What's So Great about Christianity

by Dinesh D'Souza

Book Overview

Many Christians know what they believe, but they don't know WHY they believe it - leaving them vulnerable to attacks by atheists and other nonbelievers. In What's So Great About Christianity, Dinesh... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596985178
• ISBN13: 9781596985179
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Salem Books
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Convicted Felon and Adulterous Liar Writes Book to Scam Idiots.

Dinesh is no Christian. Please don't give him cash for this con.

Laughable

It's pretty funny reading garbage from someone who thinks whatever they say is and has to be correct. It's 2023 and people still believe this stuff?

Very well done presentation of the intellectual strengths and historical truths of Christianity

I found this book to be wonderfully refreshing. We live in a time when books promoting atheism and attacking religion (especially Christianity) are best sellers and promoted nearly everywhere. This book stands up for Christianity, but in an intellectual and systematic way. D'Souza has not provided a book of testimony or a scriptural defense of faith. He spends twenty-four chapters examining the arguments made against religion and answers them using history, philosophy, and careful reasoning. Chapters 25 & 26 are the closest the author comes to promoting Christianity and inviting you to examine its benefits. However, it is hardly an aggressive missionary approach. D'Souza presents the basic material examining Christianity in seven parts (the eight being the last two chapters). The first is "The Future of Christianity". The author lays out the current bump in popularity in militant atheism, but why it is really a long term loser. Despite atheism's best efforts, outside narrow intellectual circles religion is growing in most places in the world. In particular, Christianity is growing the fastest of all and in its future is bright. The second part looks at the historical rise and contributions of Christianity to Western Civilization and again demonstrates that many popular notions are simply wrong or fabrications. The third part looks at science as a wonderful tool and a very poor faith. I particularly loved the chapter correcting the popular notion that Galileo was imprisoned by the Church because the Church was trying to suppress scientific truth. In fact, he was put under house arrest because he published a book he had promised not to publish and insulted the pope in a very egregious way. However, Galileo's scientific truths were being examined by the leading intellects of the day, who were in the Church, and while much was accepted, it did turn out that Galileo was wrong about some details. The fourth part examines the various arguments against the Church because of evolution and natural selection. D'Souza shows the evidence for creation, that evolution per se says nothing against religion or faith, and how what is understood in the natural record comfortably corresponds to religious teaching over the millennia. Yes, all human knowledge has expanded, but the core religious truths have not been overthrown. Part five is an interesting examination of the limits of the reason that the atheists say overthrows faith. D'Souza makes an interesting use of Kant to demonstrate a problem in Hume's thought. We also get treated to an interesting discussion of why miracles are reasonable and the skeptic's wager. That is, if there really is nothing, one hasn't lost much by believing in God and yet if there is a God not believing in him presents a great cost. Part six looks at the notion of suffering as an argument against God and Christianity. The author corrects the notion that religion is responsible for the great mass murders in

EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT. GREAT CHRISTIAN GIFT. (But Be Sure To Read The Full Review.)

There are 26 chapters. I'll summarize (and then critique) each: Ch 1: TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM: GLOBAL TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY. An excellent international overview of Christian growth ("the only religion with a global reach') and relative atheistic paucity. CRITIQUE: This is mainly quantitative rather than qualitative; doesn't consider education; Christianity grows mainly among relatively less educated; scientific/philosophical atheistic arguments are clearly understood by relatively few. Ch 2: WHY RELIGION IS WINNING: Argues rightly that religion creates "an animating sense of purpose" and "is thriving because it helps people adapt and survive in the world," while atheism does not (for most people). CRITIQUE: Again, the winning is numerical. This is a (generally valid) "masses" argument. Ch 3. ATHEIST ASSAULT ON RELIGION. A clear, generally fair, even-handed, organized presentation, from psychology, biology, etc., listing atheists' "anti" arguments. Ch. 4: MISEDUCATING THE YOUNG. Argues that non-religious education leaves children with little structure of values, purpose and direction. CRITIQUE: I think that, in the main, he's quite correct about this. Ch. 5: SPIRITUAL BASIS OF LIMITED GOVERNMENT. Makes the point, among others, that the US Constitution and democratic form of gov't assumed there would be a voting population of commonly accepted high moral values assimilated mostly from Christian doctrine and morals/ethics, without which limited gov't doesn't work. CRITIQUE: his facts and logic seem generally valid. Ch 6: CHRISTIANITY & HUMAN FALLIBILITY. Argues that ordinary people are valuable, yet fallible; that Christianity "exalts" ordinary people, inculcating in them noble values and aspirations needed to offset fallibility. Argues that Christianity (1) empowered marriage (partly by the Rom. Cath. Ch. elevating marriage to a Sacrament), (2) "developed a new notion of romantic love," that ennobled the male view of women, (3) "introduced consent on the part of both the man and the woman as the prerequisite for marriage." Argues that Western law derives partly from assumptions arising from the doctrines of the church, preventing unwise concentrations of power, that leaders became judged by how well they responded to peoples' needs; that capitalism and progress, including abolition of slavery, evolved from these factors, including "emphasis on compassion." In the West, Christians built the first hospitals, etc. CRITIQUE: This chapter is generally valid. Ch. 7: ORIGIN OF HUMAN DIGNITY. Says equality of human beings is a Christian legacy. "The equal worth of every life is a Christian idea," improving the low status of women in Greece & Rome. Christianity spawned human rights movements from Lutherans to Quakers to Martin Luther King, creating our modern concept of individual freedom, and that it is foolish to believe we can jettison Christianity while preserving these values. CRITIQUE: His points seem generally valid, at least in the western world.

Dinesh's Polemic against Atheists' Polemics

Well known political conservative and Hoover Institute Fellow at Stanford, Dinesh D'Souza, has written a well reason rebuttal to the string of recent Atheists polemics by Dawkins, Harris, and most recently HITCHENS. While one reviewer called this book "typical hyperbole", one, it is not completely accurate and second, that does not necessarily make this book a poor presentation of Dinesh's thesis. The book is first, a popular rebuttal to popular works by renown atheists Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett (as well as some others, but they are the majority cast). His book succeeds in that it works as a popular rebuttal that anyone can read, understand, and grapple with. Also, he bolsters his work with the proper research and presents well reasoned arguments showing that the new band of secular atheists ultimately falters. Yes, some of these chapters alone could be an entire book to better handle the complexities and nuances, but then it would not be a popular work, but an opus requiring many more pages and therefore, the people he seeks to inform, would be lost. Dinesh does a very good job of handling Immanuel Kant (who, my guess, he enjoys reading, a sense of enthusiasm begins in his writing style). He also does a very good job in showing that atheists also cannot coherently live out the scientific worldview they claim to completely rely on. He shows it also is a "faith" in that many propositions and assumptions by these modern atheists are based, not on empirical evidence, but statements of faith. If Dinesh could have done one thing differently, is make this a trilogy; but, I'm afraid, he would then lose the very audience he so avidly wants to communicate with. A much needed read for popular consumption. He accomplishes what the purpose of the book is meant to do, show the sheer folly of the over-the-Top rhetoric of Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens.

the right book at the right time

I had the chance to read a review copy of this book, and it is excellent. D'Souza engages the arguments of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and other atheists with arguments for the existence of God in general, and the Christian God in particular by arguing on their turf--through an examination of scientific evidence. It is fascinating, detailed, and convincing. It is an important book written at a critical time.