Logical Fallacies for Christians 3: Appeal to Popularity

This is part 3 of a series of weekly articles about logical fallacies that often mislead Christians.

3: Appeal to Popularity

What is it?

We could call this “Everybody Believes It.” It’s where someone claims that something must be true simply because that’s what everybody else believes. Likewise, someone could argue that something is false merely because most people believe it’s false.

Examples

“I believe what the scientists say, and most scientists agree that life evolved.”

“Nobody bothers with the Greek Septuagint, so it’s not worth examining.”

Discussion

When I was about 7 years old, my mother tried to teach me about the Bible. I then asked her, in a way that only a 7-year-old can, “But how do we know that it’s true?” She replied, “I can prove to you that it’s true!” and then picked up a nearby book that contained paintings of Biblical scenes…

She turned to a picture showing a large crowd of ancient Israelites celebrating the dedication of Solomon’s Temple. She pointed to the picture and said, “Look at all those people! There are thousands of them! Do you really think that all those people are mistaken?”

While I do indeed believe in the Bible today, unfortunately, my mother’s argument was a terrible logical fallacy. It does not matter how many people believe something to be true (or false), it does not affect whether it really is true (or really is false).

Everyone can be wrong.

Truth is not established by vote.

Something can be true even if nobody believes it… Something can be false, even if believed by everybody!

For example, at one time, the vast majority of the medical establishment believed that washing your hands was useless. If anyone argued otherwise, they were ridiculed. Was the establishment right, simply because they were the majority?

Well, the Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis pioneered the practice of disinfecting one’s hands when helping mothers give birth. This simple act saved so many women and babies from death, that Semmelweis was described as the “savior of mothers.”

Semmelweis tried to promote this practice to the wider medical community. However, since the majority did not agree, they bullied and ridiculed him until he had a nervous breakdown and was put in an asylum. At the asylum, the guards beat Semmelweis and he later died from his injuries.

Today, we have abundant evidence that Doctor Semmelweis was right and that the scientific community was wrong. Yes, just because everybody believed something, did not make it true.

This is why I dislike slogans like “99% of scientists agree.” Such a statement is, ironically, entirely unscientific. The scientific community has believed many different things over the years that have turned out to be incorrect. Truth is not established by vote. Truth is never established by vote.

The same applies to religion.

For example:

“Nearly all Christians are Trinitarians. All serious Christians agree on that point.”

It is not relevant how many Christians believe in the Trinity; popularity is not evidence. Likewise, if everyone then decided to dump the Trinity and embrace Arianism instead, that shift in popularity alone would not make Arianism true either. Popularity is not relevant.

Islam is very popular; there are currently 1.7 billion Muslims in the world. Does the large number of Muslims mean that Muhammad really was a prophet? No, it’s not relevant.

What about Christianity? Since there are 2.3 billion Christians in the world, does that fact mean that Christianity is true? No, again, the number has nothing to do with it.

But imagine if it did!

Yes, imagine if Christianity was true merely because it’s the #1 religion… Well, in the 1st century AD, Christians were a tiny minority. So Christianity must have been false back then because there were very few believers. However, later, when Christianity spread to become the largest religion, it then magically became true!

Also, since Muslims have more children, it’s possible that one day in the future, Muslims will outnumber Christians. So Christianity will then become false again, and Islam will become the true faith!

No, this is all nonsense. Popularity is irrelevant.

Jesus said:

In other words, for Christians, being in the majority is ultimately undesirable.

It does not matter how many people believe something. Even the majority can be wrong.

In fact, even if you’re the only person in the whole world to believe something, if the evidence shows that you’re right, then you’re right.

Truth is not established by vote.

Or as one popular meme says:

Picture credits:

Mecca photo: Camera Eye from UAE; license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/