How do atheists not believe when like 80%+ of the World believes?
So there must be someone up in the clouds, because how else are people getting these visions and testimonies of God?
And 80% is a lot of people, billions actually, and you're going to say billions of people are wrong?
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God damn, what a simpleton.
Argumentum ad Populum .
If 80% of the people you knew jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?
"And 80% is a lot of people, billions actually, and you're going to say billions of people are wrong?"
Yes. Do you have a problem with that?
I suspect a lot more than 80% of the world's population believe in a god or gods. Centuries ago, they also believed in dragons, a flat earth, and geocentricity, to name just a few.
@Fera
It sounds about right, actually.
16% nonreligious plus 6% Buddhist adds up to about 22%, which leaves 78% (~80%) to be believers.
Of course, many of them are believers in different gods, which LoJ conveniently ignores. Only about 55% believe in the Abrahamic God (mainly Christians and Muslims; there are very few Jews) and that number includes 'nominal' Christians, who perhaps don't actually believe, but identify as Christian just because it's "the done thing".
And there's also the standard disclaimer that the popularity of something and its truth-value are completely independent.
Yes, I am. That's exactly what I'm saying.
And we're doing quite well, yesterday it was 95% of the world population. :D
Argumentum ad populum.
Yes, 80% of the populatio of the world can be wrong, and history will bear me out on that.
"How do atheists not believe when like 80%+ of the World believes?"
Quite easily. At least for me.
On a side note, this is an argumentum ad populum fallacy. Please refrain from using it again.
"So there must be someone up in the clouds, because how else are people getting these visions and testimonies of God?"
The human mind is a wondrous thing.
"And 80% is a lot of people, billions actually, and you're going to say billions of people are wrong?"
Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. Reality doesn't have to conform to the will of the people. If every last person on this planet told me it was raining where I am yet I'm standing there dry as a bone I'm supposed to believe them? Or does it suddenly start raining simply because six billion people all believe it is?
"If 80% of the people you knew jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?"
No, only if god told him to.
Population statistics are good for many things. Proof of religion, statistics are not. I could come up with several reasons why people see visions. As I am as yet to experience any, hearsay is hardly convincing. Yes, billions of people can be wrong.
How do atheists not believe when like 80%+ of the World believes?
Because we can.
So there must be someone up in the clouds, because how else are people getting these visions and testimonies of God?
Hallucinations?
And 80% is a lot of people, billions actually, and you're going to say billions of people are wrong?
Yes. What's your point?
Those billions of people believe in lots of different religions.
And yes, in fact, I am going to say that billions of people are wrong.
Just because lots of people believe something doesn't automatically make it true.
As has already been noted, the god-believers don't all believe in the christian god. In fact, most of them don't.
Heck, is it even possible that any two christians share an identical view of the god they claim to worship? Doesn't seem so.
God: Anything you can imagine and nothing at all.
First, just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's right. Just take a good look at history (I would've said argumentum ad populum, but I don't think he would've understood). Second, even Jesus said the correct way was through the narrow gate, and there would be few that find it. So even your Messiah disagrees with you...again...and again...and again (ad nauseum). Now, for the "someone in the clouds" bit. Take an airplane up into the clouds. You won't find God there. Trust me. We've been there.
At one point in history, 80% of the humans on the planet did not believe in god. If your argument (that if 80% believe something, it must be true) was a valid one, why did those numbers change?
I love this argument, because those 80% of people don't all believe in YOUR God. In fact, most don't. Christianity makes up roughly 35-40% of the planet, so you don't agree with the majority of people either.
"And 80% is a lot of people, billions actually, and you're going to say billions of people are wrong? "
About 60% of people reject your particular religion. That's billions of people, and you're going to say billions of people are wrong?
Even if you could prove the existence of some divine power, you'd then have the problem of trying to prove your particular view of that divine power is the correct one. Since the existence of a divine power cannot be proven, it would make it twice as hard to prove your particular view. This, then is an impossibility. You have to prove your one god to the literally millions of Hindu and Jain gods, not to mention all the pagan gods. That's a big load to handle. Can you handle big loads?
"how else are people getting these visions and testimonies of God?"
Which god? People have gotten visions and testimonies from thousands of different gods over the years, do they all exist? No? So at least some of the "testimonies" must be human in origin? Which ones? How do you know?
How do atheists not believe when like 80%+ of the World believes?
(Atheists can think for themselves. I'm not going to believe in something just because everybody else does.)
So there must be someone up in the clouds, because how else are people getting these visions and testimonies of God?
(I don't know. Crack?)
And 80% is a lot of people, billions actually, and you're going to say billions of people are wrong?
(It's possible.)
Actually yes, if 80% of the world jumped off a cliff I would, wearing a parachute.
Atheists - Agnosticism is the way to go.
P.S. I'm not agnostic but just felt like working with that comment.
"So there must be someone up in the clouds, because how else are people getting these visions and testimonies of God?"
Quit eating the Amanitas!
\\and you're going to say billions of people are wrong?\\
Well, this is a logical fallacy (appeal to popularity), but yeah.
This is ignoring the fact that not everyone (even among Christians) believe the same thing about what this god wants, despite the fact that a good amount of the religious claim to have spoken to the divine.
Yes. Where is your proof of these "visions and testimonies" anyway? Anybody can make shit up (or genuinely mistake an earthly experience for something else). Millions, billions, gazillions - it makes no difference.
Bullshit is still bullshit, no matter how wide the belief is. Furthermore, not everybody believes in the same thing as you do, so theists can't even begin to get their nonsense stories straight. Everybody used to think the earth was flat and that the sun orbited the earth. Didn't make it true, did it?
Once upon a time, EVERYBODY believed that the Sun and the planets orbited around the Earth, except for ONE PERSON, Nicolaus Copernicus. Did that make the majority right or the minority of ONE wrong?
Yeah right.
Christians love to cite that as proof of their faith, even going to the extreme concept of "we all pray to the same God as there is only the one, other religions have just lost their way"
It's like American Fundies claiming 85% Christian belief, that's also bullshit as most have no affiliation or practice adherance. Canada's been reported as high as 40% Atheistic when the question is more direct. I suspect Americans are about the same but feel more pressured to pretend alliance.
Call me cynical, but I get the impression that you did not ask this question in order to receive a considered answer. You only asked for the thrill of hearing yourself be incredulous. That smacks of insincerity. Granted, insincerity is hardly a problem for fundamentalists, but its rare to hear them be so blatant about it.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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