I think this framing gives undue weight to the fact that the majority of people historically identified as religious, without examining the number of confounding reasons for that (like it being the best theory previously, or the threat of being put to death for not identifying as the regions majority religion, etc). I think this is basically an appeal to authority argument no?
> I think this framing gives undue weight to the fact
yes totally (in this argument) ignoring anyone that might have been historically or currently been agnostic, atheist, or anti-theist.
> this is basically an appeal to authority argument no?
I think so. And I couldn't think of a better example then what you just gave with mentioning "appeal to authority". The fact that we deconstruct language the way we do in order to decide the validity of the argument is already a scientific process.
Sibling comment just mentioned trust which I also agree would be an important element of religious belief systems. In scientific process this trust is only temporary until we either managed to learn enough about this subject to see the truth for ourselves, or gave up on it and trust that those specialists who know (your appeal to authority argument) are qualified to know it for us.
