Phanto, whether something is rational or not has nothing to do with you, but only logic and facts - two things that exist independently of you, or your belief or understanding of them. That you think rationality is determined solely on the basis of whether you agree with something speaks to your irrationality and refusal to engage.

People within the same religions often have very different concepts of God, and that is one of the things we may, or may not, engage in argument about. Or we might argue about the meaning of a particular story that a religious figure like Jesus told, say the story of the Good Samaritan, which doesn't require any agreement about what God is, or isn't, to be discussed, and the principles applied.

In fact, the principles underlying the parable of the Good Samaritan have found their way into secular law. Plenty of atheists have benefited by the concept of the Good Neighbour Principle (look it up) and argued about what it means, without believing in God.

In fact, a lot of what you understand by the idea of the good person, and acting properly, comes from the Christianity that you deny. There is not some template of goodness to which people necessarily gravitate, no matter what society they come from, even if some things, like not murdering, are common across a large number of societies.

You also need to do some more research about how people actually make decisions. No one of any credibility makes the assertion that people act rationally in all circumstances. There are a variety of models, but they all involve people acting from a mixture of emotion and rationality. Good habits help people to make good decisions. If whe ad to think everything through from first principles we would be paralysed. Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind has a good discussion of this, and adopts a decision-making model which I think is correct. He also points out that people who act without emotion are generally described as psychopaths.

Hi Phanto,

Religious belief is not so much IRrational as NON-rational: most believers wouldn't claim that reason or rationality has much bearing on their faith. Reason doesn't necessarily come into it.

But while we grow up and learn more about the world, we may not be able to understand much about it but have to accept what we are in the middle of: in that sense, even us atheists are non-rational: we like to believe that reason and rationality come later, with experience and lifelong cogitation.

But in the meantime, we try to make sense out of it all, slowly and often painfully. We strive to be rational, but we do so from a faith that it OUGHT to make sense, AND from principles derived from earlier thinkers: in that sense we all stand on the shoulders of giants, and some of those giants were quite religious - that's what kept them going, right or wrong. Newton is a classic example. I have few problems knowing that the ideas of many great thinkers in the past might have co-existed with what you and I might consider not to be rational perceptions. Probably we're all a bit of a mixture that way, all our lives.

After all, why do we believe what we do, and where did those beliefs spring from ? A drive to know as a child, perhaps ? In other words, faith in the value in finding out, knowing, rather than staying ignorant (speaking for myself, of course). Finding out, knowing, something, has great value for us even though we know it won't be the end of our searches.

Believers may start out from a more formal basis, but they may still observe the world empirically as we try to do, so much of their knowledge and certainly their experience is as rational as ours is. They seem to be able to compartmentalise the world into what you might call non-rational and rational: they would probably be as surprised as we would if God actually and promptly answered one of their prayers - not that

[TBC]

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- not that many Christians probably pray as much these days.

I was having a dig at a Christian friend during the recent hot spell here in Adelaide when he was mourning the loss of his air-conditioner: I suggested that, who knows, God might fix it straight away if he prayed. He was surprised to think that his request might be answered so speedily. Perhaps he's a secret rationalist at heart.

I don't like to step on the cracks in the footpath, and I'm uneasy about the number 13, somehow it shouldn't exist. But neither belief intrudes much into the rest of my thinking, such as it is. I think that maybe we're all primarily rational, but have our non-rational sides.

Cheers,

Joe

Interesting thing about prayer is that I don't think going to God with a long wish list is really what most Christians think of when they think of prayer Joe. Anecdote from our sermon last week.

Apparently Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked by a journalist whether she prayed. She said she did, and the journalist asked her what she said to God.

She said she didn't say anything to God, she just listened.

Undeterred the journalist then asked her what God said to her. She replied "Nothing. He listens too."

Prayer, meditation. They are both interlinked. If you practice mindfulness you are doing what a lot of Christians do when they pray.

It's a far cry from the idea, lampooned in Bruce Almighty, that God has filing cabinets filling up with requests from believers, which manifests itself in the Catholic Church's adoption of the idea of saints, so that God could spread the load around.

But I suspect you won't find too many modern sophisticated Christians who accept the shopping list version of prayer. And I think that would hold true for a lot of Christians down the ages, including Jesus (despite what he says in some of the parables). The Lord's prayer certainly is vague and non-specific, but that's how you are advised to pray.

Hi Graham,

Brilliant ! I have a very deep admiration for Mother Teresa and her devotion to the poorest people: I look forward to the Left following her example, but perhaps in a more 'rational' way.

In a TIME article many years ago, it was revealed that she had a severe crisis of belief in the early fifties (i.e. when she was barely forty), which she may never have got over, but kept going with her work until her death at 84 or so, trying to make the lives of the poorest a bit more comfortable, maybe for the first time in their short lives.

If half the Left did that, it wouldn't be as flashy as a revolution but the lives of many people would be greatly enriched. That would still leave the other half to pontificate together over their Lo-Fat Fair-Trade Kale Lattes.

Regards,

Joe

"Prayer, meditation. They are both interlinked."

I used to have two juxtaposed items in my office - a statue of The Thinker ( http://openclipart.org/image/2400px/svg_to_png/224300/The-Thinker-Auguste-Rodin-Grayscale.png ) and a picture of Christ praying in the desert ( http://www.discerninghearts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Jesus-Praying-in-Desert.jpg ).

Two men in similar poses doing similar things. One is exploring the inner mind, the other exploring ultimate mind.

(Unfortunately the statue fell from the shelf one clumsy day and is no more. It was decapitated. I wanted to blame Islamists but decided it as caused by an even more fundamentalist notion. . . gravity)

Belief in God is an utterly personal issue and ought not interfere with our ability to relate and interrelate with others, be they of this or a different culture. There is no doubt in my mind that the true Christian is completely convinced that God exists despite their inability to show that to others. That I can't see/feel what they see/feel is beside the point in regards to engaging in religious discussion. Similarly, many scientists believe that dark matter exists despite not being able to demonstrate (rather than infer) its existence. That I doubt their certitude doesn't mean that I can no longer ponder things astronomic.

Sam Harris, the prominent atheist, is convinced he can commune with the universal spirit essence ( his book 'Waking Up') via meditation. I've tried his methods and think they are bunkum (for me) but concede they are real for him. None of that means that I should reject all that emanates from his personal 'discovery'. Frankly I envy his 'discovery', just as I envy those who truly accept and adhere to John 3:16 which is, to my understanding, the very essence of Christianity.

One of the things we ought to ponder is why those pushing the great western project of tolerance have such a blind spot about tolerating and accepting other's religious views.