Jehanne

I ("Donald Flood") asked the following question of Steven Novella, host of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe on the Episode 49 of his show available here:

http://www.theness.com/home.asp
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/

(The bottom link does not appear to be working at this time...)

Question to Dr. Novella:

"If the empirical evidence for God is no greater than the empirical evidence for Invisible Pink Unicorns, is it logical to be agnostic towards the existence of God yet atheistic towards the existence of Invisible Pink Unicorns?" (not an exact quote, but pretty close...)

And, your answer is?

For Dr. Novella's answer, see Episode 49 (not yet available here, but available on iTunes):

http://www.podcast.net/show/41061

Haran

I have seen no long historical record and no worshippers of any such Invisible Pink Unicorn. I have, however, heard of people believing in a God and I have heard of a record of that God that has come down to us from ancient times.

The IPU analogy has always been a poor one.

Haran

I want to point something out that has always interested me. If you will watch, in this thread even, Atheists (especially the militant kind but usually others as well) will pound and pound on any perceived inconsistences in my beliefs, but they will rarely address their own beliefs. If they were to sincerely examine their own beliefs, they would find just as many holes and inconsistences, if they are honest. However, because the focus is usually on the Christian, it sometimes seems to them as if they have won some sort of battle, while all the time their own beliefs are riddled with holes as well. No human or human belief is flawless.

Jehanne

Well, for millennia, people believed that the World was flat, and then, for centuries after that belief fell out of favor, people believed that the Earth was the center of the Cosmos. Then, Galileo was almost burned for putting the Sun at the center of the Cosmos. My reply is, "So what?" All that your argument shows is that people were ignorant for thousands of years. So what?

mindovermyth

Haran wrote: "So, there you have it. These are my experiences. I see Atheism as an absurd position, agnosticism as fruitless and depressing, and of religions I have found Christianity to possess the best "truth" I can find, worth having faith in and giving purpose to my life and to countless others."

There we go. You are brought up in an evengelical home, probably in the US and you find christianity to posess the best "truth" you can find.

Now exchange Dallas for Bagdad and you get the same reply from a muslim, finding islam to posess the best "truth" he/she can find.

It is depressing really.

funinspace

Hum…understanding how people think, perceive the reality around them couldn't be of any interest; history couldn't be of any interest; politics couldn't be of any interest; chatting with people who are like minded couldn't be of any interest; and having ones ideas and preconceptions challanged so as to better understand ones own views couldn't be of any interest to an atheist I'm sure… Ah, and there are no arrogant, dogmatic, hostile Christians…lol
When asked about my worldview, I answer to the best of my abilitiies. You sound angry…maybe your just venting, we all are human after all.
And I don't really get Christian either being ignorant or feigning that they don't understand the question regarding what kind of Christian. Yes, most of them are just labels. But it's usually a reasonable starting point to understanding some of the theological beliefs one may have. I'll give you a political example. If I say I'm a green moderate libertarian, would you have a general idea of what I think of Federal Farm subsidies? Or maybe my views protecting National Forests? Since I used the LC "l" in libertarian vice a UC "L", would you think I'm a card carrying, dogmatic libertarian?

Come on, you say you’re an engineer, get logical for a second {here a hint of a pile on }. If one says they generally agree with Southern Baptists, or with Calvinism, or with the Free Methodists, would I not have an idea if you believe in free will or predestination, a God-breathed Bible, or maybe hell fire and brimstone? Well I guess good luck in getting your dog pile if that is what you really want…TTFN.

Doug Shaver

Some atheists are more committed than others to scientific rationalism. My own commitment tells me that in any worldview, it is wrong to believe any contradiction.

Of course I could be, and probably am, unaware of many inconsistencies in my belief system. But others are eager to find them, and I do try to be on the lookout for them myself.

If you can prove to me that two of my beliefs, A and B, are contradictory, I will do one of two things. (1) I will stop believing either A or B. (2) I will continue believing both, but will admit to you that I am an intellectual hypocrite.

Are you prepared to make a similar commitment regarding your religious faith?

Jehanne

Your philosophical point of view is falsifiable, unlike the theistic arguments being presented by the OP.

vsop44

How dare you questioning my moral standards because I don't believe in a crappy book ?

Do you hear yourself Haran ? didn't Jesus had something to say about people like you ?
Something like the last shall be first , and the first shall be last ! And a few other things ,the brainwashing is finally starting to wear off me !

Perhaps you should show some humility and follow more closely the words of your saviour !

Alethias

Some Points to make:

The OP of this thread has no links to anything anywhere else on this site. As such it stands on it's own, unless you choose to provide those links. As such it comes across as un-necessarily antagonistic in its tone. In essence, it appears to me that you pre-dispose the pile-on that you expect by the very nature of your OP. If you want to feel attacked this makes sense. Some christians have a persecution complex. Do you?

You make blatant assumptions about all atheists that are false for some. I'm not interested in evangelizing you. I have no doubt that some atheists are interested in doing 'evangelism'.

The intent of this site is not to convert christians. It is to promote metaphysical naturalism. That of course involves defending that point of view against all that would oppose it, such as yourself. Why would you expect otherwise?

Alethias.