[split] Critical Thinking Skills

[Darkstar]

it is not always fallacious to appeal to how many believe a certain claim, just as it is not always fallacious to appeal to% the authority of the people making the claim. the argument becomes fallacious when the number or the nature of the authority is irrelevant to whether a statement is true, for instance "75% of voters oppose gun control" would be ad populum, because there is no reason why 75% of voters would necessarily know whether gun control was the correct position. In constrast, the statement 75% of gun manufacters believe that a special lock on assault weapons would prevent them from being converted to automatic weapons, would NOT be ad populum, because the number of people who believe that obviously directly relates to whether the statement is true - if 75% of gun manufacturers who on a daily basis work with the technical details of how guns work, it is a valid argument from authority that is strenthened by the number of independent experts who agree (although perhaps financial pressures involving gun sales bias the result).

...oh! I was about to call you out on that, but it seems like you took into account the possible bias in your last sentence.

This is all common sense. Arguments from authority are not always fallacious and neither are appealing to the number of people who believe something. This is common sense.

Why do you think it is that Christians are an authority by which one can determine the existence of god? Can you think of anything that could bias their beliefs? Put another way, Bobby Henderson is an authority on the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but does that make the Flying Spaghetti Monster real?

adherents state that Pastafarianism is a genuine religion