Mal12345
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- Apr 19, 2011
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- 5w4
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- sx/sp
Dinesh D'Souza is a name I've known for some years, even decades. I had probably seen one of his articles in Objectivist literature when I was much younger, or seen him cited somewhere. But I had never really checked into his beliefs until someone here mentioned a new movie ("2016") which is based on one of his books.
In this video, D'Souza defends Christianity against its "new atheist" opponents. But his is a rational faith-based view that is rarely seen. One example of what I mean by "rational" comes from another youtube video in which he explains that it is rational for a cab driver to drive past a black male looking for a cab based on the driver's bad experiences with blacks. It is rational because he desires to be safe and make it back home to his family every day after work. Or, to use an example of my own, it is irrational to hire a lesser candidate for a job based solely on skin color. (By the same token, it is irrational to hire anyone based on anything but ability to fulfill the duties of the job.)
The question of religion is an interesting one, because its opponents only point out the bad features of religion. D'Souza mentions religious wars. But getting rid of religion would not make the world a safer place. After all, the vast majority of simple crimes committed in the world are not religious-based. They in fact fly in the face of the Ten Commandments.
D'Souza also teaches me something about the two church-goers I work with. One (the ISTJ) is a more intellectual Christian. He likes to listen to deep religious broadcasts from really good speakers. The other (INTJ) practices a more baby-Si form of religious belief, what D'Souza calls in the video below "crayon religion." This is the religion most of us are taught by the time we are 5 years old. In the INTJ's case, he simply has not grown beyond the 5 year old level of religion, and his defenses of crayon religion are completely based in rationalizations and in some cases outright lies or exaggerations. When worse comes to worse for him in a debate, he simply closes his mind. D'Souza has helped me see this distinction in how a religion intellectually develops or fails to develop in an individual Christian.
That however is not even the point. I got this from only a few minutes of this excellent video!
In this video, D'Souza defends Christianity against its "new atheist" opponents. But his is a rational faith-based view that is rarely seen. One example of what I mean by "rational" comes from another youtube video in which he explains that it is rational for a cab driver to drive past a black male looking for a cab based on the driver's bad experiences with blacks. It is rational because he desires to be safe and make it back home to his family every day after work. Or, to use an example of my own, it is irrational to hire a lesser candidate for a job based solely on skin color. (By the same token, it is irrational to hire anyone based on anything but ability to fulfill the duties of the job.)
The question of religion is an interesting one, because its opponents only point out the bad features of religion. D'Souza mentions religious wars. But getting rid of religion would not make the world a safer place. After all, the vast majority of simple crimes committed in the world are not religious-based. They in fact fly in the face of the Ten Commandments.
D'Souza also teaches me something about the two church-goers I work with. One (the ISTJ) is a more intellectual Christian. He likes to listen to deep religious broadcasts from really good speakers. The other (INTJ) practices a more baby-Si form of religious belief, what D'Souza calls in the video below "crayon religion." This is the religion most of us are taught by the time we are 5 years old. In the INTJ's case, he simply has not grown beyond the 5 year old level of religion, and his defenses of crayon religion are completely based in rationalizations and in some cases outright lies or exaggerations. When worse comes to worse for him in a debate, he simply closes his mind. D'Souza has helped me see this distinction in how a religion intellectually develops or fails to develop in an individual Christian.
That however is not even the point. I got this from only a few minutes of this excellent video!