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Climbing For Christ Australia 6-May-2010 At 12:09:05 AM dimpet

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How does the number of people who believe in something verify its correctness in any way?
This argument is absolutely pointless.
There is no way to prove that a god does or does not exists therefore it doesn't matter how many people believe in the existence of a god, because there belief can not be based on any evidence.

>There are somewhere between 4.7 - ~6 billion people who claim to subscribe
>to some faith worldwide (I refer you to that font of all knowledge, Wikipedia).
>If we assume that half of them are only nominal believers, that still leaves
>us with 2-3 billion. Assume that only 20% of this remaining number have
>a carefully considered position for their faith, which leaves us with 400
>- 600 million people. Assume only 5% of these are 'intelligent' (however
>we want to define that), which leaves us with 20-30 million people.
>
>You could argue that this number should be whittled down further for whatever
>reason. And of course all of these people could be mistaken, but that's
>not the point. The point is that there are plenty of intelligent religious
>people who have well thought out reasons for their faith, and to baldly
>assert that there's nothing which needs to be said in order to demonstrate
>the truth or falsehood of religion is arrogant.
>
>I think you need to acknowledge that there's a discussion to be had. Of
>course it's your prerogative to choose not to have it.