"What’s So Great About Christianity?" by Dinesh D’Souza, Regnery, $27.95, 344 Pages
If you have a son or daughter either in college or about to enter the halls of academia get your hands on this extraordinary book and give it to your offspring with instructions to read it from cover to cover.
There is no better way to inoculate a young man or woman against the virus of atheistic brainwashing epidemic on America’s campuses than Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, which carefully and calmly goes about the job of not only exposing the emptiness and lies of the atheistic materialism fervently embraced by a great number of academics, but also shows how effective Christianity has proven to be in combating its deleterious effects on our culture.
According to D’Souza atheism is losing and Christianity is winning. “God has come back to life,” he writes. “The world is witnessing a huge explosion of religious conversion and growth, and Christianity is growing faster than any other religion. Nietzsche’s proclamation ‘God is Dead’ is now proven false.”
The recent spate of books defending atheism and attacking religion reflects the near panic among atheists over the resurgence of Christianity. D’Souza’s book is nothing less than a massive refutation of the various allegations in such books as "God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything" by journalist Christopher Hitchens.
Also in D’Souza’s sights are Sam Harris’s "Letter to a Christian Nation" and, especially, "The God Delusion" by Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins, who gets a royal drubbing in the book.
Step-by-step, chapter-by-chapter, the author calls on innumerable sources to refute secularism’s myths -- such as what he calls the “fable” of Galileo’s treatment at the hands of the Vatican.
After explaining just what it was that got Galileo in trouble with the Church -- noting that Arthur Keostler had written that his defense was so “patently dishonest that his case would have been lost in any court" -- D’Souza deals with Galileo’s allegedly harsh punishment.
“Contrary to what some atheist propagandists have said, Galileo was never charged with heresy and was never placed in a dungeon or tortured in anyway," the author writes. "After he recanted Galileo was released into the custody of the archbishop of Siena, who housed him for five months in his magnificent palace. Then he was permitted to return to his villa in Florence.”
The author barely conceals his contempt for the incredible arrogance of scientists Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkin’s descriptions of themselves as “brights” because “they think they and their atheist friends are simply smarter that the community of religious believers.”
His treatment of Darwinism, as opposed to the scientific theory of evolution with which he has no quarrel, is devastating. Darwinism, he insists, furnishes the “brights” with ammunition they think refutes intelligent design. He goes on to demonstrate that their ammunition is composed of duds.
Among his other disclosures:
Contrary to secularism’s claim that Christianity ushered in the “dark ages” and destroyed the Greco/Roman classical world, the Christian faith is “the very root and foundation of Western civilization.” and was “responsible for many of the values and institutions secular people cherish most.” He cites western art, science, the idea of limited government, the idea that the ordinary human being has inherent dignity and value rather than that accorded by society, the importance of the family and romantic love and even the concept that consent of both a man and a woman was a prerequisite for marriage.
Rather than being an enemy of science, as alleged by secularists, Christianity provides the explanation that the universe is rational, that it operates according to laws. “Without the ‘irrational, belief that we live in an ordered universe,” D’Souza writes, “modern science is impossible.”Western man, he adds, got this “faith in an ordered, unified and accessible universe,” from Christianity.
“Christianity reinvigorated the idea of an ordered cosmos by envisioning the universe as following laws that embody the rationality of God, the creator,” he explains.
As the old Baltimore catechism declared simply, proof of the Divine origin of the world lies in its “order and beauty.”
The universe is not eternal, it had a beginning, despite atheism’s contention that it has always existed. Writes D’Souza, “The finding of modern physics that the universe has a beginning in space and time … [the Big Bang event] is one of the most important scientific discoveries ever made. It provides, for all who take the trouble to understand it and reflect upon it, powerful and convincing evidence of an eternal, supernatural being that created our world and everything in it.” After discussing the validity of miracles, the dismal record of atheistic regimes that butchered tens-of-millions of human beings in the last century alone, the absolute necessity of a moral law and the motivations of many atheists based on their lower instincts, D”Souza explains just what is so great about Christianity.“In a society based on self-fulfillment and self-esteem, on looking out for yourself and advancing yourself, Christ calls us to the heroic task of self-emptying. He must increase and we must decrease. This we do by allowing his empire an ever greater domain in our hearts,” he concludes. “Goodness and happiness flow from this.”
For anyone being subjected to a barrage of secularist propaganda of the kind found on campuses, this book is a potent defensive weapon. No student should leave home without it.
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