Blithering Blog-viations: Dinesh D’Souza Does the Dervish Dance Of The Delusional…
14 October 2007 by KA
(For the full cartoon, click here)
I became aware of this particularly irritating conservative mouthpiece via Pharyngula, via this piece as well as this one, and as this little ditty suggests, the fellow must indeed be somewhat batshit insane.
So, no little surprise when this sock muppet vomits up this really foolish piece of “wisdom” -
World’s Leading Atheist Now Believes in God
(It’s been a while since I’ve done a good fisking, so time to stretch the joints, and go to it.)
For the past half century, the leading atheist in the world was philosopher Anthony Flew. He wrote over 30 philosophical works laying the intellectual groundwork for nonbelief.
Right out the gate, D’Snooza really blows it. ‘Non-belief’ has had a colorful and diversified groundwork laid for many, many centuries. I do so despise folks who make it sound like it’s some fad, less than a few decades old.
He debated Christian apologists. He was widely cited in atheist literature and at atheist conventions. What distinguished Flew was how comprehensive and fully-developed his atheist philosophy was. Other philosophers, such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, espoused atheist beliefs but those beliefs were incidental to their philosophy. Atheism was Flew’s philosophy. HIs works such as Theology and Falsification and The Presumption of Atheism were considered classics of theist thought.
Here he plays the little ‘atheism is a religion too’ card, which would slip by the less-informed reader.
Then Anthony Flew became a believer, and his book There Is A God describes his intellectual journey. Go ahead and order this book, along with my new book, What’s So Great About Christianity. Together the two books represent what atheism has always dreaded: historically based, philosophically rich, scientifically fluent, logically reasoned refutations of atheism.
As to Flew, his change of heart really doesn’t represent the rest of us, since we don’t have any high priests, or rely heavily on authoritative figures. There’s plenty of folks who switch sides, and last I checked, religion’s getting marginalized on a regular basis, to where it hardly matters as much as once it did. “As the arteries harden, the heart softens”, as H. L. Mencken once said.
Flew had no say in my choice. Raise of hands: how many of you out there used this fellow as a basis? Anyone?
Note that:
A. The Flew book isn’t to be released till later this month,
B. It’s already received a mixed review on Amazon, and
C. D’Snooza’s obviously trying to hitch a ride to promote his book.
Flew says he has a lifelong commitment to going “where the evidence leads.” And now, he calmly says, the evidence leads to theism.
He’s English: of course he’s going to be calm about it. Yeesh.
His own past writings have been exposed as a “relic.” Flew writes, “My discovery of the divine has proceeded on a purely natural level, without any reference to supernatural phenomena…It has had no connection with any of the revealed religions. Nor do I claim to have had any personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or miraculous. My discovery of the divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith.”
That’s all well and good: I may just get his book, but not D’Snooza’s.
However, the following is good for a goggled giggle:
Flew’s argument for God combines science and philosophy, and I’ll let you discover it for yourself in his book.
Gee, thanks.
What I enjoyed was the way he uses simple analogies to expose atheist illogic. For instance, leading atheists seek to prove that the mind is no more than the brain. If the brain is destroyed, they say, we can’t use our minds. Therefore there is nothing to minds excerpt circuits and neurons. Flew gives the example of a child raised on a remote island who finds a satellite phone. Voices come out of the machine. The child recognizes these voices as human and is thrilled by the discovery that she has found a way to interact with other humans. Perhaps there is life outside the island! Then the elders of the tribe (if I may embellish Flew’s account, let’s call them Big Chief Dawkins, Grand Pooh Bah Dennett, and Witch Doctor Pinker) scorn the child and say, “Look, when we damage the instrument, the voices stop. So they’re obviously nothing more than sounds produced by the unique combination of metals and circuit boards. Forget about learning about other humans. From all the evidence we have, we are the only living creatures on earth. So go back to making sandcastles.” Who are the real dummies here?
I really do hope that D’Snooza’s quoting out of context, because that’s the fucking dumbest analogy I could’ve ever read. Complete non sequitor. First off, a human being is not ‘receiving signals’ from elsewhere. The human body is entirely self-contained: IOW’s, the brain is the sole source of our thoughts, responses, cogitations, etc. Are there any studies (I mean, serious studies, not cobbled up by a kook in a tinfoil hat) that even point to an outside source? Are we just meat puppets for your little cosmic baby sitter?
Of course, this is a squalid effort to portray atheists as blinkered, stubborn individuals who refuse to consider evidence contrary to what we as individuals would rather ‘believe’, but where is the evidence? Flew posits that the teleological argument is powerful in and of itself, and it is a toughie, I’ll grant that. But since this universe seems to be a black hole factory, and the abounding evidence that if there was a designer, the clown would be fired from the interior/exterior design department of any retailer in the US, we can pretty much scotch the whole concept. That is, if anyone minds the sheer incompetence of the job.
Anthony Flew has been banished from the atheist community. Anthologies have been reprinted removing his essays.
Community? We still don’t really have a community. Such is the way with free-thinkers. Which anthologies? I’m seriously curious.
Atheist websites condemn him as an apostate. (Atheist toleration does not extend to former atheists.)
To which I reply:
“For one man to say to another, “I tolerate you,” is an assumption of authority — not a disclaimer, but a waiver, of the right to persecute.” – Ingersoll
And since no one is tarring and feathering the man, I can safely assume that simple disagreement doesn’t constitute actual intolerance.
He doesn’t even make the case for Christianity, as I do.
?!?!? When exactly was that, D’Snooza? When you trotted out this little gem?
But perhaps God’s purpose in the world (I am only thinking aloud here) is to draw his creatures to him. And you have to admit that tragedies like this one at Virginia Tech help to do that!
Really, truly, these conservative mouthpieces just leave me a-goggle, when truculent dipsticks open their mouths and begin babbling some of the worst sort of nonsenses.
But Anthony flew out of the atheist cuckoo’s nest, leaving anger and confusion among the unbelievers.
Really, now: I know there’s probably some ticked off atheists out there, but then, this is one guy, out of a long, long list of non-believers. D’Snooza would have the average believer think we were on the fucking ropes here.
Not even close.
And religion is the cuckoo, here, folks. Brief synopsis: the cuckoo bird lays its eggs in another species’ nest, and the offspring end up hoarding the food and shoving its nest-mates out. History will bear out this analogy. Christianity alone has laid its eggs in far too many cultures, and forced its backwards ways on too many folks for far too long.
And now Flew tells us why he rejects atheism. The atheist monopoly on public debate is over: the theists are striking back.
Monopoly? What planet is this guy living on? Bizarro World? The US is virtually inundated with crap about religion, it’s fucking everywhere. Challenging the delusory status quo is the American Way, it’s what we do, in the (far too) slow maturation process of humanity.
Really, these cheap histrionics pretty much make Dinesh D’Snooza (who needs to seriously wake his ass up) the latest version of the Jerry Springer of journalism.
Is anyone reeling from the impact? Slapping the ring tarmac? ‘Cause I’m telling you, folks: I’m still waiting for a knockout punch, and thus far, am still standing with my dukes up. I’m still waiting for a contender.
This is the Apostate signing off. Till the next post, then.
14 October 2007, on 9:31 am
Never heard of Flew. So his influence on me, less than zero.
14 October 2007, on 10:03 am
I’m in agreement with Revenant. I’ve never heard of Flew. His ideas had no influence on my atheism and his late life ‘change of heart’ will have equal impact.
When I hear of an atheist finding religion my only reaction is to feel bad for them.
I always assume some personal tragedy must have occurred to cause the back peddling into the safety of the cave.
That or mental illness has taken hold.
14 October 2007, on 10:17 am
I’ve never heard of Anthony Flew, either.
But what really disturbed me here was this quote: But perhaps God’s purpose in the world (I am only thinking aloud here) is to draw his creatures to him. And you have to admit that tragedies like this one at Virginia Tech help to do that!
I’m having a hard time believing that anyone would say something so awful! God had to have over 30 innocent people gunned down senselessly to have more people drawn to him?! What the fuck?!
And shouldn’t you do good things to draw people to you? When I want people to be around me, I be nice to them.
14 October 2007, on 10:35 am
The only way I’d ever heard of Flew, was in this same sort of reference, to his return to the stupitastic fold. I’ve never read his books, never heard him cited in atheist circles, never seen him listed up there with Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, or Hitchens. Although, gee, I have heard of Russell and Heidegger. Go figure.
I suppose he’s that treasured fuckwit anomaly, the Frances Collins/Scientist Who Went Irrational, the Stephen Baldwin/Liberal Actor Turned Jeebus Swallower, the Head(from Korn)/Rockstar Gone Godbuggered.
The sensational shouts of “See, See! We’ve got scientists(1), actors(1…2, if you count Mel Gibson), and rockers(1) on our side, too!” just leave one thinking how desperate they sound and how solidly they’ve bought in to the fact that we’re cooler than they are- social adolescents.
As for D’Souza- and this applies to Malkin as well, he’s fortunate that his conservative masters will never eliminate enough of their “liberal” rivals to have time to turn to the task of weeding out the darker stains on their precious white social fabric.
14 October 2007, on 10:57 am
Which means his logic chip wasn’t screwed in too firmly in the first place, since bad things happen to religious people as often as non-religious. Hell, more often because there are more sheeple.
14 October 2007, on 11:12 am
Who the heck is Anthony Flew? Am I missing something? Both Heidegger and Russell are REQUIRED READING…. but Anthony Flew? Is he on the extra credit reading list? I cannot find him in my syllabus. Maybe he’s one of those names ensconced in some back-back-back of the book index so that you can turn to a page of your textbook only to find a two word reference.
RDZ, I LOVED your quote, “(…) he’s fortunate enough tht his conservative masters will never eliminate enough of their ‘liberal rivals’ to have time to turn to the task of weeding out the darker stains on their precious white social fabric.” Beautiful.
You can ape them for only so long before you realize that you ain’t one of their kind…Doesn’t Mr. D’Souza come from a former British COLONY? He thinks Christianity is great? The boy ain’t right…he’s obviously delusional and self-loathing.
14 October 2007, on 11:58 am
Before his noisy declaration of deism, the main think I knew about Flew for is that he twice walked totally unprepared into a debate with a professional Christian apologist (actually, he may well have done that more than twice). That’s nothing to be proud of. The mindless insistence that he was the world’s leading atheist is shockingly dishonest. And while it’s true that some in the atheist community were confused and annoyed by Flew’s declaration of deism, the reason for the confusion is that Flew never bothered to make his reasons clear:
http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action=viewAsset&id=369
14 October 2007, on 1:22 pm
Don’t forget that Dinesh D’Souza also blames us for 9/11.
He’s just a wingnut welfare receipient like Michelle Malkin so that the right wing movement can have some brown faces to wave around and give them the illusion of diversity.
14 October 2007, on 2:00 pm
Yeah, never heard of him either. Had, say, Richard Dawkins come to the conclusion that there was a god, I would be inclined to look at the reasons for his doing so, because he shares the same perspective and position on the topic as most of us, so I’d be interested in how exactly he’d reconciled the ideas and what new evidence he’d found, if any. But that’s just the thing, religious folks expect us to just do the same because they think he’s our god or whatever, but in reality, we would try to figure out why he did it.
If he has enough evidence, call me a believer (same thing would happen if anybody else produced the evidence), but if his argument doesn’t hold up, then we just have to admit that he has become a wacko and part ways.
We may champion certain people who’ve acted as a voice for us by explaining the freethinking position, but that’s it, they’re a voice, not a leader. I don’t go home and scan through “A Candle in The Dark” going “WWSD?”
14 October 2007, on 2:16 pm
I think that the little analogy with the child in the island is nice, but the elders represent religion, and the child represents science.
14 October 2007, on 4:01 pm
Rev:
It sure is good to know I ain’t the only 1 who’d not heard of Flew. I recall a vague mention of him when 1st I began my foray into the rational side.
I got into a bit of a blog battle at Beep’s w/some piker, who claimed that Flew’s position was the ‘atheist by default’, Flew recanted (if that’s the right word), so my entire epistemology was flung out the window (according to the theist).
Subsequent research later, I found that d’Holbach was the originator of that concept.
Sadly (for any of the wacka-woos who use it), we’re not a religion, so that doesn’t quite work.
Stardust:
Sadly, this is a common theme among the xtians. I did a post on this some time back, on that flick ‘the exorcism of emily rose’:
http://biblioblography.blogspot.com/2006/01/exorcism-of-emily-rose-study-in.html
‘Give ‘em hell so they’ll believe in heaven’ is a very, VERY common conceit among the sheeple.
RDG:
You say something here that occurred to me as well – but I restrained myself.
Very much reminds me of that CNN imbroglio – you know, the 1 w/2 black folks & 1 jewish woman, the Zahn ‘Why are atheists hated so much?’ My theory is that they trot out minorities, so there’s less ramifications. Or noise.
Tommy:
Yeah, well, I hear it got a LOTTA flack, even from the right-wingers. Probably because it’s stupid as, if not stupider, than Falwell/Robertson’s declarations of ‘the sinners brought it on us!’
I think ‘D’Snooza Gump’ is a pretty good nick for him – ‘Religious is as religious does’.
Zipi:
Actually, you’re right: it DOES work in that context.
14 October 2007, on 9:51 pm
I’ve read that D’Souza’s nickname in some circles is “Distort D’Newsa”.
14 October 2007, on 9:52 pm
Approximately a year ago, Dinesh D’Souza wrote an op-ed piece for, as I recall, USA Today, in which he tried to rebut Hawkins and Harris. He claimed something to the effect, “Atheism is the real force behind the mass murders of history, not religion.” As examples he used Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
I emailed him pointing out several quotes of Hitler claiming to be a Christian, specifically a Roman Catholic. I asked him for a reference for Stalin being an atheist and asked if he considered everybody of Eastern religions atheists.
D’Souza responded, referring to “tired old quotations,” and saying that I should look at their “atheist ideology” rather that what they said they believed!
So much for D’Souza being either knowledgeable or anchored in reality.
Anthony Flew, in his old age, has perhaps changed to become an agnostic or at the most a Deist. There are a couple of items on the Internet indicating that he may even be a little mentally confused. But he still has disavowed a belief in an old Arab broad riding around the desert on a jackass that becomes pregnant with out really doing it.
15 October 2007, on 8:17 am
Nooooooo! Not Tony! Oh, my un-god!
I’ve read about Flew in Free Inquiry, at least he isn’t an old ninny like Muggeridge…so far as I read.
Miss Sarah, Haldemann-Julius wrote of and quoted a man who stated that WWI was worth it if it caused one soul to be saved. He was outraged, as anyone with an iota od sense would be.
15 October 2007, on 11:53 am
teleological argument is not a toughie at all because it just leads to a sort of circular argument. If order, purpose, design etc. are evidence of a creator. That creator must also have those same qualities so that must imply a greater creator–once again with the same qualities–or that the “creator” was derived from the order, purpose, design, etc. in a universe.
If there were a creator for our little universe, it would have to have been created from a larger, sort of mega-universe. But it would still be the result of a process, not the cause.
15 October 2007, on 12:18 pm
One Flew, over the cuckoo’s nest…
with apologies to Ken Kesey.
15 October 2007, on 7:00 pm
Is anyone familiar with Flew’s argument? Perhaps his rationalization for atheism is just as uninformative as his theological one. I suppose it is fair for the nutters to give examples of conversion as atheists do the same.
bernarda – all theological arguments end up being circular.
RDZ – Exactly. Racism + Religion = Republican
I have a difficult time putting any real credence in a death bed conversion. Old people are confused.
15 October 2007, on 11:06 pm
I told my grandmother- on what may as well have been her deathbed, “I love you, Grandma.”
“That’s okay. I’ll wash it off,” she replied, then proceeded to renounce her Primitive Baptist doctrine- though my family only has my word to go on.
16 October 2007, on 3:11 am
On the brain-phone analogy. Although pretty damning, the most devastating counter argument isn’t the perceived lack of communication between the brain and some ’soul’ or whatever, because it might be that we just can’t detect it. What really brings down mind/body dualism is the fact that changes in the brain can alter the aspects of human behaviour that we take to be the very essence of being a human, i.e. our personality, rationality and other such qualities. This leaves precious little of substance to the out-of-body soul.
16 October 2007, on 11:41 am
…Who?
Seems this guy only exists because they couldn’t convert an actual competent atheist.
16 October 2007, on 12:11 pm
How would D’Stupid explain a person that has a deformed brain? Is the “soul” undamaged even if the brain is? What an ass-pirate.
16 October 2007, on 12:27 pm
I’ve heard of Flew as the originator of the term “No True Scotsman.”
Isn’t the groundwork of nonbelief simply not being gullible?
16 October 2007, on 2:17 pm
I think the religious texts of the world are the real groundwork for non-belief. Being raised Catholic I was told loads of real far-out fairytales in Sunday school and church and those fairytales are what led to my dismissal of their reality – not some philosopher I’d never heard of.
Thanks for your great post and for defending us atheists from baseless insults by the likes of Dinesh D’Souza and his proselytizing and paranoia.
17 October 2007, on 12:31 am
Bernarda – the nutshell version of what you’re describing is called ‘Infinite regression’. There are numerous arguments against teleology, all of them good, most of which I’m familiar w/.
Flaky:
Well, that happens to be a counter-point most theists use when confronted w/the resounding silence of their deity.
Not provokin’, just sayin’.
Just to play the devil’s advocate (is there a secular word-play similar to that?), altering the circuitry so the phone doesn’t work, doesn’t mean the signal ain’t there.
Heehee.
VL:
Well, I’m still gonna use it, regardless of who came up w/it.
A good point isn’t tossed out because the originator did a 180 degree turn.
17 October 2007, on 1:17 am
Krystalline Apostate…
As to your:
“Just to play the devil’s advocate (is there a secular word-play similar to that?)”
Yeah…”devil’s advocate” is a really old pet peeve of mine.
I maintain it was instituted by medieval theologian/philosophers to intentionally demonize rational thought; and by extension…any real questioning, critical thinking. In other words, by associating any critiques, even very valid ones, with the “Devil”, the power of the critique is defused by making it seem rebellious, disobedient or potentially even…blasphemous. A kind of subtle scare tactic?
I may be wrong of course. In any event, I personally, and purposely, substitute…
“REASON’S ADVOCATE”; but then nobody really pays any attention to my rather obscure opinions!
Will I be forever anathematized?
17 October 2007, on 4:24 am
krystalline, You are right about that. I started out trying to create a sort of chicken-or-egg comparison and I drifted into infinite regression.
I should have separated them and presented it all more clearly.
17 October 2007, on 8:53 am
ChuckA:
Ummm…it was instituted by the RC’s, advocatus diaboli, used to argue against canonization.
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=devil%E2%80%99s%20advocate&gwp=16
23 October 2007, on 8:18 pm
I’ve heard of Flew – but it was here on GifS that I was introduced to him. Before? “Lo conocen en su casa,” as we say in the Dominican Republic (”they know him at home,” meaning “never heard of him”).
You know, once you’ve cottoned on the framing these sleazoid supernaturalists indulge in so heavily on the subject of atheism, you just can’t give their
ramblingswritings the same modicum of attention, consideration, or respect. This guy’s entire piece is one big not-collecting-stamps=hobby statement!28 October 2007, on 3:16 am
[...] As I’ve pointed out before, the teleological is the more difficult of these discussions, at least on a superficial level. Some simple investigation usually lays the majority of these items to rest. [...]
28 October 2007, on 10:41 pm
[...] I cannot bring myself to care much about the blatherings of Dinesh D’Souza (so ably dissected at Pharyngula and God is for Suckers!). Idiocy and ignorance aren’t news, folks. It’s a snooze fest. [...]