God Equated to Unicorns

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Original Question

I hear a lot of people equating God to unicorns, or fairies. What is this about? Are they using the analogy show that God is improbable, or just something with no evidence?

Answers

It's hard to respond without a specific context, but there are a couple likely uses for the analogy.

One is just saying it is an absurd belief. "You don't believe in unicorns, do you? So why believe in God?" As presented here, this is probably a fallacy. Maybe an argument from popularity? Even though I agree with the conclusion, it doesn't seem logically supported.

Here is a version that isn't fallacious: "We can't prove God doesn't exist, but we also can't prove faeries don't exist. Without evidence supporting a belief, the rational position is to disbelieve." This is basically a weaker form of Russell's Teapot<>.

I'm sure there are other places where the analogy would also be relevant, but without thecontext these are the ones that pop into my mind.

This is a perfect example where you would want to ask, "what's your point?" or perhaps a better question, "In what way is God like unicorns?" The fallacy of the Weak Analogy basically states that it is a fallacy when claiming two things are alike but they are actually more different than alike (e.g., Tom Selleck is like Hitler because they both have mustaches). If the person responded that "God is like unicorns because we haven't seen either" then you can say "In that case, an electron is like a unicorn. So what?" This should spark a debate and get the other person to start to more critically examine their objection to God rather than a using a common sound byte.

A unicorn is an absurdity concocted by putting together 2 things that exist. Horns exist and horses do. There is no context where this would remotely be analogous to a non existing thing or a believed non existing thing. Why don't people use actual words for non existing things as analogous to God? They always use compilations. Flying, spaghetti , monster. All words that describe an existing thing being used as an analogy to a non existing thing is a very weak analogy fallacy in my opinion.

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