What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza

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43). What's So Great About Christianity? by Dinesh D'Souza

A response to the rhetorical barrage of pro-atheism literature we've seen in recent years, D'Souza goes on the offensive against Dennett and Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris and the rest of the atheists who have labeled Christianity and theism as destructive, dangerous ideas that should be eradicated.

I liked this better than I liked The End of Racism. There were less ideas that I immediately rejected as outright crazy, and also there was an admission that sometimes D'Souza adopts unacceptable or crazy ideas as a rhetorical pose to force moral relativists to admit they do think some principles are absolute. (I suspected this was true in The End of Race, and was relieved to hear him say it.)

Of course, as a Jew I am suspicious of a lot of the theology he advances. But I thought he did a relatively tasteful job of arguing that the Inquisition wasn't as bad as it's been claimed. That was a section of the book that had the potential to make me hyperventilate, and it didn't.

D'Souza's an extraordinarily agile thinker. He moves quickly and skillfully through big and complicated ideas, dealing with Kant and Hume and Nietzsche and Augustine in digestible but not dumbed-down form. If you're looking for a response to The End of Faith, this is a pretty decent place to look.