I like Dinesh: The ground rules

As I read Dinesh D'Souza's books, I have to say that I like the man. He is extremely intelligent and, at least from my perspective, reminds me a lot of myself from when I was practicing Christian and working hard to prove that my religion was right. (However, even when I was a Christian, I would have disagreed with his politics. I'm mainly speaking of his religious ideas. I do not at all like many of his political ideas.)

Of course, now there's a huge difference between me and him: I have let go of my religion. He has not. But because his arguments are very similar to the arguments I used to make, I feel quite comfortable in tackling his arguments and showing why, for me, they didn't hold up. In fact, I felt I took the same arguments a step further, dug even deeper, and that's when I ultimately let go of my religion.

That's what I plan to do with this blog. I'll present his various arguments and, when applicable, explain how or why I used to think the same thing, and then show why they don't hold up under strict scrutiny.

Now having said that, I'd like to lay some ground rules. I will be allowing comments in these blogs. However, I will not tolerate any personal attacks -- either toward other posters, towards me, or towards Mr. D'Souza. Any such attacks will be deleted. The purpose here is to intelligently debate the issues, and a certain level of maturity and civility is vital. Also, I want to remind the readers that I am in no way associated with Dinesh D'Souza. I have never met him, and he has certainly not authorized this blog in any way. Although he is not an elected official, he is in the public eye by nature of his work. And as such, I am taking the liberty to critique his work. I will occasionally quote him; such quotes will be exact word-for-word quotes with references.

So let's get started, shall we?