on "argument ad populum":
So if someone commits a crime and seventy people saw it, would you then say that none of those seventy people should be allowed to testify at the trial because it's "argument ad populum"? Or is it, for some reason I've apparently missed, allowable to discard the testimonies of millions of people, but not seventy?
A single testimony is not generally considered strong evidence, since people are often mistaken. But many testimonies that corroborate one another? When those testifying had no chance to check their stories with one another? Occam's razor is getting pretty sharp.
On me not being religious at the time of my experiences:
The orignal claim by Scaredgirl was "That's actually something that might explain your weird experiences: people sometimes see things they want to see. It's a very common psychological phenomenon."
Therefore if I didn't want to see those things then that statement doesn't apply. If there is another way I could have imagined such things please explain it.
On the articles:
Were you able to get the full text or just the abstracts? You have to read them pretty carefully to find it.
On a more general note:
Can we move both debates to one thread? I keep going to respond on the wrong thread.
I'll post a reply in the other thread when I get back
If 70 people saw a crime being commited, its not only them testifying that the crime happend, there is also
proof that it happened, as (in the case of theft) the object is missing, if the object was indoors there are traces of forced entry, fingerprints (if the thief didn't wear gloves), toolmarks and alot of other evidence that the crime happened + that the described person was indeed near that crimescene.
In the example of someone telling he saw a pink animal, while multiple people that are at that location did not see it, the person saying he saw that pink animal is "seeing things" as in being delusional, as there is no proof of that aledged animal to be there.
To put religious text into this, the bible and other texts like it often contain a small number of people that suposedly are being contacted by a deity, being told what to do, and what to say to others.
In this they are the same as any religious/cult/sect/shamanistic or druidic mediums, they say they have been adressed by that deity, and that others have to believe their word on that, and act as they are told to.
Those "shaman" as they are called in some primite tribes perform strange rituals/tell strange stories and as people fear/are impressed by the unknown, they start to believe in what that shaman is telling them and start to mimic that persons behaviour, similar to what a herd would do if a dominant animal starts doing strange things.
In what way are those shaman different from that single person saying he saw a flying green octopus?They all claim to have experienced some unlogical occurance which they have no
proof for, they expect others to believe them and those that do, make the shaman feel important.
Since mankind is nothing more then an ape evolution, and often survived by mimicing other apes behaviour, some of those who didn't believe the "flying green octopus" man, start to join his followers due to the "hey so many ppl believe him, maybe it is true". In other words, herd behaviour + ignorance create followers.
Those followers tell others about the amazing flying green octupus guy ("fgog" from now on), and ask them to join them, some do some dont, so that fgog has an ever growing flok of irrathional and illogical, often delusional believers surrounding him, most of which end up tell that fgogs ramblings to their offspring and say its the truth, the brainwashed offspring tells that to others, making the flok grow even more.
Fgog, now a "mighty" person gets older and eventually dies of old age, the fgog followers proceed to mourne for that persons death, and continue to distribute his words as the "truth", generations of brainwashed offspring later, no one is around that knew fgog, but they all believe in the written down, often altered, stories about him, resulting in thousands of fgog followers who
know/believe that those stories are true, and that anyone who state the oposite is blasphemous.
ergo: fgog=shaman=founder of a religion
Religion= mass brainwashed acception of rathional void, discrimination "those who believe are better then non believers, only those who believe have certain rights", control over believers, who are "forced" to undergo some rituals and are looked down upon if they dont.
my 2 cents to this
