I find Hume’s argument against miracles the most reasonable way to go about it, he’ll serve you well. Carl Sagan help popularized the slogan, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” although others well before him were saying basically the same thing. Hume, when he did his essay on miracles said, “A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” And there was also Laplace, “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.”
Hume doesn’t dismiss miracles completely outright, all that he asks is that we weigh one miracle (laws of nature being broken) with the other as to what is being claimed. If a man claims to have walked on water, has that miracle occurred by someone claiming actually being able to suspend gravity, or has man bent the facts, and which is the most likely occurrence. Better have some extraordinary evidence with that extraordinary claim before one accepts it as fact.
It may not apply to all believers, but from probably nearly all the ones I’ve often encountered, evidence is really not important, it’s optional at best, faith is what they stress. They tend to have a whole new standard of evidence they operate on, and are more easily persuaded by their emotions, anecdotes, fallacious arguments, wishful thinking, peer pressure, power of suggestion, testimonials, hope and fear (Lucian’s two great tyrants), those sort of things. Scientists are human too, but if you do find them falling prey to such things, that’s why other scientists provide a checks and balances on their work in the form of replication.
I’ve been to both as well. Some of this also depends on the location of the bars too. Want to hang out at bars that are known gang hang-outs, or some notorious biker’s clubs, you’ll find plenty that have been to jail. These people were already messed up before hand, and chose these type of bars to hang out with their own. I’ve also been to bars that were on the better side of town, and actually weren’t bad at all, especially those that served food, and just didn’t make it a beer and/or mixed drinks only type of environment.
Statistically speaking though, also ask these bar people if they believe in God or not. Also check the prison records, 93% of inmates are theists in American jails. Having a faith or belief in God doesn’t seem to have deterred them in any way from it. And I’m not saying I think the 93% of theists reflects that they are actually more inclined to commit crimes in our country either, I just think it reflects roughly the amount of Americans that were theists and non-theists from the general population to begin with. What it does show though, to me, anyway, is that if one believes in a god and is supposed to give them a placebo effect or type of positive well-being, it sure doesn’t show up in statistics with the amount of people incarcerated.
Europe would be another area that would be worthy of study since now more than at any other time many are identifying with non-religious. They seem to be getting along quite well. For so many that don’t identify in god now, and church attendance is at an all-time low, it would be interesting to check their homicide rates, along with suicide, theft, rape, robbery, teen pregnancy rates, etc. I think actually in many areas, you’ll find them doing quite well when compared to America.
There are some nations that have been hit with a large immigration of Muslims, however, and do show to have spikes in their crime rates. France is having a serious problem with them, while Muslims only make up only 5-10% of their general population, their prison cells are made up of 70% Muslims. What other factors are going on, I couldn’t say, I haven’t looked into it that much. Many Muslims are claiming discrimination, and not being allowed to get jobs, and blaming the crime rates spike with Muslims on that. I personally think the influence of radical and extremists Muslims makes it difficult for others with moderate or liberal positions to flourish in that group. Many more would like to have a say or speak out, but often they are threatened with their lives or other loved ones are, and are also possibly killed off especially if they gain popularity.
Ad populum in itself is not sufficient reason to justify accepting it as true just because it’s popular opinion of the day by so many. History has shown it has been wrong about a lot of things before.
What science has convinced for many is how unlikely it is to believe in such an entity, particular the personal gods and those that intervene on man’s behalf. Ever wonder why about half of all scientists don’t believe in any gods of any kind? Ever wonder why the most elite leading scientists at the prestigious NAS (National Academy of Sciences) don’t believe in a personal god by a margin of 93% to just 7% for theists? Some 70% identify with atheists, with about 20% agnostic. The numbers are just as strong are slightly stronger for Britain’s leading scientists.
The human imagination can muster up an unlimited amount of gods, creatures and entities, just because they can invent these, doesn’t seem like one should give much latitude in contemplating their existence. If it isn’t just a figment of their imagination, they hopefully understand who has the burden of proof and why that is.
