Well, the reason why we made the point was that nobody said all atheists are rational.
However, the implication was made...and is often made that a theist is by definition irrational...which unless you know precisely how the theist has come to the conclusions that they have you cannot possibly know whether their decision making is rational or not.
But I don't think it's far fetched or uncalled for to say that anybody who holds supernatural beliefs is irrational.
The point is that people rationalise their world-view differently, whether they use scientific knowledge (which for most people is not possible as few people have the depth of scientific knowledge to truly understand it) or whether they use personal experience (which most people use, whether they are Theists or Atheists or In-between).
The point I was making is not that anyone said anything in particular...only that the implication comes up more often than not. Also it is perfectly logical to assume that many people who believe in a God have come to their decision using reason based on their personal experiences.......just because some of us do not agree with them or do not believe the same as them doesn't negate that. Equally there are many people, both theists and other wise who have not come to their particular world-view rationally, also some (I would say most) have come to their conclusions with a mixture of reason, irrationality and simple guesswork...... I just dislike this binary argument all the time.
Do you think it's possible to be rational & believe in ghosts?, gods or fairy's?.
I don't.
I'm not so sure....I cannot prove Ghosts or Gods, and Fairies are dependent upon whether we are talking about Shakespeare or not......my own world-view, which I have come to using personal experience would conclude that I do not believe in Fairies.....I do not have a personal belief in a God although I am not in a position to deny Gods existence objectively.....equally with Ghosts....I have very little knowledge of the paranormal in this respect so again, I remain open minded but with reservations.
But the statement you made does support my earlier statement regarding implication.
I'm not being factitious when I use the mushroom example, I'm simply highlighting that it's impossible to give a justifiable defence of any concept which lacks empirical evidence which could not be applied to any supernatural concept.
I think that it is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.....the idea that there is a magic invisible mushroom in the sky is not really comparable to thousands of years of religious and philosophical literature and debate.
This also goes back to my point about applying scientific method to a faith position.
Even ignoring the entire debate about the existence of a god/gods - almost all religions rely's heavily on a concept of "good" & "evil" - which as our understanding of neurobiology & human behaviour advances becomes an infantile way of classifying complex human behaviour.
That is another debate to be fair......whether we have free will or not is still open to debate and whether religion has anything to say about it we shall see.....but I would say that the concepts of Good and Evil are not as simplistic as they may first appear and have been at the heart of the most complex and divisive of theological thought since forever......
