Catholic apologist Dinesh D’Souza has debated many atheists. Many of the debates have been rancorous, but some of the more congenial ones have been with atheist Michael Shermer, editor of SKEPTIC and columnist for SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. Politically Shermer is a libertarian — and therefore not far from D’Souza’s own views — and also Shermer isn’t viscerally anti-religious in the way that Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins are. Shermer concedes that Christianity has done a lot of good in history. He also concedes the crimes of atheist regimes, although his argument is that human beings do terrible things for their own selfish purposes and so neither religion nor atheism should be responsible for the offenses perpetrated in their name. He is saying, in effect, that Christianity doesn’t have to answer for the Inquisition, and atheism doesn’t have to answer for the Stalin show trials.
Shermer wrote a nice blurb D’Souza’s book WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY, saying D’Souza is a serious scholar who had taken the debate to a new level. That brought Shermer some abuse on the atheist websites. D’Souza asked Shermer during the debate: shouldn’t atheists stop saying they are more intelligent than believers? He elaborated that it is one of the central themes of the new atheism that nonbelief is driven by reason while religious belief is driven by “blind faith.” D’Souza’s point was that both positions were based on reason, and that both positions were also rooted in metaphysical presumptions that required an element of faith. Shermer readily agreed. This is an important concession because if atheism doesn’t have intellectual superiority over religious belief, what does it have?
Shermer suggested that atheism may have moral superiority. He pointed out that Europeans and particularly Scandinavians have lower divorce rates and lower crime rates than Americans, even though Americans are more religious. Within America, Shermer cited some data to suggest that blue states like Massachusetts and Maine have fewer social pathologies than red states like Mississippi and South Carolina. These analogies camouflage more than they illuminate. There are huge differences between America and Europe that have to be taken into account. Similarly the pathologies of the red states may have far more to do with poverty than they do with Christianity. C.S. Lewis noted that religion also has a “selection effect”: people with problems often tend to look to religion for answers, for the same reason that people who are sick tend to show up at the doctor’s office.
Still, Shermer raises a valid question when he asks: does religion make you a better person? This is a very different question from asking whether religious people are better than non-religious people. The Christian answer is that they are not. “Out of the crooked timber of humanity,” Immanuel Kant said, “no straight thing was ever made.” We are all bent in this sense, and we are all in need of redemption. Shermer’s challenge is that if God is real in your life, it should shape how you are and how you behave. D’Souza has been examining the data on whether Christianity improves people in terms of making them more socially responsible and altruistic.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #17305]