If you really look at the motivations of contemporary atheists, you'll find that they don't even really reject Christian theology. It's not as if the atheist objects to the resurrection or the parting of the sea; rather, it is Christian morality to which atheists object, particularly Christian moral prohibitions in the area of sex. The atheist looks at all of Christianity's "thou shalt nots" -- homosexuality is bad; divorce is bad; adultery is bad; premarital sex is bad -- and then looks at his own life and says, "If these things are really bad, then I'm a bad guy. But I'm not a bad guy; I'm a great guy. I must thus reinterpret or (preferably) abolish all of these accusatory teachings that are putting me in a bad light."
I'm pretty certain atheists reject the resurrection of Christ and the parting of the Red Sea, and I'm pretty certain Christians consider moral prohibitions part of their theology.
I have no doubt in my mind that Marcia Segelstein -- who claims that D'Souza writes "with cocksure prose that only a thinker at the top of his game could muster" -- is a complete fucking moron.
I'm equally sure that he wishes he could eat those words, and the underlying sanctimony, given his weekend-long "engagement" while still married.
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ReplyDeleteNo why would Ms. Joseph name her blog "I, Denise, lust after ..."? Such an unusual word combination, she must have been hinting at some kind of clever anagram.
ReplyDeleteClever girl!
The atheist looks at all of Christianity's "thou shalt nots" -- homosexuality is bad; divorce is bad; adultery is bad; premarital sex is bad -- and then looks at his own life and says, "If these things are really bad, then I'm a bad guy. But I'm not a bad guy; I'm a great guy. I must thus reinterpret or (preferably) abolish all of these accusatory teachings that are putting me in a bad light."
ReplyDeleteWrong! Wrong! So very wrong!
As a former Catholic who became an atheist, when it came to issues of morality, I would ask myself "In the absence of a belief in the Christian god, what is my basis for believing something is right or wrong?"
One criteria I used was whether it caused harm.
Adam and Steve in a monogamous relationship and using safe practices? Fine by me.
Adam and Steve engaging in risky practices with others as well as each other? Wrong.
Having premarital sex with a woman I love and care for. Perfectly okay. Not caring about her and using her for sex. Not okay.
But nuance and analysis is apparently beyond D'Souza's supposedly vaunted intellect. People are capable of making value judgments without relying on the Bible as a guide and without such value judgments being retroactive justifications for doing things that Christianity says are wrong.
One can turn it back to D'Souza and argue that a Christian can do things that are considered sinful according to Christianity, and then grovel and beg Jesus for forgiveness and that supposedly wipes the slate clean.
I think that it's not D'Suza's prose that is cocksure.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Goldberg on how Dinesh D'Souza wrote about the President's mother:
ReplyDelete'D’Souza argues that part of the reason Ann Dunham sent Obama to live with her parents in Hawaii was so she could pursue affairs with Indonesian men. “Ann’s sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger,” he writes. On the next page, he continues, “Learning about Ann’s sexual adventures in Indonesia, I realized how wrong I had been to consider Barack Obama Sr. the playboy … Ann … was the real playgirl, and despite all her reservations about power, she was using her American background and economic and social power to purchase the romantic attention of third-world men.”'
There is no evidence for any of this—D’Souza mentions the name of exactly one man who Dunham had a relationship with after her divorce.
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