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Author Topic:   Numbers equal truth?
Victor
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 23 (293844)
03-10-2006 3:39 AM


Do the number of people who read the bible, or believe in Creationsim effect the over all truth in the idea? If you have millions of followers are you more "right" than someone who has only a few? Do the number of people backing an idea make it more or less right?

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Heathen, posted 03-27-2006 4:36 PM Victor has not replied
 Message 4 by crashfrog, posted 03-27-2006 4:42 PM Victor has replied
 Message 7 by Chronos, posted 03-27-2006 6:28 PM Victor has replied
 Message 9 by ikabod, posted 04-21-2006 5:23 AM Victor has not replied
 Message 17 by mike the wiz, posted 06-26-2006 9:54 AM Victor has not replied

  
Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 2 of 23 (298768)
03-27-2006 4:27 PM


Bump - I think we need a reply or two to this topic
By the way, there was a source Proposed New Topic for this. AdminPhat promoted it from here.
Adminnemooseus

  
Heathen
Member (Idle past 1283 days)
Posts: 1067
From: Brizzle
Joined: 09-20-2005


Message 3 of 23 (298770)
03-27-2006 4:36 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Victor
03-10-2006 3:39 AM


Well I've certainly seen the arguement on here from some Creationists along the lines of "well.. millions of people can't be wrong"
I however. think they can
But I think it is certainly true that for many people who would be, lets say, a borderline creationist, the fact that more people would follow creationism may move them towards that belief system.
I suppose it could be interesting to note conversion rates for all religions, and see if proximity to large numbers of devotees affects the likelyhood of an individual of converting to a particular doctrine.

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Replies to this message:
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 4 of 23 (298774)
03-27-2006 4:42 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Victor
03-10-2006 3:39 AM


Well, let me ask you. Do people tend to believe things because they've thouroughly researched all sides of the issue and developed an intimate familiarity with the evidence before making their decision, or do they usually pick the more desired outcome right at the get-go - the one that makes them feel the best or best integrates with what they already believe about the world - and then come up with reasons to justify it after the fact?
Neurology tends to support the latter, not so much the former. So you tell me. Given that we now know how most humans are making decisions about what positions to hold, can we assume that the position held by the most humans is probably the correct one?

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Replies to this message:
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Victor
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 23 (298793)
03-27-2006 5:32 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by crashfrog
03-27-2006 4:42 PM


I would say that most people are wrong. History also shows us that we tent to be wrong about things. I agree that people pick the best outcome for them selves.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 6 of 23 (298806)
03-27-2006 6:21 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Victor
03-27-2006 5:32 PM


I rather suspected you were of that opinion, and it was not my intent in my post to take a confrontational tone, but rather to express my agreement in a kind of Socratic method.
Needless to say, I concur with your assessment. As someone once told me "the masses are asses."

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Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by rgb, posted 06-24-2006 6:06 PM crashfrog has not replied
 Message 16 by SuperNintendo Chalmers, posted 06-24-2006 11:58 PM crashfrog has not replied
 Message 23 by joshua221, posted 01-31-2007 5:57 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
Chronos
Member (Idle past 6225 days)
Posts: 102
From: Macomb, Mi, USA
Joined: 10-23-2005


Message 7 of 23 (298808)
03-27-2006 6:28 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Victor
03-10-2006 3:39 AM


I don't think popularity and likelihood to be correct share much of a connection. At best, I'd say popularity is a good reason to investigate something. Try to think of reasons for the belief being popular, do they suggest that the belief is true?
This message has been edited by Chronos, 03-27-2006 06:31 PM

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Victor
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 23 (299149)
03-28-2006 10:27 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Chronos
03-27-2006 6:28 PM


Well, a good example is back about 300 years (give or take?), when a lot of people (mostly in Europe) thought you would fall of the edge of the world if you sailed too far

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ikabod
Member (Idle past 4493 days)
Posts: 365
From: UK
Joined: 03-13-2006


Message 9 of 23 (305611)
04-21-2006 5:23 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Victor
03-10-2006 3:39 AM


the number of people beliving a idea is irrelevent , the idea is the truth or it is not the truth , it is independant of both the people and belief.
if creation is the truth , it matter not that 0% , 50 % or 100% of the worlds population belive in it .
the same goes for evolution .
your use of the word FOLLOWERS is i think key here, knowleged outside our personal experience , and our personal intellectral apptitudes , has to be take on trust and our ability to conceve the idea .
religions set out to gather FOLLOWERS who have faith , and trust in the creed, science does not .
religions set out to convert people to thier view of the world , science tends to dump infomation in to the public domane.
religions are far far better at communicating ideas to and building trust relationships that science .

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Replies to this message:
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Jonson-Needs_proof
Inactive Junior Member


Message 10 of 23 (324866)
06-22-2006 1:09 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by ikabod
04-21-2006 5:23 AM


Ikabod is defiantly right here when he said
"religions are far far better at communicating ideas to and building trust relationships that science" (sorry i still havent figured out how to use those boxes you all use)
But thats just another arguement against relegion.
Science presents you with a hypothesis then evidnce to prove/disprove it and you make your own conclusions (or in most cases they tell you their conclusion but if you wanted to you could verify it)
Religion on the hand relies on social conditioning, on people believing what they are told all their lives and offering people easy answers to the big questions that may be impossible to truly answer.
(At least in my opinion hope I don't hit a little to hard there)
Edited by Jonson-Needs_proof, : Making my language slightly clearer

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 11 of 23 (324876)
06-22-2006 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Jonson-Needs_proof
06-22-2006 1:09 PM


quotes and quotes.
First if you look at your message or this one using peek you can see how quotes are added.
Jonson-Needs_proof writes:
Religion on the hand relies on social conditioning, on people believing what they are told all their lives and offering people easy answers to the big questions that may be impossible to truly answer.
While that certainly might be true in many cases, I do not believe you can say that as a universal characteristic of religions. Personally I find my religious beliefs often lead to more questions. In addition, it is not something that is easy, in fact it is very hard to live up to what I think GOD asks. As I have said before, the message is simple, but not easy.
Not all religion relies on social conditioning. Many religions rely on and require questioning. See Message 1 for an example of what I believe is a religion not based on social conditioning and believing only what was taught.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Dan Carroll
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 23 (324882)
06-22-2006 1:38 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Heathen
03-27-2006 4:36 PM


Well I've certainly seen the arguement on here from some Creationists along the lines of "well.. millions of people can't be wrong"
I had this exact argument with Mike, back in the day. (Lord knows what topic it was in now.) The gist of what he said* was that he had a hard time believing that all those millions of Christians were deluding themselves.
My response then, as now, is that if Christianity is right, then there are about four billion non-Christians on the planet who are deluding themselves. So no matter what, there are huge numbers of delusional people out there.
*(he's more reasonable now, but still refers to himself in the third person for some reason.)

"We had survived to turn on the History Channel
And ask our esteemed panel, Why are we alive? And here's how they replied:
You're what happens when two substances collide
And by all accounts you really should have died."
-Andrew Bird

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Replies to this message:
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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 13 of 23 (325617)
06-24-2006 9:14 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Dan Carroll
06-22-2006 1:38 PM


*(he's more reasonable now, but still refers to himself in the third person for some reason.)
Psychologically, Shraff might say that I was putting mike in a box so that he can answer instead of me.
So no matter what, there are huge numbers of delusional people out there.
Present-day Mike agrees with 4dDan. Or so he told me.
I guess my argument was a bit of a tautology. Good call.
...Don't you miss my radical posts? These new ones are boring, mike.

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rgb
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 23 (325763)
06-24-2006 6:06 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by crashfrog
03-27-2006 6:21 PM


crashfrog writes
quote:
...it was not my intent in my post to take a confrontational tone...
Crashfrog, everytime you say something, and I do mean EVERYtime, you sound like someone who is about to hit a person on the head with a baseball bat. Perhaps you'd like to consider using a or a every once in a while?

This message is a reply to:
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rgb
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 23 (325764)
06-24-2006 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Victor
03-28-2006 10:27 PM


Victor writes
quote:
Well, a good example is back about 300 years (give or take?), when a lot of people (mostly in Europe) thought you would fall of the edge of the world if you sailed too far
Actually, the fact that the Earth was round had been generally accepted for a very long time, all the way back to ancient Greece. When Columbus set sail west in 1492(?) he intended to find China. That's why the West Indies was named the Indies (for India).
300 years ago, Merchantilism was at its peak and mariners had already taken full advantage of the curvature of the Earth.
Sorry.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Victor, posted 03-28-2006 10:27 PM Victor has not replied

  
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