I never said what the majority believes is necessarily true.
That is exactly what you did, as I illustrated.
Which is why I illustrated it!
It would, eg, mean that for many hundreds of years the world was flat.
And numerous other fallacies yes.
What I said was that what words mean is defined by the ways they are used.
Or mis-used!
By people. People generally. Not a few people, but people at large.
So in other words the definition of a word (including religion or god) is decided by the majority. Which is an appeal to popularity and as I have already illustrated fallacious!
That's what enables us, on the whole, to communicate.
So you do away with all etmology on the basis of majority definition. Which in any other words is still an appeal to popularity.
So, for hundreds of years, people may have been wrong in their belief that the world was flat, but at least everyone would have known what they meant by that statement.
And the point is?
the word 'Christian' means people who, among other things, believe that there is such a thing as god (who, that's to say, would answer the common or garden question: 'Do you believe in God?' with the unambiguous answer: 'Yes'); and that Jesus was qualitatively different from, say, Gandhi: ie, he was not just a splendid fellow and a fine moral teacher, but - in some sense - a divine being. As in 'God the Son'.
So you now unilaterally define for me what you believe constitutes a Christian, based on many huge assumptions about shared definitions of theological terms.
And if you don't buy into those specific beliefs, you may be 'christian' - in that your behaviour exemplifies Christian precepts as to how one should conduct oneself - but you cannot be 'a Christian'
So from your assumption as to the general acceptance (majority rule, appeal to popularity fallacy) of the meaning of words such as Christ, God, Divine, religious etc you draw a conclusion as to who can and who cannot be 'a Christian'
because a Christian is, among other things, someone who believes that there is a god, and that Jesus is his only begotten son.
However you have based this assumption on what? An appeal to popularity, whether linguistic or not makes not one jot of a difference.
Whether or not that's true is for theologians and bulletin board pedants to squabble over. Whether it's what the word means is - at least at this point in time - not really open to debate.
It is open to debate as is quite clearly proven here.
Maybe in a hundred years' time the man on the Clapham omnibus will be able to say: "Well, he's a Christian but he doesn't believe in God." But right now, that's not the case. The man on the Clapham omnibus would see that as a contradiction in terms. And he'd be right.
Only if one accepts the premise that you base this on which is that the Majority opinion is what defines, or in other words if most people believing something makes it true.
As it clearly does not you base the entirety of your argument on appeal to popularity and a few assumptions.
so as clearly illustrated an appeal to popularity whether regarding words or anything else is just as fallacious.
