A nice simple, easily dismissed argument, right? No problem here, it's simply a matter of pointing out that a lot of people can be wrong just as easily as one or two, right?

Wrong.

No, wait, it is easily dismissed. The argument from popularity holds about as much water as a broken buckyball: none.

That's all, see you later!

... Okay, okay. I'll write some more.

First, what is the argument from popularity? Basically, whoever uses this argument says that there must be a god, because there are/were/will be so many people who do/did/will believe in at least one god, if not more! Various customizations of this argument include over tallying ("literally hundreds of billions of people believe in SOME god" is a direct quote from some random pastor with whom I have debated), narrowing the focus (i.e. specifying geographical constraints, time constraints, deity constraints - only this country, or that era, or these gods) and mixing in an appeal to authority for good measure ("Just think of all the preachers and clergy throughout history, could all of them been wrong?!" Well, yes!).

On a personal note, I love it when this argument comes up. I have a tendency to use reductio ad absurdum in response to more narrowed assertions, but I really love it when they point out how many people throughout history have believed in at least SOME god. My favorite response is to point out the differences between the different gods humans have invented, particularly Aphrodite and Yahweh. How could do the extreme sexual repression of the Jewish god and the orgies by which the Greek goddess is worshiped coincide?

For some reason, Christians tend to get all huffy at this point: http://christianforums.com/t6974560&page=3

Now, here's where it gets a little messy. Oh, not messy as in "Ooh, we might lose the argument!", but, well, this: One common response to the argument from popularity is that once upon a time everyone believed that the earth was flat. We all know that it isn't, I can step outside right now, in my pajamas with my messy hair and my worn out comfy shoes and demonstrate to the passing traffic that the earth is indeed round. That isn't the problem. The problem comes when this changes the subject, and lets your unwitting victim flee the logical headlock they got themselves into. "Oh!" says the schmuck. "But doesn't that apply to evolution too? Why can't you be open to the possibility that everyone including the scientists of the time were wrong then about the earth being flat, so maybe they're wrong now about evolution?"

Cue MattShizzle's "Not this shit again" cat.

I'm not going to go into that right now - there are people right here on this forum that can/will/do/have done a much better job explaining that than I can - but something may spark my enthusiasm for that topic at some point. Suffice to say, it's more of a pain in the ass to deal with than any actual threat to the Theory of Evolution. That, however, isn't even the main problem; once they've made the huge mistake of bringing up the argumentum ad populum it's best to pin it down and squish the life out of it. This is not an argument that we should have to waste our time with, so if we can impress upon proponents of theism that it can't and won't convince anyone, then we can get down to brass tacks and pick apart the really fun ones!

So, here's a few final questions: How many people here still believe that aluminum pans and cans contribute significantly to Alzheimer's disease? Why has this idea taken so long to die, despite an overwhelming professional consensus to the contrary? Sententia populi. The common people were given this idea so strongly in the '60s that it still hasn't left the public consciousness.

Sound familiar?