Writers Dinesh D’Souza and Christopher Hitchens brought their polemics on religion and atheism to a debate Monday evening at the University of Colorado at Boulder before a sold-out crowd of 2,050 in the campus’ Macky Auditorium.
D’Souza, author of the book “What’s So Great about Christianity,” argued that Christianity is the foundation for many common values such as scientific inquiry and respect for the individual. Additionally, he asserted that Christianity proposes the best answer for bridging the chasm between man and God.
Hitchens, a prominent atheist and author of the book “God is not Great,” argued that religion’s influence is largely bad for the world. He said religion makes otherwise good people do bad things, forestalls human thought, and limits human responsibility.
D’Souza opened his initial argument by stating he would debate on “the ground of reason alone.” He listed what he believed to be important to all people, including atheists: concern about the idea of the individual, science as an autonomous enterprise, the equal dignity of women, the abolition of slavery, and compassion.
“Christianity brought these values into the world,” he argued, claiming that slavery was abolished in Christian societies between the fourth and tenth centuries.
Modern science, he said, was “faith-based” in that it was rooted in Christian assumptions. We presume that we live in a lawful, rational universe whose external rationality is mirrored in our own minds, presumptions nourished by Christianity.
“It is no accident that modern science developed in Western culture,” he said
With the chasm between believers and the world widening, it is important that we be able to provide an answer for what we believe. Our faith does not stand in opposition to science. In fact, it provides a moral base for reason.
But what do you think?
Michael