most people are credulous.

I thank stepphon66 for instigating this debate. First of all, I would like to remind my opponent that the BoP lies on Pro as he made the claim. I also remind my opponent that while this debate had been put in the religion category, it does not have a religious topic. Instead my opponent merely uses arguments pertaining to religion to support his claim, and only made the statement "you will have to explain what evidence or premises christians and buddhists etc. have and how their beliefs can all be true" after I accepted. Therefore I will not be limiting myself to religious grounds (nor ignoring it), and I urge my opponent to do the same. Credulous as defined by Dictionary.com is "willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullible." Note that while my opponent focuses on the terms 'without ... evidence; gullible' [1], the definition included the phrase 'too readily', which implies a repeating pattern. A similar phrase is present in multiple other trusted online dictionary sources [2]. Indeed, for a trait to be part of an individual (which the word 'are' in the topic backs up as the definition of the claim) and not merely present it has to be dominating. Therefore, to make the claim that "Most people are credulous", the claim that "Most people are credulous most of the time" has to be made first. The evidence and statistics my opponent provides, then, (and may I add are without source or evidence) are not enough to prove that statement, in the same sense that we don't call someone a liar if they had lied twice in their life. Now, my opponent seems to assume that all individuals who believe in a religion believes based on 'whatever their leaders recommend' and utilizes no evidence. The truth is vastly more complicated on several counts. I will now present several exceptions to my opponent's claim. Religion aren"t cults. There are no definite leader(s) for all believers of any certain religion. Many believers believe of their own accord, without relying on a leader to know what to believe. The simplest and most verifiable example being myself, as I am a christian yet believe based off my own choices rather than what my parents or any church leaders tell me. There is a distinction between 'credulous' and 'ignorant'. In this context, credulous is believing in something with little to none evidence, while ignorant is believing in something with lots of evidence, but all the wrong ones. An individual may believe in a religion with many fallacies, yet still not be credulous, as they believe that the evidence they"ve been provided is enough for a rational belief, even if they seem ridiculous to others. Pro fails to regard this possibility in his arguments. Pascal's Wager is an argument made by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century [4] on the rational choice of believing in God in order to not risk the possibility of losing infinite eternal gain or vice versa, should it happen to be true. In this case individuals who abide by this principle are not credulous, as they do not believe "readily", the decision came after extensive rational thought, they acknowledge the lack of evidences, and they are certainly not gullible. I will now provide a argument of my own. As I said earlier, for an individual to be classified as credulous the trait must be dominant. Yet our society functions on non-credulousness. From grocery shopping to crime courts, we require credibility. In a credulous society, criminals will be released based on their statements of innocence, and costumers will spend a fortune for an ordinary rock just because they are told so. Thus our society cannot have most of its individuals be credulous. I look forward to my opponent"s rebuttal and to learn from a fellow debater. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com... [2] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [3] http://www.thefreedictionary.com... [4] http://plato.stanford.edu...