Now I've seen everything: the outgraeious atheist dishonesty

I've always noticed the tendency of atheists to inflate their figures. Often they include all Buddhists as atheists. I thought that was nonreligious. Then one time I found one who included all Hindus that was so stupid! I laughed. Now I've heard everything! this really just tears it.

Poster calling himself "Deist" on carm argued that all non Christians are atheists! I argued:

the thread is here

click on the box by the name Metacrock (below) for the exact post

Originally Posted by Metacrock

that is ludicrous. You are defining non Christians as "atheists" that is nuts. there is no justification for that little gem at all that's just stupid. sorry but it is. totally stupid.

atheists speak until blue in the face "the absence of belief in god or gods." now that you need to change suddenly it's 'anyone who is not a Christan.

you can't do that! it's no belief in God you are stuck with it that gives you 3% of the world population, and that's a generous estimate.

To back up my point I quote adherents.com



adherents.com

Christianity is the largest group. It out numbers many other groups combined. Atheists are so small they don't even fit on the wheel.

atheism is in the category with other things that makes 16%, while Christianity is 33% so Christianity outnumbers not only atheism but all other non religious options. Atheism proper, that is no belief of God of any sort, is only 3%

here's what it says about the category:

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: This is a highly disparate group and not a single religion. Although atheists are a small subset of this grouping, this category is not synonymous with atheism. People who specify atheism as their religious preference actually make up less than one-half of one percent of the population in many countries where much large numbers claim no religious preference, such as the United States (13.2% nonreligious according to ARIS study of 2001) and Australia (15% nonreligious).

here's his answer:

My friend, that is the very site I obtained my stats from. Atheism is a NON belief, and fully 67% of the world population does NOT belief in Christianity. I don't care if those people believe a cat is their God or no God at all. 67% of the population does NOT believe in Christianity.

This site CARM, I believe contends that Catholics and Mormons do not belong in the Christian group. Ask the site owners if I'm wrong. That segment which is lumped into "Christians" is at least HALF of that total. (Look that up on the site if you don't believe me)

So, my dear Meta, no matter how you slice and dice it, "Christians", using the definition that CARM wants to go by, are only 16% of the world population, and I suggect that those numbers are puffed up just toi make the Christian group seem bigger than it is.

From that tiny 16%, we have to separate out who's who. You don't fall into the class of evangelical, do you? For that matter, you have your own religion (as does every Christian). I gave you the benefit of doubt by saying your class was 10%. I fiugure it's way lower than that, and if you tried to find people that thought like you do, maybe you'd get up to 2% of the world population. I felt sorry for you, and puffed up the numbers.

I am 100% right on this Meta. For all your ALLEGED book learning, you never cracked open a math book, did you?

If that's not bad enough, he's changed the definition of atheism to "all non Christians" whether they believe in God or not. he's actually calling them "atheist." That's nothing, the worst is yet to come. See what he's doing? He's not only trying to put me in an extreme minority because I'm a liberal he actually counting my specific analysis as a minority potion to make it appear that no one agrees with me at all. Im so all alone.

My friend, that is the very site I obtained my stats from. Atheism is a NON belief, and fully 67% of the world population does NOT belief in Christianity. I don't care if those people believe a cat is their God or no God at all. 67% of the population does NOT believe in Christianity.

This site CARM, I believe contends that Catholics and Mormons do not belong in the Christian group. Ask the site owners if I'm wrong. That segment which is lumped into "Christians" is at least HALF of that total. (Look that up on the site if you don't believe me)

So, my dear Meta, no matter how you slice and dice it, "Christians", using the definition that CARM wants to go by, are only 16% of the world population, and I suggect that those numbers are puffed up just toi make the Christian group seem bigger than it is.

From that tiny 16%, we have to separate out who's who. You don't fall into the class of evangelical, do you? For that matter, you have your own religion (as does every Christian). I gave you the benefit of doubt by saying your class was 10%. I fiugure it's way lower than that, and if you tried to find people that thought like you do, maybe you'd get up to 2% of the world population. I felt sorry for you, and puffed up the numbers.

So, please, stop with "I'm right" BS because you are in a very, very, very tiny minority, and hardly hold mainstream views. Saying you believe in God doesn't allow you to contend majority belief. Good try, though meta. You are good at obsfucation.

Then he argues appeal to popularity.


Definitions of Appeal to popularity on the Web:



* An argumentum ad populum (Latin: "appeal to the people"), in logic, is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges, "If many believe so, it is so."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_popularity

argument ad populum



Definition:

A proposition is held to be true because it is widely held to be true or is held to be true by some (usually superior) sector of the population.

This fallacy is sometimes also called the "Appeal to Emotion" because emotional appeals often sway the population as a whole.

examples:

(i) Everyone likes beautiful people, so buy Teeth-Brite(tm) toothpaste and become beautiful. Everyone will approve of your choice.

(ii) Polls suggest that President Jones will win the election, so you may as well vote for him.

(iii) Everyone knows that the Earth is flat, so why do you persist in your outlandish claims?

(iv) Most educated people know that it is better to use paper bags than plastic ones. (An appeal to the superior group among whom the position is supposedly popular. (See also argumentum verecundium).

compare the exampels with the statments above by the 3% guy.

So, please, stop with "I'm right" BS because you are in a very, very, very tiny minority, and hardly hold mainstream views. Saying you believe in God doesn't allow you to contend majority belief. Good try, though meta. You are good at obsfucation.

see how that's the same kind of logic? It's a fallacy.

the Nizkor progject:



Description of Appeal to Popularity

The Appeal to Popularity has the following form:

1. Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
2. Therefore X is true.

The basic idea is that a claim is accepted as being true simply because most people are favorably inclined towards the claim. More formally, the fact that most people have favorable emotions associated with the claim is substituted in place of actual evidence for the claim. A person falls prey to this fallacy if he accepts a claim as being true simply because most other people approve of the claim.

It is clearly fallacious to accept the approval of the majority as evidence for a claim. For example, suppose that a skilled speaker managed to get most people to absolutely love the claim that 1+1=3. It would still not be rational to accept this claim simply because most people approved of it. After all, mere approval is no substitute for a mathematical proof. At one time people approved of claims such as "the world is flat", "humans cannot survive at speeds greater than 25 miles per hour", "the sun revolves around the earth" but all these claims turned out to be false.

you see that in red. let's say it again:

It is clearly fallacious to accept the approval of the majority as evidence for a claim.


you cannot grow up in Texas if you want ot have mind and care what the majority think. One of my fudnametnal tennets of life since I was 10 years old.If you want to be a thinker and you live in Texas YOU CANNOT CARE WHAT THE MAJORITY THINK!


he still doesn't learn:

liberal Christianity is 34% of Christianity.

meta, here is a math and logic lesson for you. Try to follow me here. I know that you've buried your head in religiosity for the better part of your life, and math and logic hasn't been part of your learning. But, try to stay with me here. Just to show you that I'm right using your own figures, I started by extracting out YOUR own words, which are "liberal Christianity is 34% of Christianity".

Christians are one third of the world. Everyone else does NOT believe in Christianity. Following so far?

One third of that 33% are liberals, and this includes many different denominations. A third of 2.1 billion = 660 million liberal Christians. Per the site at the time, the total population was around 7 billion people. Using math for dummies, 10% of 7 billion is 700 million, and you can see 660 million is LESS than that, meaning liberal Christians were and ARE LESS than 10% of the entire population.

Now, you need to know how many of that 10% of liberal Christians believe the same way. Some of those liberals don't believe the OT at all, and some do. Some don't believe in a real resurrection, and some do. Some don't believe in a virgin birth and some do. Some don't believe there were zombies walking the streets, and some do.

I gave you a big break by saying your views were 2% of the population. Like BT has often said, you created your own personal God as have everyone else.

So, you want to argue atheists, which is a non belief. Fully 90% of the people don't believe like liberal Christians do. As you can see I am a deist, and you can't include me in your group. That's foolish because you don't get to include ANY God believer in your Christian group.

So there ya have it, Meta...staring you in the face. Only 2% of the populace believes like you do. If you want to feel good, you can use the 10% figure.

he's still saying popularity = truth, but to such a degree that he divines individual philosophical poinsettias according to who agrees with them.