Which of these 'popular' lablels do you associate with?

[Dolerman]

@Dynamo Frokane and science is your only method of measuring levels of 'smartness'? You don't think a creationist can be clever, genius in their own way, for example philosophies, spiritual guidance to troubled people, maths, literature, history, etcetera.

I think you're thinking too much about this on the religious side. Religion has nothing to do with ones capabilities to be smart or not. History has proven that time and time again. You claim that these people go against science but you yourself are going against history, which in my eyes is a far more clear sign of stupidity.

There are many benefits to religion that have nothing to do with religion. Social ties. Helping troubled people. Providing guidance for those that need. Providing hope for those that can't find it elsewhere. Creationism doesn't mean you're stupid. It just means you have a different idea on the world.

Your lack of being able to process that, that too signals to me that you're not yet mature enough to even consider entering a discussion with these people.

It reminds me of what Trump said when he used Mussolini (the father of fascism) his quote 'better to live one day as a lion than a hundred as a sheep' or something among those lines.

'It's a great quote,' and with that I want to say; even dumb people can say genius things, even geniuses make mistakes and/or say stupid things, even evil people have a shred of good, and even good people have evil hidden deep inside of them.

Discrediting people based on their religious views - well, let me say, it already puts you in the same department as you put them in. Listen to what people say and not to who you think they are.

It might work wonders for you.

@Buddha

Get off the soapbox and see what I'm actually adressing.

Like I said, this hasnt got anything to do with god and very little to do with religion, most christians arent creationists, there is a difference between having a belief in a higher being and being willfully ignorant to proven facts.

Its not about being mostly smart or mostly stupid, its about how a lack of rational thinking and skepticism makes you unfit to be a president. If a guy was a master chess player but thought that babies were delivered by the stork or that the earth was flat we would rightfully call him an idiot. You dont get a pass on saying ignorant things just because you do well in other areas, it speaks to your level of reason and logic.

So yes I do discredit Ben Carson as a presidential candidate or even as politician, where you need more than brain surgery to be effective at your job. If you want to belive in a god FINE, if you want to believe in a christian god, FINE. But if you are going to try and assert blatant untruths about basic facts about the world and try and influence a nation based off of that, then you are a moron.

Facts dont care about your holy book.

[Dion]

@Dynamo Frokane I don't see how his religious views on how the world were created would impact anything at all honestly.

Does it affect his skill as a diplomat? Not really.
Does it affect his skill as an economist? Not really.
Does it affect his skill as a spokesperson? Not really.
Does it affect his skill as a policymaker? Not really - not that a president is a policymaker.

It doesn't affect anything except for his religious views. That you disagree with those views is one thing.
It just so happens to be that he doesn't have any of those qualities you need as a president to begin with. I don't think that's caused by being a creationist.

Like I said there are those who are creationist and don't believe in the 6 days stuff. There are those that accept many facts of science - or rather, all of them, but still believe that God created us and then let us do our own thing.

You can't discredit all creationists (because that's what you did, regardless of whether you were talking about Ben Carson or not. Pick your words.) on the basis that there's one (or in creationists' situation, hundreds) of idiots running around.

Just what I think though.

[Hillan]

Y'all racist as shit.

[Jotunn Draugr]

<Snipped quote by Buddha>

Atheism VS Theism is a different thing, you dont get plus or minus points for either as you cant really prove if there is or isnt a god either way, its sort of just what reasoning you use to presume which is more logical.

Creationism DOES make you stupid, as creationism isnt a simple as I believe in a higher power, its anti-scientific biblical literalism. Its believing things that have been proven false. The correct correlation would be creationism vs rationalism or scientific method. Any one running for president who thinks god 'magicked' the world in 6 days is a moron, period.

@Dynamo Frokane

The sign of an educated man is when he can entertain an idea, without accepting it. If you can't so much as empathize with creationists, regardless of their academic and occupational accomplishments (which clearly demonstrate that their abilities haven't been retarded by their faith), it doesn't reflect well on you. You're presenting everyone who reads this forum with a choice, between an elitist who can't consider the perspectives of others (and declares a massive portion of humanity, even a huge faction of western civilization, to be "stupid", "anti-scientific", "moron[s]"), and a polite, world-renowned brain surgeon (who casts no such aspersions on you for your beliefs, even though he thinks you're just as wrong as you think him to be).

Forgive me, your majesty, if we side with the brain surgeon.

[Jotunn Draugr]

<Snipped quote by Jotunn Draugr>

Online polls were regularly declaring, like, 90% for Bernie back in the spring. Of course, the Media isn't exactly a better judge, but they seem to know that, and most media personalities I have seen have been tossing in grains of salt with their reports. You know, always talking about how bizarre this election is and how they ultimately can't figure out what is going on, before they go on with their opinion. I think the real indicator will be how the professional polls look, and we got at least a week if not two before those come out in large enough numbers to tell a story.

My own opinion, I expected him to do well, but I don't think he did well at all. I was surprised by it actually. He is good on the offensive but petulant and weak in the defensive, so I assumed he'd take the offensive. But instead he played his weakest hand and came off like he was way out of his league.

Hillary came off as robotic (The way she awkwardly felt her way up to that "I call it trumped up Reaganomics" line was like watching a blind man having sex for the first time). She always has seemed robotic. This is especially true when she is answering a moderator question. Clinton's debating style always comes off to me like a college freshman who practiced a few choice lines in a mirror and sort of ad-libbed the rest, because it always feels like she is setting herself up to deliver the line she had practiced. It's awkward and unimpressive. She did better when rebutting Trump's ideas, especially that one time where she did that aside to America's allies, I felt that made him look like a little boy getting apologized for by his mother.

But Trump comes off exactly like a cartoon villain in an old saturday morning cartoon. He starts off cocky, then slowly looses his cool, spouts generically evil lines, and starts falling apart near the end. It sorta felt like Batman should jump up any minute, kick him into the lava, say some corny line, and then credits role. He also has this thing for petulance. Like, let your supporters bitch about the media, don't do it yourself. A presidential candidate whining about the media... i mean, here you have a bunch of spineless milquetoast upper-middle class reporters and you're going to say they are being mean? How the fuck you gonna lead the free world if those people are enough of a challenge for you to call time-out? A billionaire whining about how the election is too hard... that doesn't inspire anything but disgust in me, guy. Man the fuck up.

The biggest danger for Trump in these debates I think will be himself. Clinton is not charismatic enough to do him in, he has to do it himself. He said Trumpy things in August and had bad polls. He toned it down in September and had really good polls. But if that is how he is going to act in a debate, he really is in danger of saying Trumpy things again, and he can't afford to do that in October. This is the home stretch. What happens in this next month will actually stay with the voters. He did really well with the TPP line, actually managed to choke her up, so whatever he did there he'll have to learn how to hold if he is going to win this thing. But if he plays it, like, basically the rest of that debate, he's going to have to hope for outside forces to get him the swing votes. Pray for an economic collapse (again), or something like that.

Meanwhile, I can say that the debate only really reinforced my resolve to vote third party this year. The next president is going to be some sort of disaster or another, so fuck it.

@Vilageidiotx

You know what, you make a good argument. Not for voting third party, necessarily, but for getting a can of gasoline and just burning as much shit as possible.

In all seriousness, even though I support one, I acknowledge that they're both horrible in many ways, and I respect your democratic right to demonstrate this discontent with a vote for someone else entirely.

[Vilageidiotx]

Creationism, if that is the extent of your religious views, is irrelevant to most things this is true. (Well, except maybe if you are a geneticist or something).

But it does tend to be comorbid with other stuff. You run across a hardcore creationist you have to start wondering what other hardline evangelical stuff do they subscribe to. Are they in the camp who believe certain things need to be achieved to bring about the end of the world? Because those people, the ones who want to help along the apocalypse, could make some poor judgements about middle eastern diplomacy. And if they are that evangelical, do they want to curtail the rights of others? People of other religions, or the irreligious, or fuck, even other brands of Christianity.

That's my first concern when I hear a candidate is creationist. If they are into that, what else are they into, and what affect might it have on their behavior? You know, it'd be like finding out your candidate believes he was abducted by aliens. Like, that belief when taken alone is pretty irrelevant as well, but it can be taken as a symptom of other peculiarities which might cause something of a problem.

And being a Brain surgeon doesn't really cast that concern away. I mean yeh, absolutely it is better to pick a guy with bizarre beliefs who is successful over a person with bizarre beliefs who lives under a bridge, but just because a bizarre belief hasn't hindered a persons ability to perform complex surgery doesn't mean it won't effect their judgement in leading a government.

[j8cob]

Y'all racist as shit.

@Hillan

For you.

[Dolerman]

@Jotunn Draugr

Well you dont know the man personally so lets not start calling him polite, or that he saves kittens in his spare time. There is not enough time to consider every wacky alternative view, would you honestly be taking him just as seriously if he thought that the stork delivered babies or that the earth was flat? These arent even religous veiwpoints by the way.

And you are presenting a false dhicotomy, everyone who isnt a creationist is an 'elitst' unless you are calling everyone with a school level understanding of science an elitist. I'm not saying Ben Carson is an evil man because he has stupid ideas, but a stupid idea is a stupid idea. You roast democrats and liberals on far less for their opinions on how they think the world should be run, I dont call you an elitist for not considering the perspectives of a socialist or a communist. You've clearly considered the views and you think they are dumb, hence you dont think they should run the country, regardless of their academic acheivements in economics.

And this 'huge portion' thing is a lie, most people ARE NOT creationists. Most Christians believe in evolution and the scientific method, and most people who believe in the scientific method ARE christians. You undermine everyday church going people when you attactch creationism to their wordviews, your majesty.

[Jotunn Draugr]

@Jotunn Draugr

Well you dont know the man personally so lets not start calling him polite, or that he saves kittens in his spare time. There is not enough time to consider every wacky alternative view, would you honestly be taking him just as seriously if he thought that the stork delivered babies or that the earth was flat? These arent even religous veiwpoints by the way.

And you are presenting a false dhicotomy, everyone who isnt a creationist is an 'elitst' unless you are calling everyone with a school level understanding of science an elitist. I'm not saying Ben Carson is an evil man because he has stupid ideas, but a stupid idea is a stupid idea. You roast democrats and liberals on far less for their opinions on how they think the world should be run, I dont call you an elitist for not considering the perspectives of a socialist or a communist. You've clearly considered the views and you think they are dumb, hence you dont think they should run the country, regardless of their academic acheivements in economics.

And this 'huge portion' thing is a lie, most people ARE NOT creationists. Most Christians believe in evolution and the scientific method, and most people who believe in the scientific method ARE christians. You undermine everyday church going people when you attactch creationism to their wordviews, your majesty.

@Dynamo Frokane

1. Yes, they aren't religious viewpoints, so they're irrelevant to the discussion. We're discussing whether a man's credibility (and intelligence, apparently) is lost because he is devout in his religious faith.

2. I'm not calling everyone who isn't a creationist an elitist. I'm specifically calling you an elitist, because that's exactly what you are if you completely dismiss a massive segment of the population completely, based on a single religious tradition they abide by. Not only are you discounting this huge portion of humanity, but you're not even doing it on grounds that they're academically unqualified, or in any other way discredited. You're taking a belief they hold, which isn't necessarily relevant to the vast majority of their role in society, and making it the overwhelming determining factor for their value as a human/citizen/intellectual/civil servant. I have no problem with atheists, because unlike you, I don't judge entire swaths of humanity (in all aspects of their lives) by a single belief they hold. I'm saying that you, as an individual, are putting yourself up as an opponent to Ben Carson's legitimacy, as an individual, and are coming across as an elitist.
Also, I do consider the opinions of socialists, liberals, democrats and communists, and I judge their platforms as they stand, not on the personal traditions and conventions of the person espousing them. This is what I'd consider "peanut gallery" behaviour.

3. Most Muslims are creationists. Most Hindus (including the various sects, like Hare Krishna) are creationists. A lot of Buddhists are creationists. Devoutly religious Jews (especially those in non western countries) are creationists... Or were you discounting the entire world outside of your own back yard?
And I never once said the majority of Christians were creationists. They are a sizable chunk of the West, and an even larger chunk of the global population. I never once attributed qualities to all of Christianity. It's only you here, who continues to lump entire sections of humanity in groups that you then write off as being homogeneous.

How about treating people as individuals, rather than dehumanized collectives, your majesty?

[Dolerman]

@Jotunn Draugr You havent adressed my points and comparisons(Stork and Flat Earth, Stupid Ideas of Liberals, Ability to run a country) so sadly the discussion ends here, plus you are calling creationism a religous tradition after admitting this has nothing to do with religion. Stick to the Trump stuff, this might not be your bag.

[Jotunn Draugr]

@Jotunn Draugr You havent adressed my points and comparisons(Stork and Flat Earth, Stupid Ideas of Liberals, Ability to run a country) so sadly the discussion ends here, plus you are calling creationism a religous tradition after admitting this has nothing to do with religion. Stick to the Trump stuff, this might not be your bag.

@Dynamo Frokane

Dude, you're hearing what you want to hear, and have missed the point on everything I said. I might as well be talking to a brick wall. And to top if off, you're being an elitist prick about it.

"Sweet dreams, lilac."

[Dolerman]

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>

Dude, you're hearing what you want to hear, and have missed the point on everything I said. I might as well be talking to a brick wall. And to top if off, you're being an elitist prick about it.

"Sweet dreams, lilac."

@Jotunn Draugr

I'm not hearing anything, I'm reading.

If thinking stupid flat earth nonsense is stupid makes me an elitist, then I wear the elitist badge proudly, prick.

[Jotunn Draugr]

<Snipped quote by Jotunn Draugr>

I'm not hearing anything, I'm reading.

If thinking stupid flat earth nonsense is stupid makes me an elitist, then I wear the elitist badge proudly, prick.

@Dynamo Frokane

[Dolerman]

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>

@Jotunn Draugr

I can meme too.

[Dinh AaronMk]

It should be worth noting that when it comes to Hindu and Buddhist creation myth that their world-view basically tucks the issue and weight of creation away to some second-thought cupboard. In the case of Hinduism the cycle of creation and destruction as cyclical, and Buddhism would have adopted whatever happens to be nearby due in part to its syncretic nature.

But on Hinduism's creation myth: it manages to parallel the basic premise of evolution better than Abrahamic faith. In the interpretation I read Vishnu comes and goes during the various epochs of the world's development as a fish, a turtle to bring land, a fish-man, a beast man, and several incarnations of man with the ultimate final and next being Vishnu leading man to the stars.

Then Brahma stops reciting his whatever and the world ends and he begins anew and it all starts over.

[cpldingo]

I'm just a disgruntled combat veteran.

And extremely distrusting of government and big business.

[BrokenPromise]

I'd like to propose a thought experiment.

There are a bunch if people stuck on an island. All of normal intelligence. They know as much about wilderness survival and escape as your average person.

Except one guy.

He's a scientist, clearly capable of rational thought. Without his efforts, many of the medicines we enjoy today would not exist. He also knows a lot about survival and getting help in a stranded setting. However he's also superstitious, and believes in faeries. He also thinks that all imagination comes from another dimension, and he's invested money in creating a device that can open up a portal to that other world.

When everyone is rescued, he alone is credited for everyone's salvation. He made sure everyone had water to drink and food to eat, and he also devised the device that successfully called for help.

Is he smart or stupid?

[Dion]

@Dynamo Frokane So basically you are saying that because he is a creationist, he is unfit to rule the country. Therefore your solution is to write him off as stupid, and in the process, write off creationists as stupid?

What if I told you that there's a better solution, namely not voting for him?

Do you feel that Socrates or Da Vinci were smart men? Surely so, right? They're some of the smartest men we've known in history.

Then you'd feel blessed to know they are both creationists and believed it 100%. Ergo, smartest men in the world were also creationists. Ergo, not every creationist is a babbling idiot that rams on and on about 6 days.

[Dolerman]

@Dynamo Frokane So basically you are saying that because he is a creationist, he is unfit to rule the country. Therefore your solution is to write him off as stupid, and in the process, write off creationists as stupid?

What if I told you that there's a better solution, namely not voting for him?

Do you feel that Socrates or Da Vinci were smart men? Surely so, right? They're some of the smartest men we've known in history.

Then you'd feel blessed to know they are both creationists and believed it 100%. Ergo, smartest men in the world were also creationists. Ergo, not every creationist is a babbling idiot that rams on and on about 6 days.

@Buddha

Intelligence is relative to the time, the caveman who invented the wheel isnt fit to be a 2016 senator is he? Lets be grown up about this.

Young earth/biblical creationism, the idea that false biblical claims are true is aggressively ignroant, and in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary is stupid. In the same way that thinking the earth is flat is stupid, in the same way that thinking the world is in the center of the universe is stupid. Some ideas are just stupid. If anyone is triggered by being called an idiot when they say idiotic things then they should be on the internet let alone a presidential race.

And lets be clear, Hilary Clinton gets called a Shill, Crook, Bitch, Reptile, Cunt, Spineless AND Stupid ALL the time by the opposition, I personally dont have a problem with it, but maybe you guys should start standing up for her humanism in the comments section of her speeches, you know just to stay consistent.

[Dolerman]

I'd like to propose a thought experiment.

There are a bunch if people stuck on an island. All of normal intelligence. They know as much about wilderness survival and escape as your average person.

Except one guy.

He's a scientist, clearly capable of rational thought. Without his efforts, many of the medicines we enjoy today would not exist. He also knows a lot about survival and getting help in a stranded setting. However he's also superstitious, and believes in faeries. He also thinks that all imagination comes from another dimension, and he's invested money in creating a device that can open up a portal to that other world.

When everyone is rescued, he alone is credited for everyone's salvation. He made sure everyone had water to drink and food to eat, and he also devised the device that successfully called for help.

Is he smart or stupid?

@BrokenPromise

An alaskan wolf would survive longer in a snowy alaskan forest with no technology than you would, is an alaskan wolf smarter than you?