Richard Dawkins -vs- Billy Graham

#76
#76
VOLatile said:
I've made my case for Dawkins, no one's made a case for Graham other than he has faith and that makes him more intelligent.

Graham is a good public speaker, much like Obama. That's about all I see from him, nothing that suggests he has any skills beyond that.

Dawkins is well respected in the science world. I just so happen to equate intelligence with observable knowledge.
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Graham wrote many books and was a trusted advisor to many Presidents from Eisenhower to Clinton.

Does that not count?
 
#77
#77
rjd970 said:
Both were religious entrpreneurs, no?. At base they are peddling religious idealism. Graham harboured some different poltical views, but they are cut from the same cloth.

I see con game with both, they both got rich preaching their respective religious idealogies.
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So people preaching religion are con artists.

Someone advocating atheism is a legit knowledge broker regardless if they get rich or famous doing it.

Why not fess up and say you think people that believe in God are dumber than atheists.
 
#78
#78
volinbham said:
So people preaching religion are con artists.

Someone advocating atheism is a legit knowledge broker regardless if they get rich or famous doing it.

Why not fess up and say you think people that believe in God are dumber than atheists.
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Never mind, wasting my time.
 
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#79
#79
YorkVol said:
Thought I laid it out pretty well back on page 1, didn't mention faith at all.

However, I will posit that belief in a deity and belief in no deity are just opposite sides of the same coin.

Graham chose to study one area and not only did he speak well, he wrote exceptionally well. The difference is that he writes for common man so his writing is simple and easier to understand, but that doesn't mean it is simplistic. He's tackled some very deep philosophical issues and boiled them down to laymen's level. In my view that takes real intelligence.

Dawkins audience is primarily the academic and scientific world. He is highly intellectual but that doesn't necessarily make him smarter.

Observable knowledge seems to mean knowledge that you agree with. The interesting twist that the OP put in this comparison is that he knew people would glom onto the issue of faith vs science rather than debate the intellectual merits of either man. That seems to be the case here.
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Bingo

Maybe Dawkins is more intelligent; maybe even by a mile but nothing in this thread has established that and the characterizations of Graham show a lack of any examination of the EVIDENCE pertaining to his intellectual capacity.
 
#81
#81
volinbham said:
I'm surprised that Graham is getting lumped in with TV evangelicals. There's a big difference and I believe Graham was completely sincere.
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If the shoe fits, wear it. He might not be as mendacious as other TV evangelicals, but is still a TV evangelical. He became a multi millionaire via spreading the evangelical gospel on radio/TV/books etc. Very unChrist like; a sham. Call it whatever you like.

volinbham said:
I've still seen no facts relating to his intelligence - just supposition that if he has faith he can't be too bright (which is absurd).
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If you want to take the skeptic view, that's fine. It is logically coherent but opposes experience (common sense).

volinbham said:
It seems to be coming down to who do you agree with - if you are religious Graham is more intelligent if you aren't then Dawkins is. We have no real evidence either way (of who was more intelligent).
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There is a stark difference between intelligence and wisdom. I think many in this thread are confusing the two.
 
#82
#82
PKT_VOL said:
If the shoe fits, wear it. He might not be as mendacious as other TV evangelicals, but is still a TV evangelical. He became a multi millionaire via spreading the evangelical gospel on radio/TV/books etc. Very unChrist like; a sham. Call it whatever you like.

So a small town Southern Baptist preacher making $200 a week is somehow unChrist like? Or does that only come into play when they make a lot of money?

If you want to take the skeptic view, that's fine. It is logically coherent but opposes experience (common sense).

Who's experience?


There is a stark difference between intelligence and wisdom. I think many in this thread are confusing the two.
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Sounds like to me the difference is who you agree with, no more, no less. How is that even slightly intellectually honest?

Again, it comes down to Christians are not smart, atheists are... and that's ridiculous. Where's the intelligence in that?
 
#83
#83
volsforever27 said:
So a small town Southern Baptist preacher making $200 a week is somehow unChrist like? Or does that only come into play when they make a lot of money?
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First, I guess I should disclose that I am against all organized religion. Personal spirituality is fine. But, I do believe it is more pious (or Christ like) that the Baptist preacher in your example only takes a meager salary while Graham is a multi millionaire.

volsforever27 said:
Who's experience?
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Everyone. I think you missed the whole point of my retort to volinbham.

He was making the point that there are no known scientific evaluations of intelligence between the two. You could make the even broader argument, as skeptics do (hello Descartes) that it is impossible to ever truly know how "intelligent" a person really is. This is due to the fact that despite our best attempts, both scientific and otherwise, we have yet to be able to truly enter another person's mind. Anything short of such a feat renders our subjective notions of "intelligent" and "unintelligent" totally obsolete.

My retort was to grant him that his position is logically valid, however our empirical evidence (experience) tells us differently. Forget Dawkins and Graham. I don't think anybody on this board would dispute that Albert Einstein was more "intelligent" than some random person whose only skill is his manual labor because he had little or no formal education.

volsforever27 said:
Sounds like to me the difference is who you agree with, no more, no less. How is that even slightly intellectually honest?

Again, it comes down to Christians are not smart, atheists are... and that's ridiculous. Where's the intelligence in that?
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Complete Strawman fallacy. I never said nor implied such a position.
 
#84
#84
PKT_VOL said:
First, I guess I should disclose that I am against all organized religion. Personal spirituality is fine. But, I do believe it is more pious (or Christ like) that the Baptist preacher in your example only takes a meager salary while Graham is a multi millionaire.

Ahh, so it's about the amount. So what's the cut-off? Do you get to decide? I don't think Jesus ever said you can only make x amount of dollars.

Everyone. I think you missed the whole point of my retort to volinbham.

He was making the point that there are no known scientific evaluations of intelligence between the two. You could make the even broader argument, as skeptics do (hello Descartes) that it is impossible to ever truly know how "intelligent" a person really is. This is due to the fact that despite our best attempts, both scientific and otherwise, we have yet to be able to truly enter another person's mind. Anything short of such a feat renders our subjective notions of "intelligent" and "unintelligent" totally obsolete.

My retort was to grant him that his position is logically valid, however our empirical evidence (experience) tells us differently. Forget Dawkins and Graham. I don't think anybody on this board would dispute that Albert Einstein was more "intelligent" than some random person whose only skill is his manual labor because he had little or no formal education.

Really eloquent way of saying no one intelligent or with any kind of formal education could buy into this. And who or what is the judgement for deciding Einstein is smarter than the average Joe? Without talking to every single person who has no formal education, that's just a prejudice on your part... and that's my main complaint. By the way, some of the most intelligent people I've ever met didn't have a formal education.

Complete Strawman fallacy. I never said nor implied such a position.
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Said? No. Implied? Definitely. To be a strawman (an over-used term in this forum), that's pretty solid imo. These posts sooner or later always tend to have the poster's true thoughts come out, not matter how badly they try otherwise.

For the record, vbham and I aren't exactly tight.... I disagree with him on several issues, but he made some solid points about Graham's somehow lower intelligence. Things like this are never fact, just opinion.
 
#85
#85
volsforever27 said:
Ahh, so it's about the amount. So what's the cut-off? Do you get to decide? I don't think Jesus ever said you can only make x amount of dollars.
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I guess you missed the part where I said that I am against all organized religion. I think both are impious (not Christ like). That being said, I also think everything is relative. Therefore, although I think both are fundamentally impious, Graham would be the more egregious offender in my book. There is no "X" amount cut-off. There is simply a sliding scale.

volsforever27 said:
Really eloquent way of saying no one intelligent or with any kind of formal education could buy into this. And who or what is the judgement for deciding Einstein is smarter than the average Joe? Without talking to every single person who has no formal education, that's just a prejudice on your part... and that's my main complaint. By the way, some of the most intelligent people I've ever met didn't have a formal education.
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It is absolutely not an eloquent way of saying that. It actually has nothing to do with formal education at all. It has everything to do with results. I stated in the example "little or no formal education" because almost everyone has some formal education (grade school). The example was suppose to represent someone with NO education at all. Some of the smartest, most intelligent people in the world (mostly in history but some currently) were self-taught. I did not try to imply otherwise.

The point was that although logically we can dismiss subjective notions of "intelligence", our experience suggest that there is a real difference of intelligence between people. I should add that these differences ought to be measured on results (or output) not education level (or input).

volsforever27 said:
Said? No. Implied? Definitely. To be a strawman (an over-used term in this forum), that's pretty solid imo. These posts sooner or later always tend to have the poster's true thoughts come out, not matter how badly they try otherwise.
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Please feel free to point out a post of mine where I implied such a notion. I will help you out; there exists no such post. Inserting your preconceived notions of where I might be coming from then passing it off as my position or thought process is absolutely a strawman fallacy.

volsforever27 said:
For the record, vbham and I aren't exactly tight.... I disagree with him on several issues, but he made some solid points about Graham's somehow lower intelligence. Things like this are never fact, just opinion.
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I conceded that vbham made a great point. However, I think where he and other posters in this thread have gone awry is in the difference between "wisdom" and "intelligence." I think a strong argument can be made for Graham being wise. YorkVol comes to mind if you switch his wording from "intelligent"/"intelligence" to "wise"/"wisdom".
 
#86
#86
PKT_VOL said:
I guess you missed the part where I said that I am against all organized religion. I think both are impious (not Christ like). That being said, I also think everything is relative. Therefore, although I think both are fundamentally impious, Graham would be the more egregious offender in my book. There is no "X" amount cut-off. There is simply a sliding scale.

So basically they all suck... it's just to what degree.

It is absolutely not an eloquent way of saying that. It actually has nothing to do with formal education at all. It has everything to do with results. I stated in the example "little or no formal education" because almost everyone has some formal education (grade school). The example was suppose to represent someone with NO education at all. Some of the smartest, most intelligent people in the world (mostly in history but some currently) were self-taught. I did not try to imply otherwise.

The point was that although logically we can dismiss subjective notions of "intelligence", our experience suggest that there is a real difference of intelligence between people. I should add that these differences ought to be measured on results (or output) not education level (or input).

I've yet to see the results of which you speak. If you can provide proof, I'm more than willing to listen. Somehow, I think that's going to be difficult.

Please feel free to point out a post of mine where I implied such a notion. I will help you out; there exists no such post. Inserting your preconceived notions of where I might be coming from then passing it off as my position or thought process is absolutely a strawman fallacy.

It's called cutting to the chase... go back and reread this thread. That's basically how it can be summed up. That's how I tend to see it. If I'm wrong, then I apologize.

I conceded that vbham made a great point. However, I think where he and other posters in this thread have gone awry is in the difference between "wisdom" and "intelligence." I think a strong argument can be made for Graham being wise. YorkVol comes to mind if you switch his wording from "intelligent"/"intelligence" to "wise"/"wisdom".
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Ignoring the semantics (intelligent vs. wise), what possible proof can you provide that Dawkins or anyone else is smarter or more intelligent than Graham? It's opinion. And that's what all of these threads come be summed up as, opinion... not fact. As stated before, if you can find their IQ scores or some other tangible proof, I'm willing to discuss it. Otherwise, it's conjecture.

Too tired to discuss anymore. I will blame my poor work performance on you tomorrow (actually today). Have a good morning.
 
#87
#87
VOLatile said:
I've made my case for Dawkins, no one's made a case for Graham other than he has faith and that makes him more intelligent.

Graham is a good public speaker, much like Obama. That's about all I see from him, nothing that suggests he has any skills beyond that.

Dawkins is well respected in the science world. I just so happen to equate intelligence with observable knowledge.
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wtf, suggests he has any skills beyond that
 
#88
#88
So basically the argument is interchangeable

Dems smarter than rpubs
Environmentalists smarter than capitalists
Atheist smarter than religious
Air Force smarter than Army, Navy, Marines
Lawyer smarter than joe citizen
crack whore smarter than a politician
 
#89
#89
volinbham said:
But you are looking at them through one single issue - belief in God. Why is that the measure of intelligence. Graham was a trusted advisor for several presidents (both R and D; Graham is a D) and met with several more. Would he have that access and be sought after if he wasn't intelligent?
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There is too much to respond to right now and I don't have time, i will get to it later. Where did I say I am only looking at them through one issue, belief in god? I did in fact say graham was smart, I said I thought Dawkins was smarter. I also acknowledged the fact that he was different politically from other evangelists.
 
#90
#90
rjd970 said:
There is too much to respond to right now and I don't have time, i will get to it later. Where did I say I am only looking at them through one issue, belief in god? I did in fact say graham was smart, I said I thought Dawkins was smarter. I also acknowledged the fact that he was different politically from other evangelists.
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How do you base smarter, we have no idea.

Faith he is smarter?
 
#92
#92
AJeray4TN said:
I feel no need to defend this position. It's called faith. I think the man that is right is smarter than the man that is wrong.

But you're probably right... I'm sure Dawkins has read more books and spent many more years in school. I'm happy for him.
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This x 1000! Completely agree.
 
#94
#94
volinbham said:
So people preaching religion are con artists.

Someone advocating atheism is a legit knowledge broker regardless if they get rich or famous doing it.

Why not fess up and say you think people that believe in God are dumber than atheists.
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Yes, people capitalizing off religion are running a con game. As is shouted by people on here on a daily basis, this is different than belief in god.

Depends on what said atheist brings to the table and his credentials.
 
#95
#95
OP is silly.......is a doctor smarter than a lawyer.......is a plumber smarter than an electrician........is a teacher smarter than an accountant.......it is all relative to their profession and silly to try and classify
 
#96
#96
volinbham said:
Interestingly, Billy Graham has written 29 books dating back to 1947. What a dumb arse.
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