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Originally Posted by Alarti
faith in a god as a creator is indicating a rationality deficit
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I submit that that statement is false with the following explanation.
Please follow that I am addressing the notion that belief in god is irrational. I am NOT exploring any particular religion or stance. Here, I am ONLY addressing the rationality of belief in God.
Most arguments that faith is irrational tend to be staged solely in a platonic field. Meaning that it is strictly a philosophical exercise using only formal logic. The arguments generally play out so that the answer becomes "God is unproven." However, it is misleading to state that belief in God is irrational because he is unproven without the corollary statement that "God has also not been disproven."
Ultimately, these types of strict inquiries tend to resolve little because someone will invoke the Cosmological Argument at which point the conversation implodes for want of more information in a logic setting that demands perfect information.
TLDR: Strictly logical proofs for or against the existence of a creator are generally found wanting in both directions.
That said, if we step out of the realm of Platonism and into the real word, belief in God can be extremely rational.
Something can be called irrational if there is no reasoning or purpose behind it. If you do something for a reason, we can begin to ascribe rationality to it. In effect, it can be rational for some to believe in God and rational (NOT "correct" simply rational) for others to not believe in God. This is because different people have different viewpoints and different understandings of the situation. Take the following example: Two men both have a disease that can possibly be cured by taking a pill. The first man refuses on grounds that the pill is untested and might harm him. The second accepts because the research indicates that it will cure him with a reasonable probability of safety and success. What you see here are two individuals making contrary decisions because their view or understanding of the situation is different.
I understand that this is not a perfect analogy by any means, but the point is simply to show that both are acting rationally while making contrary decisions.
When it comes to a belief in God, many view the choice as binary. You either do, or you do not. There is no "maybe." What then, is a person in this situation to do? Take two individuals. One, after examining a religion, feels that there is a greater probability than not that God is real. Perhaps it was an examination of history and a prophetic record or something else. Because he views it as a binary decision and feels God is more likely than not real, it is rational for him to believe. Conversely, a person might not feel that the religion has met a reasonable burden of proof and decide that there is a greater chance than not that God is not real. It is, in this case, rational for that person to not believe.
You can call a belief in God foolish, you can call it many things, but you cannot make a sweeping attribution of irrationality to the belief of God in all circumstances.