You dirty atheist! My invisible friend is going to kick your ass for all eternity if you don’t believe in him!
I’m with that. Except with better spelling.
“There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of ‘Heaven’ ridiculous by saying they do not want to “spend eternity playing harps.” The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them.”
It doesn’t work because Stalin’s sins came from his psychosis, and his belief in Communism, which has many of the same characteristics as religion. The atheism part is to keep other faiths from interfering.
Um, the pogroms were conducted by you nice Christians against my ancestors. If God doesn’t like being called a Magical Sky Pixie, he can come down here and compain himself.
The IPU is not another name for your god. The IPU demonstrates that anyone can make up a deity. If you think there is a fundamental difference, besides lots more people believing in your God, feel free to give us solid evidence about God’s existence. Something, like say, a creation story that matches reality, accurate history from long before the time the book was written, or the kind of evidence of miracles that would convince a historian.
And don’t give us this stuff about faith instead of belief kidchameleon. Try reading your Bible some day. Moses did not get to cross the Jordan because he struck the rock with his staff, making it less proven that God made the water come out. So, for causing a situation where they would have to have faith instead of evidence, Moses got punished.
Or has your unchanging god changed his mind?
The guy whose convinced he is Napoleon has more evidence than you do - he probably has got the hat.
Ad hominems and non sequitors ain’t gonna get you the respect I give the steam coming off my piss in snow.
[/QUOTE]
Interesting choice of words. In what sense do you use it? I’m assuming that you aren’t referring to violating a transcendant, universal standard of moral behavior?
I think a lot of people (particularly religious ones) take more offense at the phrases “IPU” and “Magical Sky Pixies” than are intended. And while I can’t necessarily say I blame them, I’ll try to explain how I think they’re misunderstanding things.
The implication is not supposed to be “you believe in God? Why, only an idiot would believe in God! You might just as well believe in Invisible Pink Unicorns or Magical Sky Pixies, you moron!”. The implication is more complex than that (at least, I think and hope it is… some people may just be jerks, so I can’t speak for all of my non-theistic brethren and sisthren).
The implication SHOULD be something more along the lines of “To you, belief in God seems natural and normal. And, in fact, in our society, God is such an important and integral part of things, as he’s often mentioned along with Family and Apple Pie, that he kind of gets Grandfathered into acceptance. He seems normal, and mundane, and Part Of It All. But, if you stop and think about it, this whole concept of God is pretty weird. Here we are, normal (god-fearing) Americans, living in the 21st century, having witnessed science unlock DNA, having witnessed the horrors of the holocaust, and the nuclear bomb, and all the other advancements of human thought and ideas, and we no longer believe in demonic possession or ghosts or curses or witches, and yet we still passionately believe in (in some of our cases, inerrant) supernatural truths from a book of what are basically tribal traditions written down 2000 years ago, full of bigotry and hatred and ignorance (albeit also full of some darn good ideas and some fine writing), which talk about a powerful supernatural deity who smites other deities that look like calves, lives up above the clouds, mysteriously impregnated a woman at one point, told one of his followers to kill his own son, and is basically a powerful fairy.” It should sound weird. If you believe in a Christian God, fine, more power to you. But you SHOULD take a step back and realize how potentially out out of context that God is with the rest of the world. If you find a way in your personal faith to reconcile those differences, or find strength from that tension, or what have you, then hey, more power to you, I’m glad you have a spiritual foundation for your life that you find pleasing and fulfilling. But if you’re claiming that “why, my Christian God myth is, umm, American and normal, whereas the idea of an invisible pink unicorn is laughbale and insulting. That analogy is pointless! You’re just being an insulting jerk!” then you’re being intellectually dishonest.
At least, that’s how I see it.
One important corollary to what I just posted:
A time when the whole IPU business frequently crops up is in discussions of people who use biblical justifications for public policy. If you are someone who claims that gay marriage should be illegal because the bible says so (and, granted, almost no one on the SDMB is), then one response to that might be that as long as you can’t prove your god exists, then what you claim he tells you should be no more relevant to public policy than (for instance) what I claim that the IPU tells me.
Again, the point is not “haha, I said IPU, you’re a moron”, it’s “pronouncements based on ones personal faith in unprovable supernatural things are not justifications for public policy… for instance, how would YOU feel if I told you that the IPU, who you don’t believe in and who seems clearly nonsensical to you, told me that drinking milk should be illegal?”
With all due respect, I think your missing my point. It is certainly possible to draw comparisons between an organization and the Nazi party using well thought reasoning. However, too often the word “Nazi” has been abused. Therefore, even if the comparison’s logic is impeccable, the mere mention of “Nazi” will cause the debate to spiral downward. This is the phenomenon recognized by Godwin’s Law.
My point was that the same is true for IPU and MSP. Too many people do use them as insults. A simple search of these boards will tell you that. Because many have turned what used to be a weak and tired (but at least honest) reductio ad absurdum argument into an ad hominem, even if the Invisible Pink Unicorn argument is offered sincerely, the mere mention of it causes many to roll their eyes and think, “Aw fuck, not this bullshit again.” I call this phenomenon “Monkey’s Law”.
Anyone who has come to the conclusion, based on his own experiences and the weighting of the evidence purported to prove God’s existence, that He does not in fact exist, is reasoning logically. And so is anyone who, from the same resources, has come to the opposite conclusion. The value and relevance of the data is not germane to the logical process used to parse it.
But the thread title should properly have been, “I Pit I Love Me, Vol. I, Tip I”
Well, how about just the infinite embarrasment of facing the hosts of Heaven, having acted like a dick?
I know I’ve talked about this with several people, but I don’t mind repeating it again. Is it not possible that God intended for people to have to look for evidence, weigh it, and decide if they believe He exists or not? Having the attitude that “If God exists, he’ll prove it to me in such a way that I can understand” seems to circumvent the whole “faith” thing. And of course, if that were the case, no one would deny God’s existence; all skeptics would receive the proof they demand.
Of course, I’m not going to change your mind, and what I just said doesn’t prove God exists, either. I know that. But I think if your perception is “I won’t believe God exists unless he proves to me that he does!”, then I think you’re approaching the topic not only from the wrong perspective, but also with your mind pretty much already made up anyway.
My bad, Polycarp. Thanks for pointing out my shortcomings. :smack: 
What is god’s motivation for wanting us to have faith? If he’s all-powerful doesn’t that sound a little, well, petty? If he really is omnipotent and really wants me to worship him, fine. All he has to do is ask.
I dunno. Have you tried asking him?
Well, Stalin was a nut. Nuttery (medical term) crosses all socio-economic and religious boundaries. It is just that Atheists usually have further to go before they cross the line, is all.
See Max the Vool’s response.
I’ve decided that MSP and IPU are not getting the respect they deserve, so I will now use the term ‘Zeus’ instead. He had a large following at one time, so is as valid as any other deity. Given the preponderance of writings on his existance then I should be on a level playing field evidence wise with modern non-Zeus alternate god believers. Just remember, if you piss Zeus off you can end up with a lightning bolt up the butt!
Frankly, if you feel insulted by someone equating your God with a IPU, then either you should re-evaluate your beliefs (probably by not refering to a text written by ancient goat herders, that’s just my opinion though), or let this Diety of yours come down and complain about it in person.
Well, if acting like a dick is going to get me into trouble, I don’t think I will be the only one standing there. Actually, I think we’d have by far the majority presence on the field of battle. Dickery would probably be way down on the list of things that gets you selected for the opposing team, at least from what I’ve heard.
::sigh
Uzi, kindly reread my last post. It’s a response to MaxTheVool. The premise behind the IPU argument is that if a claim is unprovable, then it’s in the same category as everything that is deliberately made up or fictionalized. It falsely redefines the opposing position in terms that make it more easily attackable, which causes it to tread damn near straw man territory. Couple this with the fact posters such as I Love Me, vo. I get pitted for using the IPU as an unelaborated ad hominem, and hopefully you will see why I proposed Monkey’s Law. I’m simply observing that the IPU almost never has a positive effect on the discusion, and things go downhill as fast as when someone compares another viewpoint to a characteristic of Nazi Germany.
Using Zeuss will improve the argument slightly in that Zeuss is not deliberately made up. It may also allow you to sidestep Monkey’s Law, but even with the change the argument will still be weak.
I am really going to have to get over being pissed at other people for what they think or say about my religious beliefs – especially when my religion teaches me not to be pissed at other people.
Damn.
I didn’t say you would be in trouble. I was just thinking of alternative reasons than condemnation to infinite punishment as a consequence for unseemly behavior. Being embarrassed is quite a bit different than suffering in hell for eternity.
See, I am a universalist, and we . . .
Sigh, never mind.
I wasn’t trying to imply that I haven’t got lots to be embarrassed about.
Tris
“It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.” ~ Horace ~
However, the vast majority of times I see someone try to cite Zeus (or Ra, or Brighid, or Tezcatlipoca, or whoever), that person is trying to claim that nobody worships them anymore. At least the people who argue that nobody worships the IPU aren’t trying to make arguments that require that I ignore the existence of folks I know.
[QUOTE=A Monkey With a Gun]
::sigh
I understand what you are saying, but there are times when religion is being discussed that, as an athiest, it becomes so frustrating that you have to lash back. Statements like, “all you need to do is open your heart” and “All you need to do is look”. Statements like these are foolish and insulting as much as IPU is.
Actually Zeus is just as made up as IPU and MSP, or God, for that matter. The only thing is that someone far back in antiquity did it and that makes it somehow more acceptable to some. I have no idea why this is so, but it seems to be that way. That some nomad back in the copper age has more insight into how the world works than we do today seems rather ludicrous to me.
Well, I am seldom embarressed about being wrong. If I’m wrong it is usually because I didn’t know all the facts to make an informed decision. I certainly wouldn’t feel embarrassed when facts were deliberately withheld on purpose as seems to be the case with God. So, finding out after I’m dead that there is an afterlife would be a bonus in more ways than one as I’m sure you’d agree.