EPTIf Harris and Dawkins are low grade intellects, who are the high grade ones? I think Hitchens was smarter than both of them, but I think it's a far cry to call either of those men low grade. There's others still that I have not listed of course but I think if you're going to attack someone as a low grade intellect, you should suggest one you hold in higher regard.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3808
| Forum Index > Closed |
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
|
SK.Testie
Canada11084 Posts
If Harris and Dawkins are low grade intellects, who are the high grade ones? I think Hitchens was smarter than both of them, but I think it's a far cry to call either of those men low grade. There's others still that I have not listed of course but I think if you're going to attack someone as a low grade intellect, you should suggest one you hold in higher regard. | ||
|
Gorsameth
Netherlands22435 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:35 oBlade wrote: Wouldn't want authors selling books or anything, and besides, what are we supposed to do with them, read? Am I right? There are intellectuals who publish books about their work and there are people who publish books to pretend to be intellectuals. Ayaan Hirsi Ali... name rings a bell. didn't we chase here out of our country for being Islamophobic? | ||
|
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:35 oBlade wrote: Wouldn't want authors selling books or anything, and besides, what are we supposed to do with them, read? Am I right? People can read whatever shitty books from shitty authors they want. I hear those Twilight books sold well too. | ||
|
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:27 SK.Testie wrote: On May 14 2016 02:09 zlefin wrote: With this you can use simple math to a degree. How many men are in that room. How many Muslims are even in Norway? Are all people who share those beliefs under that roof? How often have I seen this before? etc. Question upon question upon question leads you to believe that a sizeable percentage of people feel that way. Especially when you go within Islamic websites and then translate things like their own polls / views / and even read from their news. Asking for more and more evidence is great, but I feel that the evidence is most definitely in on this. That it's enough of a threat to western values that it should no longer be welcomed with open arms. And instead very, very thoroughly vetted. True. But I'm most definitely for arguing against deporting those whom are not yet citizens who are clearly here for trouble. And there's so, so many instances of it that are blatant and in the news. Of all the migrants entering Europe right now, I think none should be given citizenship for at least a decade. Because most were promised to be there 'temporarily' in the beginning. That's what the politicians and media sold it as. Temporary. The left loves to say, "see it's so cold and they're mistreated so badly they want to go back home!" but that's hundreds.. when thousands and millions more are coming. And the term migrants was correct for most instances. It was meant for the people of Syria. Now it's north africa, afghanistan, pakistan, and everywhere. The egalitarian fantasy completely died the night of cologne. Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salmon Rushdie, and many more. I've been very up to date on news from multiple sources for a long time. When I was 16-18ish I actually believed Reza Aslan and read a couple books about Osama Bin Laden and I had a more sympathetic view at that time as I listened to Osama's side of things. I've watched countless debates on the subject It's only more recently that I've accepted conservative sources as well to get a broader perspective on where they are coming from. To do multi-quotes to make things neater just type quote and /quote in brackets before and after each individual paragraph or point you want to address. That room looked to hold, maybe a thousand. According to google, Norway has around 100k to 150k muslims. So that could easily be an extreme subset. I mean, if I look at 1% of the christians in America, and choose the right subset, I'm sure I could find some pretty sketchy stuff. Vetting is fine, and trying to teach them better values; but it takes time to do those things, and education. Missing out on the enlightenment hurt. That the european migrant/refugee issue was handled sloppily is self-evident. and I've criticized it numerous times for such. | ||
|
SolaR-
United States2685 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:30 Plansix wrote: Sam Harris and Dawkins. Low grade intellect and academics in the business of selling books and being famous online. Dawkins is quite intelligent. Explain otherwise. Your post provides no content. | ||
|
Yoav
United States1874 Posts
On May 14 2016 01:26 xDaunt wrote: I absolutely love the extent to which leftists go out of their way to jump on any grenade that is lobbed at the religion of Islam, but they'll the very first to shit all over Christianity at every opportunity. The hypocrisy is beautiful. What makes it even funnier is that Islam is indisputably less compatible with --- and in many cases, diametrically opposed to --- much of what leftists hold most dear. There are quarters in which this is undeniably true. But here the anti-Islamiphobic argument is being peddled by Christians like myself and Plansix. Yes, I think Christianity is better than Islam. Or Atheism. Or Buddhism, Sikhism, Rastafarianism, or anything else. That's why I'm a Christian. But I also think that Islam has a great intellectual history, and I deeply respect the Quran and Mohammad. I think it was a great step forward for the people it was preached to, and that you could do a lot worse in life than to follow the five pillars. I think that Islamic critiques of objectification of women hold serious merit. I think that the emphasis on submission of one's own will to God's is a great and noble idea. And any number of other things (you see, I actually have read the Quran and a decent chunk of the Hadith). We'll take Sharia for instance. The idea of wanting to be governed by a religious body that has its own laws that supersede the laws of the host nation. Not what Sharia is. Read up. Half your citizens are likened often to cattle. They are your property, they are not free to make all of their own choices and have domain over themselves. The Quran clearly keeps sending mixed messages on almost any issue. But the general theme is at least that, "as men, we know what's better for you than you do". Lots of Muslims interpret that way. Many do not. Who are you to say your exegesis is more accurate than theirs? The first video was taken in Norway. And I have hundreds of other damning videos in Europe. Doing the math that means tens of thousands of Muslims in the west take their religion very seriously, think that it supersedes that of the state they are in. Sure, and I could take damning videos of idiot Christians or Atheists around the world too. It's been done before. But there's not a damn thing wrong with taking your religion seriously. Even more seriously than the state. I pray I should have the strength of character to go with my faith if I ever found it and my country in irreconcilable conflict. Some Muslims hold views I do disagree with, of course. But as a Christian I am bound to take Muslims seriously on the basis of the views each of them holds personally as an individual and not to reduce them to some amorphous class of people. | ||
|
Naracs_Duc
746 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:40 SolaR- wrote: Dawkins is quite intelligent. Explain otherwise. Your post provides no content. He didn't say they were stupid. No need to get so emotional. | ||
|
Yoav
United States1874 Posts
On May 14 2016 01:49 Mohdoo wrote: Why would people be loyal to some made up country over their god? When you consider what these people think of god as, it makes no sense to be loyal to your country first. TIL: Pope is God in Catholicism | ||
|
oBlade
United States6252 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:38 Plansix wrote: People can read whatever shitty books from shitty authors they want. I hear those Twilight books sold well too. What university is the author of Twilight a fellow of? | ||
|
Naracs_Duc
746 Posts
No he's not. I mean, he sort of is. Its complicated. | ||
|
SK.Testie
Canada11084 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:41 Naracs_Duc wrote: He didn't say they were stupid. No need to get so emotional. There was no emotional inflection in this post. When you attack someone as 'low grade intellect' you should immediately provide a source to someone you consider of higher intellect. Otherwise the statement means nothing. Dawkins most definitely isn't a low grade intellect. He's an inquisitive mind that's come to a conclusion on the topic of religion. The fact that he's seeked answers for so long is a sign of intellect. The constant curiosity for answers is intelligence. He's most definitely not the ideal spokesperson for a debate as unlike Hitchens he's more dismissive. Whereas Hitchens preferred to listen to every word of his opponent and then dismantle them piece by piece. Dawkins will be a little more like, "omg how have you not come to this conclusion you complete ignoramous!" | ||
|
Sent.
Poland9313 Posts
On May 14 2016 01:54 LegalLord wrote: I mean, I know a lot of Catholics who are like that, and in fact most of the most devout ones I know are loyal to the Catholic church before their nation of origin. I meant that the Pope has no authority to tell Catholics to actively act against the state. He can say abortion is wrong but he can't say you shouldn't pay taxes because your state allows abortion. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s". | ||
|
Naracs_Duc
746 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:45 SK.Testie wrote: There was no emotional inflection in this post. When you attack someone as 'low grade intellect' you should immediately provide a source to someone you consider of higher intellect. Otherwise the statement means nothing. The phrase "in the business of selling books and being famous" already answers that. | ||
|
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:40 SolaR- wrote: Dawkins is quite intelligent. Explain otherwise. Your post provides no content. Ben Carson is a brain surgeon, so degrees are no sign of intelligence. And the truly fine intellects of history knew enough to avoid pretending to be an expert on a field they have never studied. The man is brilliant in his field. But like many very smart people, he overreaches. | ||
|
NukeD
Croatia1612 Posts
Also, there was this interesting comparison in Nobel winners across all religions. Apparently only like 4 muslims won a Nobel prize out of lets say 800 total, where Jews alone won something like 90+ While being the smallest of the group and islam has over a billion people. What is interesting is that during history islam was the place to go for science, especially math, after all we do use arab numbers among other things. Then around 13th century they had one ruler impose islam fundamentalism as law, replacing science with Quraan, and to this day islam has not recovered from that. I have watched that in a video where a guy explains in detail what happened exactly, but i am unable to find it now. Will try further. I just realised how low quallity my post is, but i swear that video was top notch!  | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States46123 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:41 Naracs_Duc wrote: He didn't say they were stupid. No need to get so emotional. I don't see how you could extract emotions from SolaR's comments, but obviously the use of "low grade" to describe their intellect was done on purpose. I feel that Dawkins and Harris both have a decent level of sophistication within their scientific professions (Dawkins with evolutionary biology and Harris with neuroscience; although Dawkins is taken far more seriously in his field, they both have doctorates), and are very eloquent speakers (especially Harris imo). Their passions push up against ethics and by proxy religion though, where I think they run into some trouble (although quite frankly, the people they debate are largely morons). On a relative scale compared to the Creationists or religious fundamentalists they debate, most of the time they're clearly more logical and better equipped; compared to other philosophers or secular humanist speakers, I don't think they're the best. | ||
|
DarkPlasmaBall
United States46123 Posts
That's not really that far off; he speaks directly with God. The Pope's Word is just as good as God's Word for the most part. | ||
|
Naracs_Duc
746 Posts
On May 14 2016 02:46 Sent. wrote: I meant that the Pope has no authority to tell Catholics to actively act against the state. He can say abortion is wrong but he can't say you shouldn't pay taxes because your state allows abortion. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s". But we're talking about Loyalty, not national laws. He can point to scripture to suggest that Abortion is wrong (he technically can't "say" that abortion is wrong since he's not God and hence he does not make the rules), which means Catholics can choose to perform an abortion, or abstain from performing abortions (as this is the the act in question of being sinful or not), but the Pope cannot extend his extrapolations outside of the direct actions itself. ie Paying Taxes is not a sin, so that's okay. Now he can make the argument (assuming he makes proper citations in from both the scripture and the literature of the scripture) that extensions of an action that leads to committed sins is also a sin--and then to make the argument that that would mean paying taxes that support abortion is sinful, but that would also contradict the catholic definitions of sins (which is hinged with intent, wanting to do it is as much or worse than the actually doing it) meaning that if you're forced to pay taxes (because its the law) and those taxes go to abortions, its only a sin if you wanted the abortions to happen or wanted to support abortions. Christianity and Sin is a very complex animal and is rarely if ever the simple perform action A, get punishment B. | ||
|
Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
The Pope isn't God, but he says shit that people are supposed to assume is pretty much God. The point remains that our constructs of borders are obviously extremely secondary to not only god but the pope as well. Someone who holds their country above god does not actually believe in god. Otherwise they are just people who like the idea of a shared spirituality with their family and loved ones. But they don't believe in god. | ||
|
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Hence why I referred to them as low grade intellects, because their continued inability to understand that the debate they are having is both surface level and puerile shows a lack of self awareness. | ||
| ||
