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Atheism And The Absurdity Of Invisible Pink Unicorns

Posted by on Aug 6th, 2010 in Religion | 12 comments
Atheism And The Absurdity Of Invisible Pink Unicorns

invisible pink unicorn

Discuss religion, particularly the existence of God, long enough and you’re bound to come across the standard atheist meme that -

“Belief in God is the same as belief in Invisible Pink Unicorns, Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy.”

While the person putting forward this argument may think it’s a valid point, the truth is it they couldn’t be more wrong.  They could try, but they would fail.

These types of arguments are simply attempts to belittle others masquerading as a logical argument.  The only point these Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU) type arguments prove is that the user is well versed in the logical fallacy reductio ad absurdum.

Let’s toss that aside for a second and explain why it’s a ridiculous argument.

First, something cannot be both pink and invisible.

For it to be pink, it would have to be an object that reflects not one, but two complimentary wavelengths of light.

If it were truly invisible, it would not reflect any light, and therefore have no color.

So that argument, a self-contradictory one at that, is provably invalid through physics.

These types of arguments are just a different version of Russell’s Teapot.  In an unpublished article from 1952, Bertrand Russell put forth this analogy:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Cute, huh?

The flaw in this argument is this: we know what the physical characteristics of teapots are, therefore we can, through science, verify that there is not a gigantic teapot floating between planets in our solar system.

It’s an absurd argument intended to belittle people of faith….any faith.

On a slightly related topic….

The common belief among most atheists is that the universe ‘just happened’.  Somehow all of the matter/energy in existence all got together and “Bang!” the universe, as we know it, came to be.

Here is the dilemma.

In order for that to have happened, everything had to be contained in some finite space.  That’s just physics/chemistry, etc.  Reactions can only happen within a certain space.

If that were true.  That would mean that, still today, the entire universe would occupy a finite space.

What is that finite space?  Additionally, how does something within a finite space continually expand for billions of years?  For the matter of the universe to expand for billions of years that would mean one of two things:

  1. The entirety of the matter of the universe is contained within some much larger ‘container’.
  2. That the finite space of the Big Bang somehow became an infinite space.

If #1 is true, and the universe is a finite space, what is at the end of it?

If #2 is true, then how did the universe go from being finite to infinite?

These are the things that keep me up at night.

  • Joy

    Christian…
    This is a provocative post. My mind is too minescule to dissect it all…Here are some thoughts…albeit perhaps pea-brained and incoherent.
    In the quote provided…Bertrand Russell says:
    “nobody would be able to disprove my (the tea pot) assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes”…
    The perameters he’s constructed make it impossible to disprove his claim. It seems he’s saying that the teapot is there…it is just completely undetectable to man despite all of our technology. IN lots of ways…this feels like the same thing many of us casually spout off about God. Why is it so obvious to some of us that God is…and to others…completely absurd?

    I don’t think this unicorn argument is as unreasonble as I once did. It seems just as likely to me (some days more than others) that an invisible unicorn could retain properties of reflective color…as say… the idea that God is a triune being existing in 3 distinct personages somewhere out there and here at the same time…The unicorn is maybe a silly visual, seeming to have real properties and yet is completely invisable. It’s ‘mostly’ undetectable…unless say…you believe it’s there. This is not a real far step from the type of faith I was programmed into. Trying to use logic and philosophy to satisfy faith and mystery. You know where that has lead me…the slipery slope (beh)

    Anyhow…despite my christianity…I find the claims of my faith absolutely illogical and rediculous a lot of the time…A 6 day creation, one man and one woman populating an entire planet…a world-wide flood…a woman turned into a pilar of salt…the virgin birth as well as a cruicified, burried and then resurected savior. None of this is logical (eh…to me)…but…I’ve believed all of it emphatically at one time or another. I guess the question for me lately is Why? Why did/do I believe?

    Trying to reconcile how a completely good, holy and righteous God could creat anything capable of evil? And where does evil come from? I wonder how a completely good…just and holy God could create something obviously falible or bent toward evil and missing the mark…and then hold this ‘fallible creation responsible’ for everything that is wrong in the world. This is what keeps me up at night…

  • mickey

    Joy, I was a believer at one time. The difference is that I totally gave up the ideas that I was taught as a child when I was old enough to think rationally on my own and make my own decisions.

    I certainly dont ridicule or belittle anyone who believes. We all have some belief, idea, or fantasy that helps us to get by day to day and those belief might even make some of us better people.

    I would eagerly welcome anyone to say the right words or show me the right things to make me a believer again. But until that happens…..

    Christian, this post didnt do it for me either. You gave a fine explanation on why the mere thought of an invisible pink unicorn is impossible and I suppose I can applaud that. But the thing is, no one else believes in invisible pink unicorns either- and therefore no one cares whether its possible for one to exist or not.
    You also twisted Mr. Russell’s words in order for you to more easily counter them as Joy explained. And once again, no one, including Mr. Russell actually believes that the teapot exists. So even if would have accurately shot his assertion down, it still wouldnt make your point for you.

    You havent given me a reason to believe.

    I’d like a reason to believe. And I say that with complete sincerity.

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  • Joy

    Mickey…
    I appreciate your thoughtful response. I cannot offer you anything to counter your unbelief…in fact…my ‘faith’ is avery different today than it was in days gone by. I long for some kind of rebirth and an ability to believe the way I once did.

    What I do know for sure…is that life is a mind blowing mystery…as is how one comes to faith of whatever measure. Today my faith journey has become an agonizing process of deconstruction and refusing to defend someone else’s truth or revelation. I’ll never believe the same way or the same exact things ever again…That has been liberating and terror inducing at the same time.

    @Christian…I admire your willingness to jump into the deep end here.

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  • Samuel

    Obviously the unicorn is not always invisible and when it is visible it is pink.

    Also we can’t verify the lack of teapots in space. We still don’t know the position of all asteroids in our solar system (fortunately the bigger ones are the easiest to spot).

    “If #1 is true, and the universe is a finite space, what is at the end of it?”

    There isn’t anything at the end. The universe contains all of existence. Yeah, that sounds weird, but remember we live in a universe where objects attract each other by bending space, where time does not have an independent existance and where really small particles can go from point a to point b with out going through the intervening space.

    You know all the exceptions people give to God? Give them to the universe which already is consistent with bizarre weirdness. Yes, it is downright creepy (the universe has existed forever… because time is a property of the universe. Okay how does that work?), but if you ever figure it out… well, if we knew what you could do with a working knowledge of everything we’d already have the answers.

  • http://homebrewedtheology.com Christian

    Joy-

    Thanks for your honesty and emotion. The world is a much better place having you in it!

    A secondary flaw with Russell’s teapot, besides being an example of reductio ad absurdum, is that the teapot would not have been able to put itself there. A teapot is a physical object with known, and measurable, properties. Although Russell’s condition is that it couldn’t be seen with a telescope, that doesn’t preclude it from being detectable. Perhaps it would interfere with the orbit of the planet, causing a wiggle, something astronomers use to detect planets and other objects they can’t physically see. Also, we know the physical makeup of china teapots, so IR, FITR, elemental analysis, spectroscopy could all detect the presence of a china teapot, even if we couldn’t see it.

    As far as the unicorn, the name remains a contradiction. However, I can see your point about the triune God. I’ll have to give that one some more thought, but ponder this….if the unicorn is truly both invisible (unseen) and pink (revealed) how would we know either unless it did reveal itself (thinking revealing God through Christ).

    Often, I agree, Christianity gets stuck on the logos and forgets the mysterion. This is, fortunately or unfortunately depending how you see it, a primarily post-enlightenment western concept. Honestly, I struggled with Rohr’s book because, for me, it seemed to place an emphasis on mystery being primary. Somehow, somewhere there’s got to be a balance between the two. Where that is, I’m still looking. All I do know is that the balance doesn’t seem to be a fixed point.

    I’m often asked “which parts (of the bible) are literal and which are metaphorical, and how do you tell the difference?” To me, there is no definite answer, no ‘checklist’, or analytical method, that one could use to make that determination much to the chagrin of many people. God may speak to all of us, but not with the same message, same language. If there were one absolute, definitive way to commune/communicate/relate to God, then, well, I dunno. Seems like we’d all be robots and our uniqueness in gifts, talents, skills, everything that we use to live out/understand this whole God thing would kinda be wasted…….and we’d all be Methodists (haha!).

    Theodicy is something I really get into. God, evil, and all that is an enormous philosophical/theological question…. perhaps it’s a topic to cover later, as it’s HEEUUUUUUUGGGGEEEEEEEE!

    Hope that made sense and wasn’t too rambling.

  • http://homebrewedtheology.com Christian

    Mickey,

    I would honestly hope that I don’t ever “argue” you into believing. In my opinion, that’s not true faith, it’s just subscribing to someone’s interpretation. You’ve seen me say it here often…. I could be completely wrong about all of this and I’m really ok with that. However, that doesn’t mean that the strength of my belief is any less. (That sentence even confused me!) I can only hope to unlock that door, it’s up to you to step through it.

    I agree with what Joy said “I’ll never believe the same way or the same exact things ever again…That has been liberating and terror inducing at the same time.”….and I don’t think that faith/belief was ever intended to be stagnant or stationary. That would imply, to a degree, that my faith/belief was perfect and I never needed to grow in it. To me, that’s crap… just ask my wife, she’s had a front row seat to the last 6 years of my faith journey.

    I like to look at it this way….not even the Garden was perfect. In Genesis, God tells Adam to tend the garden. It’s the same in faith, we prune out the dead, infected, non-”fruit bearing” parts in the hopes that we’re promoting healthy growth.

    This has been the scariest, most painful 6 years I’ve ever experienced in terms of my faith journey…..I also know it’s not going to end anytime soon.

  • JG

    HEy Christian, Although I know we differ greatly on some of our theological and political views I think it’s great that you are opening the doors to communication. With that said, here’s my $0.02:
    I do not believe that we as humans can fully comprehend the nature of God, we can ascibe attributes to his nature but are completely unable to fully comprehend Go. He sent his son so that we can have someone we can have someone fully human and also fully devide that we are able to relate to, this is why Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the light. One attribute I do believe is that God is Love and we can have relationship with him through faith in Jesus.
    But then we get to the subject of why would God creat imperfect beings and with free will none the less? Well…I guess my only explanation for this is that if we did not have some aspect of free will then God would be a puppet master and we would be the puppets. But I beielve what God truly desires is for us to be in relationship with him, if we were incapable of free will then this would be impossible. Let’s take this to a level we can understand easier…Do you want your children to be like inanimate toys that you can buy and control or would you rather that they are able to think for themselves and choose to be in relationship with you? I think I would prefer the latter. I do not pretend to understand the mysteries of faith but I do know that relationship with God is a very personal adventure that we share with others and I would rather be called a fool for that than to think that I can defend God, He is plenty capable of doing that for himself. Just my $0.02, Love you Bro!

  • JG

    Sorry for the typos, I should have proof read. :(

  • http://homebrewedtheology.com Christian

    Jeremy,

    Dude, you hit the nail on the head with that one. Can we fully understand God? No, but, like you said, we can understand attributes. Just thinking that God is everything and nothing all at once hurts my head. I believe our ability to understand attributes of God relates to the story of Moses when he asked to see God’s glory. He said no, but if you listen, I’ll tell you some.

    I completely agree on the free will bit. 100%.

    Did you have a good birthday?

  • Samuel Skinner

    “A secondary flaw with Russell’s teapot, besides being an example of reductio ad absurdum”

    No, that is what the fallacy means is:
    http://www.iep.utm.edu/reductio/
    Reductio ad absurdum is a mode of argumentation that seeks to establish a contention by deriving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because its rejection would be untenable.

    The teapot argument is an attempt to illustrate the burden of proof.

    “Perhaps it would interfere with the orbit of the planet, causing a wiggle, something astronomers use to detect planets and other objects they can’t physically see.”

    That wouldn’t tell us the teapot is there. It could be an asteroid or ice fragment.

    “IR, FITR, elemental analysis, spectroscopy could all detect the presence of a china teapot, even if we couldn’t see it.”

    Those all rely upon light. If there is light we can see it.

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  • Peter A.

    ‘The flaw in this argument is this: we know what the physical characteristics of teapots are, therefore we can, through science, verify that there is not a gigantic teapot floating between planets in our solar system.’ – Christian

    Yes, an orbiting teapot could conceivably be verified, which raises the question of how we could confirm the existence of a (supposedly) invisible, immaterial, and transcendent ‘god’. What method could one use to confirm the existence of ‘God(s)’?

    One could possibly argue ‘through ‘His’ works’ (i.e. the universe itself), but this method runs the risk of ignoring explanations for given natural phenomena that have a natural (what else?), and therefore more plausible, explanation. For example, do you, or anyone else who may read this, truly believe that a rainbow is the expression of God’s covenant with mankind to never cause a global deluge again, even though we now know precisely the reasons for the apparition of rainbows through (perfectly natural) mechanisms?

    The primary reason that is given for the use of the pink unicorns by atheists when arguing against the notion that any of the innumerable gods that mankind has imagined to exist may actually be real, is that there is an equal amount of evidence for the existence of both gods and unicorns – i.e. precisely none, zero, no evidence, none whatsoever. If one believes in the existence of gods, then one may as well believe in pink unicorns, Father Christmas, and vampires as well.

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