Dinesh D’Souza takes on leading critics of the church from E.O. Wilson to Richard Dawkins, from Sam Harris to Christopher Hitchens, extolling how Christianity is at home in the arena of science and philosophy and can offer a recipe for lasting happiness in a disillusioned world. While considering the book, I found this review very insightful, An Argument Against the Atheists:
“Today’s Christians know that they do not, as their ancestors did, live in a society where God’s presence was unavoidable. No longer does Christianity form the moral basis of society. Many of us now reside in secular communities, where arguments drawn from the Bible or Christian revelation carry no weight, and where we hear a different language from that spoken in church.” That is the opening salvo from author Dinesh D’Souza in his new book, What’s So Great About Christianity.
Why does atheism reject God? This is the part I found fascinating, especially since it has been my conclusion for years!
Al Mohler writes: D’Souza’s strongest analysis comes when he considers the true character of the new atheism. It is, he suggests, a “pelvic revolt against God.” In other words, it is a revolt against Christian morality — especially sexual morality. This is not a new observation or argument, but D’Souza makes it exceptionally well:
My conclusion is that contrary to popular belief, atheism is not primarily an intellectual revolt, it is a moral revolt. Atheists don’t find God invisible so much as objectionable. They aren’t adjusting their desires to the truth, but rather the truth to fit their desires. This is something we can all identify with. It is a temptation even for believers. We want to be saved as long as we are not saved from our sins. We are quite willing to be saved from a whole host of social evils, from poverty to disease to war. But we want to leave untouched the personal evils, such as selfishness and lechery and pride. We need spiritual healing, but we do not want it. Like a supervisory parent, God gets in our way. This is the perennial appeal of atheism: it gets rid of the stern fellow with the long beard and liberates us for the pleasures of sin and depravity. The atheist seeks to get rid of moral judgment by getting rid of the judge.
I have thought this for years, not so much the sexual immorality part, but the fact that modern atheism wants to be accountable to no one. That statement sounds as if atheists are evil people, desiring to eliminate all moral codes. Not true. As a recent media report puts it, atheists want to spread the message that “we’re good people, just not God people.”
In the new book, unChristian, the author states that modern apologetics do not work in our postmodern relativistic society. Christianity just does not “click” using logical rational arguments for God’s existence. I believe we all evaluate the facts as we see them and choose to believe what we do based upon our interpretation of those facts. For atheism, I can’t help but think D’Souza’s point is valid.
Yes, I agree about Dawkins and this applies to most of the atheists I’ve met. Indeed, I actually share to a great extent their reservations about Christian morality and judgementalism, and I say that as a Christian (of a kind).
Consider the gnostic conception of God, which has been totally repressed since the early centuries. Here God is believed in absolutely and yet they too, or many of them, rejected ascetic sexual morality. Even those that didn’t, rejected God-as- Judge since they saw the devil as in control of the worlds machinations.
Here is an example of believers in and indeed experiencers of the transcendent, in God, who would share alot of the atheists moral perpectives I think. And yet why do the atheists so readily idenitfy God with the God of orthodox religiosity, and little else?
Personally I see most atheists as anti-religious. But so was Jesus in many crucial ways and so were many of the Prophets. That is a very considerable irony I find.
Merry Christmas.
Thanks Jonathan, this probably brings up a whole new topic about many in this generation who seem to be spiritual, or even be into Jesus, but can’t stand the church!