. If an equal amount of questions were asked of D’Souza as Hitchens, then maybe the debate would have been more academically challenging for those interested in the points made. Unfortunately, Hitchens lost out because of a technicality.

Edit - not lost out in the overall debate, but lost out because of many points that unfortunately could not be made.

I think that the youtube God debates are a huge boon to the secular community. These debates seem to distill the best arguments for the secular/atheist side, and allow everyone to see how transparently weak the theists' arguments are. D'Souza is certainly among the best debaters out there (as the Hitch-monster acknowledges in his opening) and articulates is losing case well. (see also my posting of the Hitchens-D'Souza debate over socialism HERE.

That said, I think that the best adumbration (in the yootoob debates) for the theist side is found HERE. Wolpe is more articulate than D'Souza IMO. And Harris destroys him. Love the eyebrow.

For the worst of it, watch THIS to see how bad the religious side can look. Hitchens nuts all over Boteach's face. Boteach reall looks crazy, desparate and pathetic.

Yeah, D'souza really irritates me, but I think Hitchens could have done a better job refuting some of the more obvious refutables, in particular the idea that saying "I'm not really sure at this time, but I have a guess, though it's by no means set in stone" is as a much a leap of faith as "god did it" in response to the origin question. D'souza seems to be very uneven in his historical analysis, favouring, or at least seeming to, though I'm sure he would have slithered away had Hitchens challenged, the belief that our current scientific understanding of the universe and life is close to complete. His other arguments are the standards that had been discussed at length before.

The only argument presented that caught my eye is one near the end, when he seems to imply that Indian Christians, and other people upon whom Christianity was imposed, or their descendants, should thank their conquerors for Christianity. Should African-Americans thank slavers, because now they get to live in America?

Imo, I do think religion has been useful in some respects, and is not without merit, but it also promotes herd behavior to a dangerous degree, and is very selectively applied in order justify all kinds of terrible ****. I think it's outdated, and we can do better.

I've watched all Hitchen debates and IMO, this was by far Hitchen's worst performance. I never could figure out why this was so. I thought maybe Hitchen's ate something bad for dinner or maybe he was already tipsy before the debate After your post everything makes sense now.

I agree Hitchens comes off looking pretty bad in this debate. There were several times when I thought there were very easy/very important distinctions he had to make and he failed to mention them. Also, I have to say his debate etiquette was very sub-par here.

I don't see how people like D'Souza. He pretty much annoyed me the whole time. I really wish I knew whether he was committing such obvious logical fallacies on purpose or unknowingly. For example, he often said things like "evolution does not account for x, y, and z" and "atheists only have guesses to these issues". God from ignorance argument??

I thought Hitchens acted a little drunk. His joke that his favorite miracle was turning water into wine makes me think he enjoys his spirits. He may have enjoyed them a little too much before the debate.

I learned recently that competitive debates have become speed talking contests. Whoever makes the most points wins so whoever talks fastest makes the most points. On that basis Hitchens didn't have a chance.


PairTheBoard

actually hitchens is noted for his alcohol intake, not sure if i'd go so far as to say he is an alcoholic but he definitely likes his booze

I agree 100%. I remember thinking after Dennett's opening argument that there's no way D'souza can get out of this one. What I mean by "get out of this one" is even though we know D'souza can never win this debate, the question is can he still pull off the appearance of winning the debate to the layman. Unfortunately I think D'souza did just that and escaped without being exposed again. Near the end Dennett started to putter out and D'souza just kept talking and talking, and this is what the average joe will remember. IMO, Dennett doesn't have the stamina for these debates due to the fact that his tolerance for bull**** is very low. Dennett had home field advantage and an impeccable opening argument, but I still felt that D'souza did a good job of creating the illusion that he won the debate to the majority of people who are not well versed in logic. I'm convinced that if D'souza's wife caught him naked in bed with another women, he would not only successfully convince his wife he didn't cheat but that it was her fault he was with another woman in the first place.

It may seem like I'm asking too much when I say I want those who are not well versed in logic to walk away believing that the pro-God guy lost, but it can be done. Two examples come to mind:

Sam Harris completely obliterates Chris Hedges in this debate, making it difficult for anyone to walk away thinking Hedges won:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xj3R6GH3AY

As Hexag1 mentioned, Hitchens dominated Boteach to the point where I actually almost felt sorry him. Hexag1's words: "Hitchens nuts all over Boteach's face." are very accurate. I couldn't describe the outcome of that debate in better words. Hexag1 has the link to this one in case any are interested in watching.

I doubt anyone will ever be able to dominate D'souza like this because he works the crowd too well. He knows exactly how to prey on their weaknesses. Of course one might say that it's not about winning the crowd it's about the truth! Well when we're talking about making real progress I think winning the crowd is critical.

lol D'Souza.

What a charlatan, with his endless strawmen and bullying.

If would be easy to show how fos this guy is, by merely asking him some direct follow-up questions to his claims.

"matter, objects and planets follow rational principles"

"why should the goings on in our head match the goings on in the universe"

[x] worse than notready

That's not what I would call charismatic. This guy is super creepy, very aggressive and full of hatred. He can't speak calm at any point and can only preech with an insinuating voice.

In one of his other debates he is literally shouting the whole time.

I agree. Hitchens seems to have a prepared rebuttal for every silly God argument , but I think he was caught off guard on this one. Hopefully, Hitchens will have a more tailored response for the future. Also, I may be giving D'souza too much credit but I think he's smart enough to know the difference between those two statements but he knows the crowd won't "get it" which is why I think he'll keep butchering the definition of faith in future debates. This is why I hate D'souza. He doesn't care about the truth. He just wants to look good and he always succeeds because not enough people understand what he's doing.

Yeah that part made me throw up in my mouth.

I think he's charismatic in the sense that the average logically illiterate person, who represents the majority on this planet, will think he's charismatic. I think we all know that D'souza would get annihilated on 2+2.