Rabbi Phil Graubart writes in the San Diego Jewish Journal:
Even worse, he’s taken on the lazy thinking habits of a propagandist. Townhall.com recently sponsored an online debate between Prager and Sam Harris, the newly famous atheist. Prager opened with what can only be called a sloppy mistake. He claimed that Harris is “untrained in the sciences.” But one look at Harris’ book jacket would have told him that Harris is a neuroscientist. When Harris corrected him, Prager refused to admit his mistake, saying, falsely, that he only meant that Harris hadn’t reached the expertise of superscientist Francis Collins – head of the Human Genome Project.
Prager never really engaged Harris throughout this disappointing debate. Even though Harris demonstrated clearly (it’s not hard to do) that most advanced scientists don’t believe in God, Prager kept bringing up Francis Collins’ religiosity. But this is argument through anecdote. He then further clouded the debate by continually insisting that religion is a social good. But, as Harris had to keep pointing out, the social utility of religion says nothing about its truth claims. A religion can be totally useful and completely false.
Later, Prager argued that since for many, God is the source of morality, civilization would fall apart without God. This, he says, is an argument for God’s existence. “If a society cannot survive without x,” he wrote, “there is a good chance x exists.” But, as Harris pointed out, x in this case is not God, but belief in God. Once again, sloppy argument.
Prager reached a low point this past December with a column furiously attacking Keith Ellison for using a Koran instead of a Bible is his congressional swearing-in ceremony. Preferring inflammatory slogans to thought, Prager claimed that this one act “undermines American civilization” (our civilization seems to have survived).
Dennis Prager writes in the San Diego Jewish Journal:
Given that I know Dennis Prager even better than Rabbi Phil Graubart does, I thought I might offer a more informed response to the Rabbi’s article titled, “What happened to Dennis Prager?” (Kvelling, May 2007).
Rabbi Graubart begins with praise for my book The Nine Questions People Ask about Judaism and for my essays on Judaism, but he is quite disappointed with my criticisms of the left on my talk radio show (heard in San Diego on KCBQ 1170 AM, weekdays 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM) and in my weekly columns (townhall.com and elsewhere).
He also finds my debate with atheist Sam Harris less than impressive. There is no accounting for subjective judgments, but it is worth noting that after Sam Harris and I debated on my radio show, he called my producer and asked for a return appearance since he believed that I had bested him in our first encounter. I invite those interested to read the Internet debate and conclude for themselves if I made a better case against atheism than Harris did. Isolating a few sentences of a 9,000-word debate does not offer a reader an accurate view of what I wrote.
