Whats the best response to the "Popularity defense"

[SkepticBoyLee]

Im talking to this Muslim. He says that all prophets are from God but that their messages were eventually corrupted, except for Islam because the Koran is unchanged.

He says that the prophets Jesus and Muhammed, sinlge men, spawned and influenced billions of people. A phenomenoin that only exists via religion and prophets. What is the BEST reponse the the "agument via popularity" fallacy?

I simply point out that it is a fallacy and that if mear popularity meant truth then NSYNC is the best band of the last 5 years.

[Nostalgic Pushhead]

So the billions of people who believed in Zeus were... hmm?

I don't think Muslims acknowledge Zeus.

[Kosh3]

100,000 lemmings can't be wrong?

[lpetrich]

The first thing I'd do is point out all the (to him) numerous false things in Xianity -- the Trinity, Jesus Christ as a human/divine half-breed, him being crucified and resurrected, etc. And how some of the largest Xian sects practice polytheism and idolatry on a massive scale. And the symbolic cannibalism known as Communion. And prohibition of polygamy. And lack of houris in the Xian Heaven. Etc.

I'd also point out how religions are often imposed by governments, which is how Xianity and Islam had spread. During the Reformation and its resulting Wars of Religion, that was very obvious:

Cuius regio eius religio
Whose region, his religion
(and her religion, as the case may be)


So ask why billions of people could possibly believe in something as absurd as the Trinity.


Also, pagan religions had been believed in for millennia, as written records clearly show. Egyptian paganism had been recorded as lasting from the beginning of Egypt's recorded history to when it was outlawed by an Xian Roman emperor -- over 3000 years! So ought we to convert to it and recognize Amon-Ra and Thoth and Osiris and Isis and Hathor and Horus and Set and ... ?

[jaded_revenge]

The truth is the truth, even if nobody believes it.

[seebs]

So, as the number of believers changes, God becomes more and less real?

[Quetzalcoatl]

Yes seebs. Haven't you figured that out by now?

[MagV]

I laugh at how often I hear religous types spouting this argument.

Basically any argument that:
1. Gives an example of many people believing something.
2. The example happens to be something that that person doesn't agree with

will work. One you might try is:
- Many people believed slavery wasn't a bad thing to do. Does that make them right?

Or for a bit of humour:
100,000 lemmings can't be wrong?

or

Eat shit. Millions of flies can't be wrong (credit someone on this board).

[RussianM3_dude]

Billions of people (including Mohhamed) believed the Earth was flat. And it was still round.

[Queen of Swords]

Didn't this guy's mother ever say to him, "If everyone else jumped off the bridge, would you do it too?"

He might have, of course, but that's a different matter.

There's also one of my favorite quotes from Anatole France : "If fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

[Ojuice5001]

Didn't this guy's mother ever say to him, "If everyone else jumped off the bridge, would you do it too?"



Mostly a nitpick, but not entirely irrelevant to the OP:

I've always thought that wasn't a good example to prove popularity shouldn't be heeded. Life is all about priorities, and something would have to be as high a priority as possible to justify jumping off a bridge. Popularity could still justify other things, like say an unhealthy diet, without being important enough that the bridge conclusion follows.

Also, "everyone else" never does jump off a bridge. (If "everyone else" is defined in such a way as to accurately represent the modal level of fanaticism and emotional stability found in the general population.) That could mean that the judgment of the majority is sound enough to be trusted on the idea that life is worth living; they never get it wrong.

Ad populum is, of course, too weak an argument to establish much of anything. We can all think of things that have actually been popular and that, so it seems to you and I, have no other advantages to recommend them. Real counterexamples are around to show that ad populum is a fallacy. It's just that jumping off a bridge isn't one of them.

[Berthold]

So the billions of people who believed in Zeus were... hmm?

Billions? Greece for some centuries, and part of Hellenist culture space for some shorter time. I doubt if this makes that many.

Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists and Taoists, these are a lot!

[Ojuice5001]

Billions? Greece for some centuries, and part of Hellenist culture space for some shorter time. I doubt if this makes that many.

Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists and Taoists, these are a lot!

Right, there haven't been billions of believers in Jupiter. But I wonder what the statistics look like after you take the population increase into account. Clearly things improve, but there are still proportionately more believers in those Asian religions--especially since all of them originated within a millenium of classical paganism.

Not that I care. Religious number-crunching is, no doubt, a vice. I certainly shouldn't feel jealous of the fact that certain gods from other civilizations have racked up a greater number of worshippers over the millennia, compared to my own.

But in the case of Confucianism, I agree with Chesterton when he said that "Confucianism may be a civilization but it is not a religion." Confucianism is just as focused on humanistic ethics as a religion like Reform Judaism.

[Dharma]

Right, there haven't been billions of believers in Jupiter. But I wonder what the statistics look like after you take the population increase into account. Clearly things improve, but there are still proportionately more believers in those Asian religions--especially since all of them originated within a millenium of classical paganism.

Not that I care. Religious number-crunching is, no doubt, a vice. I certainly shouldn't feel jealous of the fact that certain gods from other civilizations have racked up a greater number of worshippers over the millennia, compared to my own.

But in the case of Confucianism, I agree with Chesterton when he said that "Confucianism may be a civilization but it is not a religion." Confucianism is just as focused on humanistic ethics as a religion like Reform Judaism.

incorrect, Confucianism is a religion.

www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/fall97/11kshinn.htm
Confucianism embraces not only the teachings of Confucius, but also the traditional customs and rites of the past. The texts are divided into two categories, known as the "King" (Classics), and the "Shuh" (Books). The texts of the King are commonly counted as five, but sometimes are counted as six. The first of these is the "Shao-king" (Book of History). It’s a religious and moral book, tracing the series of great events in history. It also teaches the lesson that the Heaven-god gives prosperity only to the virtuous ruler who has the welfare of the people at heart.

[capsaicin67]

The population of earth was significantly less in past centuries, and certainly regionally and during limited historical periods. So another vote for careful use of the word "billions".....