Is comparing a belief in a Deity to a belief in the tooth fairy intellectually honest?

Seriously, when you say that believing in God is like believing in Pink Unicorns, are you prepared to prove that, somewhere in the reaches of space, there is not a planet that has pink unicorns running around on it?


Every culture has some form of a belief in "little people". Can you prove that there are not, or have never been, leprechauns, fairies, sprites, gnomes, elves, etc?? Perhaps they visited long ago in a UFO...I don't know. YOU don't know.


Has anyone ever found big foot? No? Does that "prove" that all the people who claim to have seen him are liars?


What about Nessie? I firmly believe that there is something living in the Great Lakes...I believe this because when I was a kid I used to go out to the lake early in the morning to swim in the summer...and I have seen whatever-it-is, as well as felt it in the water with me. I am not prepared to say it is or is not a


cousin of the Loch Ness Monster, because I don't know. But it wasn't a fish.


The tooth fairy? I know her. She's me.

Is comparing a belief in a Deity to a belief in the tooth fairy intellectually honest?
You missed the point of the invisible pink unicorn and things of that nature. It is to combat the belief that just because something cannot technically be disproved, that automatically makes it equally likely to be true or not. Just because someone cannot disprove the earth was created by a giant flying spaghetti monster, does it make it equally likely to be true or not?
Reply:If other than God.............than Yes.
Reply:God is similar to the Tooth Fairy. He's just for adults.
Reply:That depends on the perception of deity. I agree that this comparison is intillectually honest IF you are talking about an anthropomorphic deity. But not all people view deity that way. Some people are pantheists (like me). Pantheists are people who view the universe itself as deity - impersonal and quite scientific. So...
Reply:I am more likely to believe in the tooth faerie then I am a so called god of any kind
Reply:no, i can't prove there are no pink unicorns somewhere in the universe, that's kinda the point. just because you can't prove the non-existence of something, doesn't mean it probably exists and isn't an argument for it's existence.





i've only ever seen the comparison used when the old 'prove god doesn't exist' argument gets pulled out of the hat. in this situation it makes perfect sense and you kinda used the argument yourself here.





i just read your additional and i don't get what your question is. you seem to be arguing against your own argument.
Reply:It's just a crutch for atheists.
Reply:Yes, it is. Neither has any hard evidence to support their existence. Belief is not reality.
Reply:Yes.





Both are imaginary, both reward correct observence (is that a word?)... neither can be seen. And they both can do things that are impossible.





As to rest of the rant...





"Seriously, when you say that believing in God is like believing in Pink Unicorns, are you prepared to prove that, somewhere in the reaches of space, there is not a planet that has pink unicorns running around on it?"





-No, I'm not. This is the "proving a negative" argument again. If you claim something unlikely, the proving falls to you. You wouldn't take just my word about the invisible dragon in my garage... you'd want me to prove it.





"Every culture has some form of a belief in "little people"."





-Really? Each one? Are you sure? Or is it again my job to prove your claim to be untrue? Did you look for negatives for this claim, or do you leave it to other people since your guess is for some reason absolutely valid? Do you know the mythology of every human and alien culture?





"Can you prove that there are not, or have never been, leprechauns, fairies, sprites, gnomes, elves, etc?? "





-I can show that there is no evidence to their existence, but yet again, proving something isn't there is impossible.





"Perhaps they visited long ago in a UFO...I don't know. YOU don't know."





-So you don't know, and that's why I should believe in them? Are you saying you DO believe in my dragon?





"Has anyone ever found big foot? No? Does that "prove" that all the people who claim to have seen him are liars?"





-Yes and no, they might not lie on purpose, but human are notoriously bad at making observations; question 5 witnesses to a crime,


and you get 6 different descriptions ;) And there is NO bigfoot.





"What about Nessie?"





-Not enough food to support a creature that size, not enough room for a breeding colony of nessies, and the sonar mapping came up empty. It's pretty solid there's no chance of nessie.





As for the teapot... I've heard rumors that the russian cosmonauts found it, and use it on special occations.





I know you know that proving the negative isn't that simple, you can't wish it away by semantic circular logic. Existence of god is a positive claim; it claims there is something. Non-exitence is the negative side. Not believing in non-existence would be again a positive; it's a double negative :P





So there!








Btw, you still owe me for my last 2 wisdom teeth.