christianity, booksOne of the best books defending Christianity I’ve read is “What’s so Great About Christianity”, by Dinesh D’Souza. It has some really good arguments. So I’d like to read another really good book refuting Mr. D’Souza’s argument by argument. Is there such a book?
Thnak you.
I read that and it was the beginning of the end of my belief. I saw it as one of the best pro-Christian argument books, and then realized that the best was pretty poor.
He spent quite a bit of time on the "belief won't hurt you, and could save you from an eternity in hell" argument, which was just sad. You can find lots of discussion on that one in the Google.
I was somewhat convinced by his discussion of the Crusades. He claimed Christians were just responding to the influx of Muslims into Europe. This is true in only the most simplistic review of history. I had to study up on that history, again much available for free. There is a great documentary with a Monty Python guy in it, I'll look it up later.
Edit: Here is the link. Terry Jones is the narrator. I think there are 4 parts, the first 3 cover the first crusade, I had trouble finding the 4th. It covers the motivation well. The speeches made that whipped up the people to walk for hundreds of miles with crude weapons were without precedent. The Bible has God telling Moses to kill 3,000 and Jesus says "I come with a sword", but we don't have historical examples of these passages being used to inspire troops before that. Certainly many examples since. It was a significant turning point for Western culture. Westerners tend to dismiss it as ancient history, but it is very much alive for the descendants of the other side.
I think there was some stuff in there about cosmology, saying the Bible could be seen as allegory for what we now know as scientific fact. Again, you gotta study a little, or take my word for it, he is fulla crap.
More difficult to research or refute is the influence of Christendom on the development of Western Civilization. The church was the social services and started hospitals and universities as Europe recovered from the fall of Rome. There is some truth to the role it played in protecting humanity from barbarism. They also burned people for being witches and actively supressed knowledge. You might like God's Philosophers for a more balanced approach to that history.
There are also some YouTube debates with him and he really looks bad in them.
Your specific request – an argument-by-argument refutation – is generally not how authors refute each other. That sort of so-called “fisking” is just not done in the book-publishing business.
That said, What’s so Great About Christianity is itself intended to be a refutation of the arguments in books such as The God Delusion (Dawkins). So, a good place to start for an opposing point of view is to read the books that D’Souza aims to refute in the first place.
There are also a fair number of reviews and general responses available with a simple Google search. For example, The Uncredible Hallq addresses a few of D’Souza’s points in critical manner, and there are many others that address other points.
What might be more profitable for you is to restate a given argument D’Souza makes which you find compelling – start a new question using that argument right here on the Atheism StackExchange – and see what responses you get.
edit: punctuation fix.
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