RE: popular opinion as evidence
April 14, 2014 at 9:12 am
(This post was last modified: April 14, 2014 at 9:20 am by Coffee Jesus.)
tor, I actually started this thread to counteract the common apology, "Why would so many people believe this if it weren't true?"
I acknowledge that there is a very basic level of reasoning behind this. If there was a god, it might reveal its existence to people through divine intervention, so the existence of god would provide a mechanism that could result in people believing in gods.
One problem is that there are many other potential explanations, but the even bigger problem is the other mechanisms we already know are in operation. For example, I recall an expiment in which hitting people over the head caused them to have religious hallucinations. Until we actually know how much of the belief can be accounted for by known mechanisms like hallucinations, peer pressure, liars, and "miraculous" flukes, we cannot determine the probabilities. It's quite possible that, after controlling for those variables, we would prove that first-hand witnessing of divine intervention plays no role in inducing these beliefs.
So, in effect, you're right.
I acknowledge that there is a very basic level of reasoning behind this. If there was a god, it might reveal its existence to people through divine intervention, so the existence of god would provide a mechanism that could result in people believing in gods.
One problem is that there are many other potential explanations, but the even bigger problem is the other mechanisms we already know are in operation. For example, I recall an expiment in which hitting people over the head caused them to have religious hallucinations. Until we actually know how much of the belief can be accounted for by known mechanisms like hallucinations, peer pressure, liars, and "miraculous" flukes, we cannot determine the probabilities. It's quite possible that, after controlling for those variables, we would prove that first-hand witnessing of divine intervention plays no role in inducing these beliefs.
So, in effect, you're right.
