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Many of our ideas about the world are based more on feelings than facts, sensibilities than science, and rage than reality. We gravitate toward ideas that make us feel comfortable in areas such as religion, politics, philosophy, social justice, love and sex, humanity, and morality. We avoid ideas that make us feel uncomfortable. This avoidance is a largely unconscious process that affects our judgment and gets in the way of our ability to reach rational and reasonable conclusions. By understanding how our mind works in this area, we can start embracing uncomfortable ideas and be better informed, be more understanding of others, and make better decisions in all areas of life.
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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. |
answered on Wednesday, Dec 21, 2016 12:47:54 AM by Mike |
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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. |
answered on Wednesday, Dec 21, 2016 06:37:27 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD | |
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