Author: Dinesh D'Souza
Publisher: Jaico
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 348
ISBN/UPC (if available): 81-7992-831-4
Description
Is Christianity obsolete? Can an intelligent, educated person really believe the Bible? Or do the atheists have it right? Has Christianity been disproven by science, debunked as a force for good, and discredited as a guide to morality?
Bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza (What's So Great About America) looks at Christianity with a questioning eye, but treats atheists with equal skepticism. The result is a book that will challenge the assumptions of both believers and doubters and affirm that there really is, indeed, something great about Christianity. D'Souza reveals:
*Why Christianity explains what modern science tells us about the universe and our origins--that matter was created out of nothing, that light preceded the sun--better than atheism does
*How Christianity created the framework for modern science, so that Christianity and science are not irreconcilable, but science and atheism might be
*Why the alleged sins of Christianity--the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Galileo affair ("an atheist's fable")--are vastly overblown
*Why atheist regimes are responsible for the greatest mass murders of history
*Why evolution does not threaten Christian belief, but actually supports the "argument from design"
*Why atheists fear the Big Bang theory and the "anthropic principle" of the universe, which are keystones of modern astronomy and physics
*How Christianity explains consciousness and free will, which atheists have to deny
*Why ultimately you can't have Western civilization--and all we value from it--without the Christianity that gave it birth.
Provocative, enlightening, a twenty-first-century successor to C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity is the perfect book for the seeker, the skeptic, and the believer who wants to defend his faith.
REVIEWS & COMMENTS:
If there is purpose for the recent attacks on God and Christianity, it is that these angry assaults have inspired a sober and informative answer of the kind this book provides. This is a timely, important and illuminating work, scholarly in tone, though accessible to a general audience. Agnostics and atheists will not be able to ignore this challenge.”
- Daniel Robinson, Oxford University
“As an unbeliever I passionately disagree with Dinesh D’Souza on some of his positions. But he is a first rate scholar whom I feel absolutely compelled to read. His thorough research and elegant prose have elevated him into the top ranks of those who champion liberty and individual responsibility. Now he adds Christianity to his formula for the good society, and although non-Christians and non-theists may disagree with some of his arguments, we ignore him at our peril. D’Souza’s book takes the debate to a new level. Read it.”
- Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine
“Pastors, teachers, believers, and the sincerely perplexed will find this book indispensable. It sets an example of how to engage vitally important questions without mudslinging and prejudice. D’ Souza uses facts and careful reasoning and exposes the atheist attack as intellectually baseless. Rarely have I seen such forceful clarity brought to an issue of such timeliness and importance.”
- Dallas Willard, author of the Divine Conspiracy
Contents
CONTENTS
A Note on the Interpretation of Scripture
Preface A Challenge to Believers-and Unbelievers
Part I : The Future of Christianity
Chapter One The Twilight of Atheism : The Global Triumph of Christianity
Chapter Two Survival of the Sacred : Why Religion is Winning
Chapter Three God is Not Great : The Atheist Assault on Religion
Chapter Four Miseducating the Young : Saving Children from their Parents
Part II: Christianity and the West
Chapter Five Render unto Caesar : The Spiritual Basis of Limited Government
Chapter Six The Evil That I Would Not : Christianity and Human Fallibility
Chapter Seven Created Equal : the Origin of Human Dignity
Part III: Christianity and Science
Chapter Eight Christianity and Reason : The Theological Roots of Science
Chapter Nine From Logos to Cosmos : Christianity and the Invention of Invention
Chapter ten An Atheist Fable : Reopening the Galileo Case
Part IV : The Argument from Design The Atheist Fable : Reopening the Galileo Case
Chapter Eleven A Universe with a Beginning : God and the Astronomers
Chapter Twelve A Designer Planet : man’s special in Creation
Chapter Thirteen Paley Was Right : Evolution and the Argument from Design
Chapter Fourteen The Geneis Problem : The Methodological Atheism of Science
Part V : Christianity and Philosophy
Chapter Fifteen The World Beyond Our Senses : Kant and the Limits of Reason
Chapter Sixteen In the Belly of the Whale : Why Miracles are Possible
Chapter Seventeen A Skeptic’s Wager : Pascal and the Reasonableness of Faith
Part VI : Christianity and Suffering
Chapter Eighteen Rethinking the Inquisition: The Exaggerated Crimes of Religion
Chapter Nineteen A License to kill : Atheism and the Mass Murders of History
Part VII : Christianity and Morality
Chapter Twenty Natural Law and Divine Law :
The Objective Foundation of Morality
Chapter Twenty-One The Ghost in the Machine : Why man is more than matter
Chapter Twenty-Two The Imperial” I”: When the self Become the Arbiter of Morality
Chapter Twenty-Three Opiate of the Morally Corrupt: Why unbelief is so appealing
Chapter Twenty-Four The Problem of Evil : Where is Atheism
When bad things Happen?
Part VIII: Christianity and You
Chapter Twenty-Five Jesus among Other Gods: The Uniqueness of Christianity
Chapter Twenty-Six A Foretaste of Eternity:
How Christianity can change your life
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index