…and this is a 
Why, what a vile little man
Category: Kooks
Posted on: April 20, 2007 5:00 AM, by PZ Myers
I speak of Dinesh D'Souza, who seems to have noticed that his creepy and dishonest tirade against atheists won him some attention, so now he has upped the ante, and gotten even creepier and more dishonest.
Start with the title: "Dawkins' Message to Mourners--Get Over It!". That sounds as if he is reporting that Dawkins has said something horribly callous directly to the grieving families, doesn't it? Well, no … all we actually have in this article from Richard Dawkins is a quote from his book, River Out of Eden(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), published in the mid-90s.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.
Which is all quite true; I don't see the universe rising up to offer consolation to the families who have lost people they loved, or even better, magically blocking the bullets that have caused so much pain. I also don't see Dawkins offering this unpleasant fact of reality as funeral oratory, much less telling the families to "get over it."
So D'Souza has concocted an article entirely out of a lie. Is anyone surprised?
This also won't be a surprise. D'Souza thinks atheists believe tragedies are occasions to say "c'est la vie", and that he has the answer.
Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances.
God will do nothing. He did nothing during the killings, he will not be at the funeral, he won't come to parents weeping home alone. People will come together and cope, but those are wounds that will never really heal. There are no magic words that will make the loss of someone we cared about go away, and if there were, if there were something that would make us forget or become indifferent to such grief, would we want it?
After bumbling his way through more hateful stereotypes, D'Souza closes with a question.
I really want to hear what the atheist would tell the grieving mothers.
Hmmm. Something like, "I'm sorry. I wish I could help you bear your loss. Is there anything I can do to help?"
You know, some expression of regret and commisseration, and an offer of a shoulder to lean on. Like any other decent human being would.
Something D'Souza would find unfamiliar.
Or perhaps, if someone like Dawkins were asked to speak at the funeral of a friend, we could actually look at what he said in those circumstances. It doesn't seem to have been "c'est la vie" or "get over it!" or anything quite so brusque and unfeeling.
Andy finds another example of D'Souza's idiocy. Why would a loving god allow such horrors?
But perhaps God's purpose in the world (I am only thinking aloud here) is to draw his creatures to him. And you have to admit that tragedies like this one at Virginia Tech help to do that!
Brilliant! I'm going to draw my family together in unity and shared awe by taking a ball-peen hammer to the cats. A bloody tragedy is just the thing to get us all joining hands in love.
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Comments
In contrast to the reality of the conventional religious view of such deaths, which is....
"Congratulations, your child is now in heaven, you must be so happy!"
Apart from those of the wrong religion, naturally.
"Your child is now burning in hell and will be there for all eternity in agonising torment"
If only atheist could show such compassion...
Posted by: MartinC | April 20, 2007 5:35 AM
This is a rubbish way to start a Friday. It's been a long week for anyone who goes about campus. In some ways, this has affected staff, students and professors more than 9-11. We don't know what to do and it looks grim.
I think we all find D'Souza to be repellant. I doubt there will be one poster who can find anything good to say about him. He's a rotten carcass that emits a putrescent stench, and that's putting it nicely.
These be seven curses on a judge so cruel:
That one doctor will not save him,
That two healers will not heal him,
That three eyes will not see him.
That four ears will not hear him,
That five walls will not hide him,
That six diggers will not bury him
And that seven deaths shall never kill him.
(Seven curses, Dylan)
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/curses.html
Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 20, 2007 5:35 AM
And instead of writing an obituary for Douglas he wrote "a keening lament". But I don't expect right-wing pundits to do proper research, only make it up as they go along. Especially when it comes to things they disagree with. Melanie Phillips is an equally unpleasant columnist in the UK.
Posted by: David Godfrey | April 20, 2007 5:39 AM
How more pathetic, opportunistic, and at the same time irrelevant can a man get?
Posted by: Callandor | April 20, 2007 5:46 AM
When people I have loved have died, I have not noticed any particular difference between atheists and theists in their ability to think of comforting things to say.
Sometimes people say the wrong thing. (Atheists as well as theists.) Sometimes people magically say the right thing.
In fact - weirdly, so weirdly - it was after a beloved cat who had owned me for 15 years died, that I realized I really wished I could believe in heaven, because it was so painful to think that never again would I feel my cat scramble up from my arms to my shoulders, and rub the side of her head against my face, as she'd done so often. But with this wish came the certainty that I don't believe, it's just one of those nice ideas that people cling to because it is so painful to know that someone who is dead is gone forever.
And when I've mourned, mostly people have honored what they know of me, and not assured me that the person I love (or the cat!) is now in heaven - knowing I don't believe.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | April 20, 2007 5:48 AM
From WH Auden via "4 Weddings and a Funeral" I particularly liked this funeral oration, an expression of love for a departed one which does not exactly require an invisible man in the sky as a context:
"Stop all the clocks,
cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking
with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos
and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin,
let the mourners come.
Let the aeroplanes circle
moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message
He ls Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks
of the public doves,
Let traffic policemen
wear black cotton gloves.
He [she] was my North, my South,
my East and West.
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever:
I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now:
Put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean
and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now
can ever come to any good."
"I really want to hear what the atheist would tell the grieving mothers."
Well, certainly not pious platitudes and empty promises of eternal life.
The insidious underlying message of D'Sewer is that atheists have no humanity--we are untermenschen in this depraved individual's eyes and it makes me want to vomit.
Posted by: Peter Kemp. | April 20, 2007 5:59 AM
At bottom indifference? Kinda depends upon where your bottom is... I'm hardly indifferent when mine's on the line; or when yours is, really... The most primitive fact is that we know that we exist because we know that we know we do, and knowledge hardly equates with indifference. Not wanting to know does. (You're so right about D'Souza though, and that's the main things, when it comes down to it.)
Posted by: Enigman | April 20, 2007 6:00 AM
I followed the link to D'Souza's Blog. The man may be an idiot, but he sure is a masochist as well. On the first page ALL the comments were against him, agrily so! He must love to be hated. What a strange man.
Posted by: reason | April 20, 2007 6:07 AM
There seems to be a 100% correlation between D'Souza opening his mouth and vile hateful garbage being expelled into the atmosphere.
I'm not familiar with this D'Souza person. Is he just having a bad couple of days or is he always so repugnant?
Maybe this is what happens when all those molecules get assembled the wrong way. Perhaps it is in his genes? His father certainly should have kept it in his jeans.
Posted by: GeneMachine | April 20, 2007 6:13 AM
Empathy.
I don't need to believe in a god to make me like my friends and family. If they suddenly disappeared, I would be very sad too. If I suddenly disappeared, they would be sad. There is no god backing that -- I just enjoy being around my friends and family and they enjoy being around me, too.
I don't know any of the Virginia Tech people, but I can certainly imagine how bad they feel -- I can just imagine being them, and how bad that would feel.
god might have given them their morals, but not being a psychotic ass gave me mine.
Posted by: jv | April 20, 2007 6:17 AM
i suppose d'souza thinks that the attention he's getting puts him on par with thinking humans. it's pitiful.
Posted by: toomanytribbles | April 20, 2007 6:19 AM
Note the deceitful change of tack between the first and second paragraphs: He starts off by mentioning the problem of evil (i.e. why do bad things happen in the presence of a benevolent god?), but instead of addressing this directly, he distorts the discussion into a comparison of how religious and non-religious people behave.
Posted by: hyperdeath | April 20, 2007 6:28 AM
Vile is too nice a word to describe D'Souza.
I'm quite willing to let the the attack on atheists slide. Being an atheist myself, I find his quote-mining of Richard Dawkins childish, and quite frankly, not worth the effort to get angry over. A straight rebuttal such as Prof. Myers' is the proper response, I think.
The fact that pisses me off is that D'Souza is exploiting this tragedy, and as an extension, exploiting the families involved, to push his agenda. The man is beyond having no class.
Posted by: raiko | April 20, 2007 6:36 AM
This bastard is simply VILE!! Is it human?
And as for his pathetic dare to atheists to try to 'make some meaning' out of this - WTF??!!
What bloody meaning does Gawd give it?
Perhaps it's "I love everyone but wanted these 30+ people to die in pain and terror - Why? Because My ways are mysterious ways - don't argue."
Or maybe, "From the pain and terror of this tragedy, others can demonstrate how to be wankers on public forums in My name."
Or here's one that's right up the almighty sky fairy's alley - "The pain and senselessness of this event, carried out by a Christian nut, gave My people an incredible opportunity to do My bidding by 1) shouting down any suggestion of Christian delusions Cho might have suffered; 2)trying to dump the whole sorry mess in the lap of the atheists in order to drive people away from them and towards Me."
I have heard, in the past, theists argue that tragedies are God's teaching tools. If messy, object lessons are the only type Gawd can manage (look at what supposedly happened to Jeebus, after all) then he's a fucking terrible teacher.
Omnipotent/Omniscient/Omnibenevolent my hairy arse.
And D'Souza? Get a life that doesn't rely on leeching off the tragedies of others and prove that you are a Homo sapiens, not a Yersinia pestis.
Posted by: Lee Harrison | April 20, 2007 7:21 AM
On another note - Peter Kemp, comment #5 - beautiful, and thank you for posting it. That poem always makes me misty.
Posted by: Lee Harrison | April 20, 2007 7:24 AM
I have never read D'Souza's work directly, only what has been quoted by others; it seems to me that there are better things to do with one's time than to pay attention to him. I found it mind-boggling that PZ's first paragraph mentioned how D'Souza's writings got attention -- but then rewarded D'Souza by paying more attention to him. Are there no more interesting or worthwhile right-wingers with whom to debate, where the back-and-forth might be remotely productive?
Posted by: Michael Poole | April 20, 2007 7:33 AM
Tell the Hoover Institute what you think at http://www.hoover.org/contact. Make it clear and concise. As a "scholar," he--and Stanford--should know better. If he's going to use this as a springboard for his personal vendetta, by distorting the position of another scholar in the process, then the Hoover Institute should look elsewhere for its talent. They probably won't get rid of D'Souza until he dies, but at least he can be embarrassed.
Posted by: hatfulofhollow | April 20, 2007 7:35 AM
The last time I went to a funeral, it was a Catholic Mass. It went on for well over an hour, and there was less than 15 minutes of that devoted to remembrance of the deceased. Most of that 15 minutes was taken up by the priest, who did not know her and couldn't even pronounce her name properly. Why anyone would insist that this religious send-off, filled with a laundry list of bible quotes and meaningless rituals involving wine and crackers and incense is somehow more of a tribute and more supportive to the survivors than the eloquent praise and personal memories of Richard Dawkins for Douglas Adams, is beyond the scope of my imagination. Could D'Souza or any of his compatriots honestly say they'd rather hear a bunch of religious strangers repeating meaningless phrases about God's plan or their loved ones being in heaven than the heartfelt sympathy of an single atheist telling him "I loved him, too, and I will miss him as well"?
Posted by: Alison | April 20, 2007 8:00 AM
The counter-conflict, though, is that slime like D'Souza also thrives on darkness and neglect. There's also a point to be made in shining a hard bright light on them.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 20, 2007 8:11 AM
Slightly OT, but see this article by Gary LaVergne, director of admissions research at the University of Texas at Austin and author of A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders, for a clear establishment of who is to blame for the crime at Virginia Tech.
Posted by: Faithful Reader | April 20, 2007 8:12 AM
I just sent the fellow a partially sucking up job application, paraphrased: I'm so a conservative like you *swoon* but Bush confuses me *stumble* can you guide me kind sir? *daintly faint*
If I get a response (or, you know virtually raped), I'll post it here.
Posted by: jv | April 20, 2007 8:17 AM
Wow. Dude sounds like Jabriol; it's like he's trying to get people to hate him so he can claim he's being unfairly victimized.
It's an interesting pathology.
Posted by: John Bode | April 20, 2007 8:18 AM
D'Souza's position at the Hoover Institution is the epitome of wingnut welfare--his true career. He has no apparent academic duties: he needn't teach or publish. He also needn't jockey for tenure, since they don't give it to anyone with just a BA, which is all D'Souza has.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. But this is a guy who makes a point of talking up his time at Princeton (edited a mag for alum reactionaries and mongered gossip about students' sex lives--which he doubtless thought of as "investigative journalism") and now, Stanford. He could have got an advanced degree at either place with the most modest effort (no messy labwork, just a few class credits and recycle a couple of articles for his thesis past some wink-and-a-nod-IOKIYAR advisor).
But y'know, when your calling is convincing high-pocketed neocons to pay you a big salary for fighting against the sort of things only rich, sheltered, gullible, spoiled people worry about, narrow-mindedness is an asset to be guarded and treasured. You don't want to risk messing it up with the possibility of learning anything.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | April 20, 2007 8:19 AM
Sorry, html tags failed
http://chronicle.com/free/2007/04/2007041810n.htm
Posted by: Faithful Reader | April 20, 2007 8:20 AM
My apologies for comment #12 - it is a bit much of a rant, esp. for a noob. This a-hole just got me boiling.
Posted by: Lee Harrison | April 20, 2007 8:21 AM
Lee: I suspect Mr D'Souza's parents were married. We bastards are known for our empathy in these circumstances, our Christian legitimati clearly aren't. Knock it off with the 'bastard' as an insult, eh?
Posted by: Peter McGrath | April 20, 2007 8:24 AM
Here's a clue about D'Souza: He makes stuff up.
Posted by: Roy | April 20, 2007 8:27 AM
I really should know better - I'm an ILlegitmati myself.
Posted by: Lee Harrison | April 20, 2007 8:29 AM
D'Souza has it completely backwards.
As I say in this somewhat lengthy rant in response to his idiocy, it is the typical theist who must just shrug his shoulders and say "c'est la vie."
Also, check out this lovely, insane sentiment, in which D'Souza essentially asserts that mass murder can glorify God. Hooray!
What a maroon.
On the bright side, he at least got me to write two entries in one day, which is better than my recent performance.
Posted by: andy | April 20, 2007 8:31 AM
The only real difference between a non-theist and a theist is the suspension of belief in all supernatural explanations. Any other "character traits" are up to the individual. You'll find asshole Christians and asshole non-theists. Nice ones too. D'Souza has made the illogical assumption of most 12 year olds.
Posted by: John Danley | April 20, 2007 8:32 AM
You forgot part of it. "...but you should be happy anyway, because it's all part of God's plan."
Such nice people.
Posted by: xebecs | April 20, 2007 8:37 AM
Tragedies like this is one of the reasons people cling to religion in the first place. "They're in a better place. The suffering is over," and all that other Bull Plop. If that's what it takes for others to heal, fine. I think D'Souza and others of his ilk expect atheists to jump up and say "Nope. Worm Food, nothing else." Human empathy does not require religion.
My mother has end-stage cancer with very little time left. She has never been much on religion, but she is spiritual. She keeps going on about "death is not the end, only a doorway to another world." Am I going to say "Sorry, probably not?" Of course not. I may not say "That's right," but I don't tell her I disagree either. It is all part of being there to help someone grieve, cope, etc.
Posted by: Ted H, | April 20, 2007 8:40 AM
I've noticed another physical effect of mass gun killings. They somehow alter space and time so that the ballistic properties and reach of a knife and a chainsaw somehow become equivalent with a bullet. (You know: 'he could have killed people with a knife or a chainsaw.')
Posted by: Mooser | April 20, 2007 9:16 AM
In my experience, yes, they do want it.
I've been told that, when in heaven, one forgets about anything that might not make you happy. This includes any family members that didn't make it.
Only son is a eeevvil atheist? Well, don't worry, you'll forget he ever existed when you go to heaven.
Posted by: Nerull | April 20, 2007 9:19 AM
D'Sousa does read the polls, though. How far do you think he'd get insulting anyone else's beliefs about religion?
(D'Sousa's first 'graf, with "the Jews," "Christians," "Jesus," etc. substituted for "atheists," "religion," "God"--although making the appropriate substitutions with "Muslims" "Allah" etc, or with the atheist and religionist refs reversed, is interesting too)
Posted by: Molly, NYC | April 20, 2007 9:24 AM
Thank you hatfulofhollow for the suggestion to write to the Hoover Institute. While I'm sure it will not make a significant impact I did write a (very polite) letter to them stating that Mr. D'Souza does not reflect well on them. Sadly, I am neither an Alum nor well heeled enough for my opinion to count I suspect.
Posted by: Stacey C. | April 20, 2007 9:27 AM
What do you expect from a guy who blames the 9/11 attacks on Jimmy Carter?
Posted by: DouglasG | April 20, 2007 9:44 AM
Interesting, hatfulofhollow; the Hoover site is down for maintenance. I followed the link to Dinesh's site and now I have to go wash up.
Nasty.
Posted by: Bruce | April 20, 2007 9:52 AM
If this idiot, who actually dated Coulter and that should say enough, would read some of Dawkins' books for once he might have come upon the beautiful passage in The Ancestors Tale in which professor Dawkins personally addresses Douglas Adams, though passed away a long time ago. Did Dawkins say "get over it"? Not at all. It was a very moving paragraph in a very moving celebration of evolutionary science.
Posted by: Rienk | April 20, 2007 9:57 AM
...
...
Thank you, Molly, NYC! (#32)
Anytime someone makes casually negative comments about atheists, I like to substitute words such as Jews, blacks, women, or handicapped every place the word "atheists" appears, to get some perspective on just how offensive the remarks really are.
To the people who make the comments, atheists are an outgroup it's okay to malign. The trick is to show the hidden hate by finding a FORMER outgroup, someone it's NOT okay to make blithe nasty remarks about, and repeat the writer's/speaker's words with the new group inserted.
I sometimes think we atheists are so used to casual hate speech, and possibly (as a result) so thick-skinned, that we often fail to really take note of it when it happens.
Even if you never do this search-and-replace for others, do it for yourself. It reminds you of how pervasive - and accepted! - the hate speech directed against us is.
Don Imus finally lost his job over a racial slur. But D'Souza can tell deliberate lies about this group I belong to, and ... nothing.
Shows you how far we have to go.
...
...
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 20, 2007 10:09 AM
"I don't see the universe rising up to offer consolation to the families who have lost people they loved..."
Sure it did, when -people- did this:
"You know, some expression of regret and commisseration, and an offer of a shoulder to lean on. Like any other decent human being would."
Only a creationist sees us as being separate from creation. ;-)
Posted by: TWood | April 20, 2007 10:18 AM
"illegitimati"? Oh that's it, we're forming a secret society right now!
Posted by: Chris Gruber, FCD | April 20, 2007 10:28 AM
This might be kind of obvious, but ...
I think various yahoos going out of their way to point out how Richard Dawkins somehow has something to do with, or nothing to do with, or whatever, the post-massacre reaction is an excellent example of waving the monkey.
"Watch the monkey" ...
The evidence strongly suggests that the VT massacre was linked to religion. Maybe not a "good" example of religion but not an entirely uncommon one.
Religion is not simply a delusion. Religious rhetoric and iconography, allegory and metaphor, provide the raw material for delusion as well. There is cultural and linguistic coevolutoin between delusional (phyco-neural) behavior and delusional symboling.
Societal and cultural forces favoring religiosity and spirituality SELECT FOR delusional tendencies and capacities. Some of this is cultural evolution but some of it is starting to look like genetic evolution...
...Our species carries a widespread balanced polymorphism that underlies both psychotic behavior and religiosity. The positive selection comes from the religiosity ... from the value religiosity has in our theistic society.
Theistic society breeds psychotic behavior. The theistic aspect of our society is the reason this man killed these people. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the ultimate social and cultural cause of this event is religion.
The bullets killed the people, the killer pulled the trigger, but our religious society mad this happen. If this was an atheistic society this would not have happened.
(Yea, I know, I just said the same exact thing nine times, but that helped to develop the thought)
Posted by: Greg Laden | April 20, 2007 10:28 AM
So, god, who is responsible for everything, culls thirty- three from his flock in order that the rest of the flock may unite in their despair? This god fellow sounds like one of those serial killers who join the throng assembled at the crime scene tape at his latest effort and passes out sandwiches.
Even if it were real, who'd want to reward that sort of behavior with worship?
Posted by: raindogzilla | April 20, 2007 10:28 AM
Greg Laden:
Oh, I dunno. He could have been a rabid Objectivist who pulled out his guns screaming, "Leeches! Leeches! Sucking the blood from the arteries of capitalism!"
Posted by: Blake Stacey | April 20, 2007 10:36 AM
God could easily "draw his creatures to him" in a much kinder way than killing them like extras in Total Recall. For example, he could make his son's body manifest in chocolate-chip cookies instead of unleavened bread.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | April 20, 2007 10:38 AM
These be seven curses on a judge so cruel:
That one doctor will not save him,
That two healers will not heal him,
That three eyes will not see him.
That four ears will not hear him,
That five walls will not hide him,
That six diggers will not bury him
And that seven deaths shall never kill him.
(Seven curses, Dylan)
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/curses.html
Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 20, 2007 10:38 AM
I'm having trouble posting. Trying to work out why.
Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 20, 2007 10:40 AM
I think we all find D'Souza to be repellant. I doubt there will be one poster who can find anything good to say about him. He's a rotten carcass that emits a putrescent stench, and that's putting it nicely.
These be seven curses on a judge so cruel:
That one doctor will not save him,
That two healers will not heal him,
That three eyes will not see him.
That four ears will not hear him,
That five walls will not hide him,
That six diggers will not bury him
And that seven deaths shall never kill him.
(Seven curses, Dylan)
Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 20, 2007 10:42 AM
Christian: This is an atheist site. Just change your screen name to "PuppyEater Burnham" and you'll get past the filter.
Posted by: Greg Laden | April 20, 2007 10:45 AM
I think Dinesh wouldn't know what to say if he couldn't spout the cliche...
" Your child is in a better place now."
Or
"They're with god now, you'll see them again one day."
Atheist shouldn't be sorry that we have an actualy grasp of reality and that there's nothing worse than losing someone you love forever.
I hate when I hear people saying things like that to someone grieving.
Posted by: Steve_C (Secular Elitist) FCD | April 20, 2007 10:53 AM
At Dartmouth, he was known to most of us as Distort D'Newsa.
Posted by: petardier | April 20, 2007 10:55 AM
Hey, I didn't realize that Ayatolllah D'Louza is calling for the destruction of America! That's.... OUTRAGEOUS!
On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. [...]
If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/06/29/IN290713.DTL
Posted by: CalGeorge | April 20, 2007 10:55 AM
I will not. I like my name.
It was a link to the Dylan lyrics page which upset PZ's oh so sensitive filter this time.
Posted by: Christian Burnham | April 20, 2007 10:58 AM
Oh, I don't know, Blake. The Objectivists I know basically worship Ayn Rand, so I'd think that makes it just another extra-wacky religion ...
Posted by: DiscGrace | April 20, 2007 11:02 AM
Was Auden an atheist? I don't know, and this paragraph from the wikipedia entry for him can suggest differing conclusions:
His theology in his later years evolved from a highly inward and psychologically oriented Protestantism in the early 1940s to a more Roman Catholic-oriented interest in the significance of the body and in collective ritual in the later 1940s and 1950s, and finally to the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer which rejected "childish" conceptions of God for an adult religion that focused on the significance of human suffering.[21]
I read the poem (in #5) as a vivid articulation of rage at loss, not any consolation. At least it does avoid false consolations.
Posted by: thwaite | April 20, 2007 11:22 AM
Blame Charlie Wagner.
He was spamming the site to a ridiculous degree under a large collection of pseudonyms, and one of the things he was consistently doing was linking to various music artists, like Bob Dylan. Obviously, I wouldn't ban Dylan, but keying on specific links to particular pages were an easy way to lock the little twit out.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 20, 2007 11:24 AM
Wow. D'Souza has outdone himself. "Vile" is too kind a word.
We must expect a lot more of his brand of poisonous rhetoric before this quiets down. He's determined to use this against atheists in any way he can, just as the commenters on his blog who unequivocally characterize Cho himself as an atheist.
petardier: My dad is a Dartmouth grad from that era, too, and has pretty much the same opinion of D'Souza. Just fyi. :-)
Posted by: Kseniya | April 20, 2007 11:41 AM
"I'm not familiar with this D'Souza person. Is he just having a bad couple of days or is he always so repugnant?"
The latter. He got his start at the _Dartmouth Review_, where he published some truly abhorrent (and sometimes racist) pieces. He also, recently, said that liberalism and social freedom were to blame for 9/11, since it rightfully annoyed bin Laden. He's basically a male wingnut welfare-"academic" version of Anne Coulter without the long skinny legs.
Posted by: Captain C | April 20, 2007 11:55 AM
This could be a good sign. Perhaps it means that the heat brought by the "new atheists" is provoking the fight-or-flight response.
I notice that his column is still getting the occasional pat-on-the-back from people who think comforting lies are the biggest asset of religion. Including this gem: "In short, Allah gives us the will to choose while at the same time dictating what's going to happen." That explains everything!
Posted by: Rey Fox | April 20, 2007 12:02 PM
FYI- The Dartmouth Review is an independent publication and, contrary to popular belief, is not affiliated with The College. This misperception has helped give Dartmouth an undeserved, or at least exaggerated, reputation for being Conservative.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 20, 2007 12:10 PM
One already exists: some Christian gob sounded off in The Times (London) and I wrote in putting his straight and - lightheartedly - forming the National Bastards Association. Ten people wrote for membership. Motto: ""We are the bastards who will grind you down". Membership allows you to add a bend sinister to your coat of arms and when I find out what one of those is, I'll let you know. But I'm sure it's jolly impressive. Given that Deuteronomy has a down on us and illegitimati sounds very sinister, there could be some fun to be had: getting one of our number to marry an heir to the throne, buying a President's underage daughter a pint of gin in a sleazy bar (who hasn't!)and kissing the Pope's ring (stop it right now! Upon meeting the Big Bridge you are meant to kneel and kiss his ring. It was St Peter's you know.) OK, back to writing a sponsorship pack for the Beagle Project.
Posted by: Peter McGrath | April 20, 2007 12:14 PM
Am I glad I'm capable of laughing without opening my mouth!
Do you mean the Chewbacca Defense? "Look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!"
Posted by: David Marjanović | April 20, 2007 12:28 PM
For example, he could make his son's body manifest in chocolate-chip cookies instead of unleavened bread.
Blake Stacey - For that matter, why couldn't He manifest Himself (or God, Jr.) on TV talk shows? And if He's so freaking concerned about whether people believe in Him or not (and by extension, whether they pray to Him or eschew shellfish or whatever), why doesn't He go on TV?
Seriously. If an man's-image-type God existed, D'Sousa wouldn't be saying "You should believe in Him because it's a pretty belief" (which is his basic argument here). He'd be saying "You should believe in God because--Hell, didn't you see His Meet the Press interview? Here's a link to the YouTube clip."
Posted by: Molly, NYC | April 20, 2007 12:31 PM
Molly, NYC:
But that would negate free will and the beauty of faith! A god who would do that might just as well part the waters, feed a multitude on a handful of fish and bread, keep a man alive inside a fish for three days. . . Er, wait a second. . . .
Posted by: Blake Stacey | April 20, 2007 12:38 PM
Dang, PZ, you're still having to beat back Charlie Wagner? That's one reason I couldn't have a blog - so much behind the scenes activity has to go on to make it usable for the rest of us. Interesting that so many of those time-sucking trolls are Christians.
Posted by: Carlie | April 20, 2007 12:47 PM
Perhaps he's just creating instant attack fodder for Dawkins' upcoming appearance on the Billo show at the behest of his puppet masters? This just seems like an incredibly odd card to pull unless it was actually going somewhere.
Posted by: Brian Gyss | April 20, 2007 12:59 PM
Dawkins is on such a higher intellectual plane, I can't even imagine what's going to go down.
Posted by: Steve_C (Secular Elitist) FCD | April 20, 2007 1:11 PM
I hope Dawkins never responds to this hateful, bigoted attention-monger.
Posted by: Willo the Wisp | April 20, 2007 1:44 PM
The monday the VA Tech massacre happened a friend of mine miscarried and another was disinherited by her parents the next day.
I would probably be called an atheist, I'm not sure I am because I find a lot of religious/non-religious terminology constraining. But I don't believe in offering comfort that can't be shown to WORK. No pie-in-the-sky promises.
I talked to both of them, empathized, comforted them, offered advice, and listened. Things that worked.
Thats how I respond. Because first and foremost I am human, I understand, and I empathize.
And if there is a God who cares, against my expectations, I'm sure he'd rather I get off my ass and do something than lay everything on his doorstep and walk away.
Posted by: DragonScholar | April 20, 2007 1:49 PM
I never heard of this tool before this week, I wish I was still in ignorance. Makes my skin crawl.
Ohh yeah and thanks making me cry all over again by rereading Dawkins Tribute to Douglas Adams....sigh.
Posted by: coz | April 20, 2007 1:49 PM
Posted by: Steve_C (Secular Elitist) FCD | April 20, 2007 01:11 PM
FCD. My first guess was: Fuck creationist dildos.
Then I figured it out: Friends of Charles Darwin.
How is the Beagle Project going, Peter and Steve_C?
Posted by: CalGeorge | April 20, 2007 1:51 PM
Okay, there's no defense of D'Souza's nonsense. But please don't turn around and direct the same sort of idiocy towards theists. To an atheist, "they're in a better place" may sound like unpalatable denial, but it's not hard to see that such sentiments can come from a person feeling profound loss, searching for words of comfort. Words aren't ever really enough.
Christians and muslims and jews and hindus and buddhists and atheists and the rest of the world mourn the loss of loved ones. And we all clumsily struggle to share what comfort and hope we can, and to move on. There's not a religious distinction there. If we ridicule someone else's coping mechanism in the face of death, claiming that reference to myths or whatever is a less valid way to mourn, then we're no less insensitive than D'Souza.
Posted by: Spaulding | April 20, 2007 1:55 PM
If there is a personal God, I don't see how such a being could be of any comfort to the families of the dead. In fact, in his callous indifference, I'd be pretty pissed at God right now if I believed.
To look to God for meaning in the wake of utterly random and senseless carnage is truly pathetic.
At least the universe has a reason for being callously indifferent . . .
Posted by: Chuck | April 20, 2007 1:58 PM
By the way, we owe as much attention to D'souza as we do to Osama bin Laden and his ilk, for D'souza has written a book in which he throws in his towl on the side of religious fundamentalism everyhwhere. D'souza is no longer merely a political and intellectual opponent. He is at best an irrelevant madman, and at worst an enemy of the Enlightenment and those countries whose culture and governments are founded on it, including the United States.
May I suggest a comfortable cell at Gitmo for D'souza?
Posted by: Chuck | April 20, 2007 2:03 PM
As for the past 4,000 years, God declined to comment.
Posted by: dzd | April 20, 2007 2:13 PM
Spaulding.
My point was that Dinesh can't even comprehend how atheists grieve.
And that I would be pissed if it was my child and someone tried to console me with one of those reality ignoring clichés.
Posted by: Steve_C (Secular Elitist) FCD | April 20, 2007 2:24 PM
This universe sucks. It really does. There's all this pain and suffering. A pitiless indifferent universe, and a meaningless, pointless existence. And not only that, there's no space aliens and you can't even go faster than the speed of light (contrary to what all those scifi books led me to believe).
Posted by: dave | April 20, 2007 2:41 PM
Here's what D'Souza just emailed me in response to my post on his blog:
How do you know Cho was even religious? He might be an atheist like you and have lost any sense of purpose in life. And do you subscribe to the idea that if Cho was reading Dawkins, that discredits Dawkins? Atheist logic, I suppose.
best, DD
Unreal. I suppose we atheists will have to start doing things in public, good deeds and whatnot, while carrying banners and wearing t-shirts that say "I'm an Atheist AND a nice guy, too!" Otherwise D'Souza and others will continue to imagine us slithering around in dark caves, eating embryonic stem cells, and muttering "molecules bouncing off of molecules bouncing off molecules."
Posted by: tinisoli | April 20, 2007 2:45 PM
A professor at Virginia Tech wrote a diary at DailyKos on how he felt about D'souza's rant:
Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/19/18451/0971
It's some of the best writing I've seen in a while; I hope it gets well distributed at the Hoover institute.
Posted by: hibob | April 20, 2007 2:59 PM
For a guy who doesn't believe in evolution, he sure does put a lot of stock in speciation, doesn't he? Because clearly, atheists just aren't quite human, if I'm reading him right.
Posted by: Alison | April 20, 2007 3:05 PM
By the way, has it been noted on Pharyngula yet that Cho comes from a Xian family (yes, I know that remarks have been made about his religious rhetoric (common among the psychotic), but I haven't seen where the fact of formal Xianity has been mentioned)?
I heard it on the news last night, a neighbor discussing the comings and goings of his family, including them going to church. So there you have it, Christ is why Cho did it, just like he implied in his rambling "manifesto".
Nonsense, of course, the guy was out of touch with reality and I don't have any evidence that Xianity pushes anybody to mass murder, let alone that it did Cho. But if "teaching Darwinism" in schools, or secularism at large, is to be implicated in his murderous outrage, the closer causal factor than those would seem to be his family and his religion (whether or not he still "believed", naturally).
So I don't know if he would be officially "Xian" at the time of the shootings, but his background is Xian, and of course it is the "background" which is supposed to be responsible for "Darwinism"-inspired crime, not the specific thoughts of the killers (except perhaps for Harris and Klebold, who did at times espouse a kind of social Darwinism (no, I don't think Darwin is responsible for social Darwinism, but they seemed to think that science supported their quest for power over others)).
Well that's as it may be, but let's remember something else about Cho's murderous outburst: he did it to effect meaning, not because he considered humans to be meaningless collections of molecules. Perhaps the Dostoevsky scenario (Raskolnikov) does occur often enough in murders, however the mass murderers typically seem to be asserting meaning against the meanin