It is evidence either way. Evidence is sometimes wrong, or misinterpreted, but it's all evidence. With respect to this issue, the fact that such a high percentage of of the world's population has believed in a god or gods for the whole of recorded history, and that the belief in the God of Abraham specifically has lasted for many thousands of years as well, does strenthen the evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum I'm not used to people admitting they are a lemming.
Yes it is, because when the physical brain is altered in certain ways, thought is also altered. We can even accurately predict the ways in which thought will be altered when manipulating particular regions of the brain. You're missing the point. Your original analogy can be reduced to the following: physical : physical :: physical : non-physical In other words, we know how physical things conduct other physical things, but not how physical things could conduct anything non-physical. Depending on what you mean by resentment, there's no reason it could both exist and be physical. But those things are physical (again, depending on how you're defining them). Again, all of those things can be described physically, so you still haven't distinguished the spiritual from the physical.
All I'm saying is that, if conclusion makes a little bit of sense, and most people agree on it, it can be taken as fact even when it's not. One of my atheist friends said the reason why most people in the world believe in God is because they are dillusional. While this is completely insulting, it does have SOME merit. Belief, can trump fact. In France there were a group of scientists who "discovered" Z rays. When men from other countries came to witness how Z rays made a specific metal fluoress, low and behold only the French men saw it. The Americans, being cheeky bastards we are, removed the metal, and the next day when the French conducted the test again, they still saw the metal fluoress. Did it happen? I don't know. But beleif can be more powerful than fact, and people can induce themselves into believing because everyone else around them does so as well. It's scary and beautiful at the same time.
You are misunderstanding that fallacy. If 75 out of 100 people leaving a room say that there is a chandelier in the room then that is not conclusive evidence that such a chandelier exists. If I said it was conclusive then I would be guilty of that fallacy. It is evidence that such a chandelier exists, however. It is evidence but not conclusive proof on it's own. Do you see the difference? This kind of evidence is very common in scientific, peer reviewed, research of all sorts.
Haha I did not do it. If I could give you rep I would. Apparently you have to be at a higher rep level or be a contributing member or something.
Your poll is valid, in that 75% of the people believe there is a chandelier in the room. I will agree to that. It however does not give evidence of a chandelier being in the room. Do you see the difference?
This thread also makes me think of this: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fMCO7Ro4tRI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fMCO7Ro4tRI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
No it's not scientific evidence for the existence of gods, and it certainly isn't "very strong evidence." If the opposite were true, that few people believe in a god, we would be no closer to falsifying the original god hypothesis. For the same reason, the hypothesis is not strengthened by its popularity. Hypotheses are only strengthened by passing tests that have the potential to falsify them. Tests that don't attempt falsification are not germaine to the hypothesis at hand (in your example, you're testing whether someone is likely to believe in a god, not whether that god actually exists).
if it makes you feel any better, i don't get it either. it just popped in my head. i have no idea. but damn, dude, get some longer shorts already, can ya?? geez.
On another note, the presence of the chandelier can be verified or falsified by subsequent tests (I can walk in and note whether or not the thing is there). With the god hypothesis, there is no method for independantly reproducing the results of the people who came to the conclusion that a god exists. It is an unfalsifiable claim (i.e. non-scientific).
That came out in the 80s so I think it is cool. I actually remember when I was in the third or fourth grade my mom bought me some long shorts and I told her to shrink them so they would be shorter.
It can, and I think you friend might be exhibit A. I'm strongly suspect that the people he calls delusional could be tested and found to not be suffering from any kind of mental illness, and I further suspect that he never had any real evidence for his belief in the first place. If so, that would make his position one not based on fact but perhaps based on his own kind of faith? Evidence can sometimes be wrong or misleading in some way, or there can be fraud involved, but this is a separate issue, right? Just because it's wrong sometimes doesn't mean that it's wrong all the time.
Love it. I am a student of philosophy, and in that capacity I can contribute to science by increasing understanding of what science is and--perhaps more importantly--what it is not.
You're not correct here. It is evidence but it is not conclusive evidence. To say that it isn't evidence it to say that you can never believe anything anyone tells you, and that you would need to see everything for yourself in order to believe it. Clearly we all trust what other people say for many things every day, however.
