{"id":6855,"date":"2022-03-18T08:01:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T07:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/?page_id=6855"},"modified":"2022-06-16T17:38:39","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T15:38:39","slug":"common-consent-argument-made-simple","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/studies\/common-consent-argument-made-simple\/","title":{"rendered":"The Common Consent Argument Made Simple"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"iframe-container\">\n\n<iframe id=\"lbry-iframe\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/$\/embed\/the-common-consent-argument-made-simple\/39b824d70513fd4856fc633f3705cba99a44c325?r=Dsga2TMCaV6XJmznpAR28pnJHQPPW7jD\" allowfullscreen frameBorder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"\">In the last video, and the videos before I asked you whether you have any topics you would like me to discuss. So far, I have several. One of you want to talk about deism and why it is or isn\u2019t a flawed idea. And Nortega came up with also a good topic. He said:  <\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 1.25cm\" class=\"textq\"><span class=\"leftq\"><\/span>If you can, would you mind explaining why we should use our (bodily or spiritual) capacities for the ends to which they are ordered? [\u2026] To my knowledge, the notion of &#8216;ordered&#8217; in the sense in which I am using it derives from Thomistic and (originally) Aristotelian philosophy. So when something is ordered, we could say it is \u2018meant for\u2019 something, or that this is its \u2018reason for existence\u2019 (<i>raison d&#8217;\u00eatre<\/i>).<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">It might not surprise you that I have to do some big thinking here\u2026 Why is it that people, who seem to be way smarter than I, ask me these question. Oh well, it\u2019s my own fault, so I\u2019ll take on the challenge.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">But first let me do one more on apologetic arguments made simple. Here we go!<\/p>\n\n<h3>The Argument<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">This argument is in some ways similar to the argument from religious experience. It argues that:<\/p>\n\n<ol>\n\n<li>Belief in God\u2014that Being to whom reverence and worship are properly due\u2014is common to almost all people of every era and every culture.<\/p>\n\n<li>Either the vast majority of people throughout history have been terribly wrong about this most fundamental element of their lives, or they have not.<\/p>\n\n<li>It is most plausible to believe that they have not.<\/p>\n\n<li>Therefore, it is most plausible to believe that God in fact does exist.<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n<p class=\"\">Normally most will just admit that religious belief is far-flung throughout the whole of our history. But does this unchallenged reality add-up to the evidence in favour of the truth of these religious claims? Many sceptics just admit that the testimony we have are very impressive: The vast majority of humans have believed in a God or some kind of higher power. A being to whom the proper response could only be reverence and worship. Normally nobody will say that these feelings of awe, and the urge to worship, and the sacrifices people have brought for their faith, are fake. I mean, no right-minded person would argue that a martyr died for something he or she didn\u2019t even believe in. So their faith was sincere. But if God does not exist, then these things have never ever, made any sense, right? All these people, and we\u2019re not talking about one or two, have been diluted by believing that what they did made any sense. Is it really plausible to believe that? Can it really be that we\u2014the enlightened generation\u2014are so much smarter. That is akin towards pride, yes even to arrogance.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Natural<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">The urge and the mental ability to worship and adore, and to think about the concept of a higher being seems to ingrained in our nature. Moreover, it does look like that almost all have the longing to fulfil this so-called emptiness in our own being. It is interesting to see for instance that even atheists seem to have the urge to do something with these empty feelings. They organise atheist church, they organise and big rallies in which they encourage each-other to hold on to the one true believe\u2026 that there is no super-natural realm\u2026 Oh well.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Everyone was Deceived (except I)<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">But hey! I am a nice guy, so let give our atheistic friends the benefit of doubt. Let\u2019s argue like they do, and say that those millions who all said to have found the Holy One who is worthy of veneration and worship, yes all those millions were actually deceived, lying or even mentally ill. Would this be an intellectual honest position? Would it be likely?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">If you think about it, it seems to me that those who argue, that all these people, all these believers throughout the ages, were in some way a bit crazy, dumb, or even dishonest. It seems to me that they are the ones who have the actual problem they try to mirror on others.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Let\u2019s Throw in some Fallacies<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\"> But now the smart atheist will jump to the rescue of fellow, slightly less smart atheists. The smart atheist will shout that I just committed the appeal to the people fallacy (also called \u2018appeal to the majority\u2019). Just because a significant population of people believe a proposition is true, doesn&#8217;t automatically make it true. But let\u2019s consider this. We are not talking about a fixed moment in time. These millions are not living at this moment, but they testified about their faith throughout all ages. They have always been the majority and their concept has never really changed much. We are not talking about medical insights or cosmological insight. Yes, more often than not, the appeal to the majority fallacy popped up in these disciplines. Why should you wash your hands? The majority of doctors think it has no use, so who are you to state something else. But this is a different situation, isn\u2019t it? In the example of the doctors, we are talking about highly educated people who refuse to think outside the box.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">With the belief in a higher being we have seen that the awareness has been around so long and among such different groups, that we can safely assume that there has been many \u2018outside the box thinkers\u2019 among them. Still, the majority firmly believed in a higher being. Some of them formulated their beliefs in very complicated ideas, while others just believed. But also, if God doesn\u2019t exist, what is it that believers have been feeling or experienced? Their experience goes further than any other example of collective error, like that of the aforementioned example of the doctors. We are not just talking about a group of people who hold to a faulty theory\u2014no,this group actually experienced something way deeper than just a theoretical concept.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Many who believe and have believed in God say that it is like having a relationship with a real person. But if God never existed, neither did this relationship. They were answering with worship and love to nothing at all; and there would be nothing to receive and answer their worship and questions. It&#8217;s like the poor child in the slums who truly believes he lives in a castle with golden door knobs.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Stating that all these people, from very highly educated to the lowest of the lowest, were deluded is like a blind person who denies the existence of the sun.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">And if you want to throw in a fallacy, you could even say that these sceptics and atheist themselves commit a logical fallacy, namely the \u2018snob appeal.\u2019 This fallacy is really an appeal to everybody&#8217;s natural urges to distinguish themselves from all the rest. It is an appeal to your inner snob.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">You see, real intelligent people have to be atheistic\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">And we all heard this example:<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 1.25cm\" class=\"textq\"><span class=\"leftq\"><\/span>You believe in Jesus? You gotta be joking!<span class=\"rightq\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Using snob appeal to turn someone from Christ. The implication is that you are a lesser person because you believe in Jesus.<\/p>\n\n<h3>It is Evolutionary!<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">Some non-believers will explain the argument of \u2018common consent\u2019 away with evolutionary ideas. This line of reasoning always makes me laugh a little. It gives away what I already argued, even atheists have an urge to fill the gap. They do it with extraordinary faith in naturalistic ideas. They often start their stories like this:<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 1.25cm\" class=\"textq\"><span class=\"leftq\"><\/span>One of the skills that helped Homo succeed was imagination\u2014an ability you can use now to picture how it developed. <a class=\"scroll tooltip\" title=\"Go to the source\" id=\"sdendnote1anc\" href=\"#sdendnote1sym\"><sup><b>i<\/b><\/sup><\/a><span class=\"rightq\"><\/span><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">And since you now know how to use your ability to imagine, let\u2019s do it shall we?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">There is this ape-like creature, let\u2019s call her Ida, hanging around and not paying attention to its surroundings. All of a sudden the bushes move. Ida isn\u2019t paying much attention and all of a sudden a predator jumps out of the bushes and eats poor little Ida. Ida\u2019s friends see this and develop a natural fear for moving bushes. Next time they see the bushes move they run, even if it is caused by the wind.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Now, millions of years later, this nervous attitude is still there. But now we have a human-like creature, name Lucy. She\u2019s smart, and she wants to know why the bushes move so often without an actual predator. She examines the bushes and sees nothing. Lucy concludes that it was an invisible force that did it.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">You see where this is going? Another million years later this invisible force is being pleased with sacrifices because nobody wants to get eaten by a predator. And voil\u00e0, a perfect explanation on how religion started\u2026 Really? So, the evolutionary process ingrained religion in our brains because else we might get eaten? And yes, we\u2019re back at the snob appeal. The atheists know that we do not longer have to fear predators like Ida and Lucy faced. So because they now know better, they also know we are no longer in need of religion. And guess what! They are the ones who belong to this special group who have this knowledge. I always wonder why they advocate their viewpoint so loudly. Why would they want to give up their head start on the evolutionary ladder. That\u2019s not really beneficial, is it? Okay, never mind. I leave the conclusions to you in the comment section.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Outro<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\">Speaking of which. I am mostly active on my Odysee channel. You can also comment on my videos on BitChute or YouTube, but I am not very active on those two channels so you most likely won\u2019t receive a reply there.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Do take a look in the description of this video! You\u2019ll find ways to support me, or you could visit my website and read the transcript of this video. I always try to make the transcript available in Dutch and English.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">I would like to invite you to follow me on my Odysee channel. Odysee is a platform which based on a protocol called LBRY, which in turn is build upon blockchain technology. LBRY is a decentralised protocol, community driven and open source\u2014meaning there is not just one company trying to force their ideas on you, without you being able to contribute whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Video that are uploaded through the LBRY protocol are censorship free, unlike others. It would be great if you start following me there. IIf you want to start your own channel on Odysee you can use my invitation in the description. If you do, we will both receive some free LBC!<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"\">Anyways! Enough for today. As always, thank you for watching, God bless you and we see each other in the next video!<\/p>\n\n<h3>Sources<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"\"><a class=\"scroll tooltip\" title=\"Back to the text\" id=\"sdendnote1sym\" href=\"#sdendnote1anc\">i<\/a>  Fuentes, A., <i>How Did Belief Evolve?<\/i>, [internet, 26-02-2020] <i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/biology\/religion-origins\/\">https:\/\/www.sapiens.org\/biology\/religion-origins\/<\/a><\/i>, Sapiens, Wenner-Gren Foundation (accessed 17-03-2022).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last video, and the videos before I asked you whether you have any topics you would like me to discuss. So far, I have several. One of you want to talk about deism and why it is or isn\u2019t a flawed idea. And Nortega came up with also a good topic. He said: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6860,"parent":1147,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[225,307],"tags":[261,272,313,304],"folder":[102],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6855\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6855"},{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apologeet.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=6855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}