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[I Don't Need God]

I agree that this is a subject change or sidebar discussion.

> mistaken sociological take

We'll have to agree to disagree. It simply comes down to naturalistic versus supernatural explanations. Like the early church growth argument that apologists use to support the resurrection, but sociologist Rodney Stark calculated that the rate of growth for the Mormon Church was about the same (so therefore Mormonism must be true /s).

[jimwalton]

Now you're changing the subject again. No one is claiming that the rapid growth of the church proves the message was true, at least I wasn't claiming that. That's sort of a nonsense thing to claim, because it makes it sound like truth is subject to a majority vote. Besides, the question at hand was whether religions evolved to survive, which is a different discussion than whether or not church growth is a sign of truthfulness.

As to "naturalistic vs. supernatural explanation," since you're talking to a Christian, it's probably obvious that I believe in both. The problem with your position, however, is that you can't prove that nature is a sealed box, so to speak, and that nothing else exists, or could possibly exist, and even if it did that it had no ability to do anything inside the sealed box. Those kinds of questions aren't able to be investigated by naturalistic strategies, since they are philosophical, logical, and theological questions.