Isn't it the other way around? I just argued that belief in what I call pseudo-facts can be seen as an odd form of rationality, if by announcing your belief in them you get useful and positive things in return. For organised religion that might be a community of friends and people who will help you in times of need, a feeling of being part of something, a collection of interesting stories and shared cultural artifacts, acceptance by family, less anxiety about death, a moral code to live by or all of them together.

In that sense, the belief in (say) biblical literalism would not itself be a rational belief, but the overall behaviour that surrounds it can be a rational choice.

Now, you seem to be arguing that I don't understand the meaning of rational, and then go on to claim that literally anything can be considered rational because you can just pick your own axioms. That's not how rationality works! You can go ahead and create an argument that seems perfectly reasonable in your own frame of reference but nobody else will care if your axioms aren't shared or are clearly nonsense!

> In that sense, the belief in (say) biblical literalism would not itself be a rational belief

I find it optimistic, to say the least, that each individual can reasonably start from first principles, discover whether there is a Creator, discover if God wants anything from us, and then comply with the requirements of God before the afterlife (if there is one). Atheism is a much more defensible position than a personal deism of any specificity.

Regarding group membership, some organizations are absolutely about that, but the Jesus of the Bible was clearly opposed to people using religion for personal ends. So there are religions that are open to hanging around for the friendship, but biblical Christianity isn't one of them.

> Now, you seem to be arguing that I don't understand the meaning of rational...

I didn't mean any offense. It seemed likely that we didn't have the same definition of 'rational' and it seems even more likely now.

> ...nobody else will care if your axioms aren't shared...

Except people clearly do care. And their response is to establish ingroups, outgroups, promote ignorance, and that's not a good road to go down. I would rather people come to an understanding that everyone is mostly rational, mostly logical, and mostly trying to live a good life. They're normal people that made other choices, in other words.

Regarding nonsensical axioms, axioms can be nonsense if they are inherently contradictory. The axioms we're talking about here pass that hurdle.

> I find it optimistic, to say the least, that each individual can reasonably start from first principles, discover whether there is a Creator, discover if God wants anything from us, and then comply with the requirements of God before the afterlife (if there is one).

I am willing to bet that there is less people in this world who do this "search on their own and discover god" than there are atheists. In fact, if you hang around atheist circles (The Atheist Experience for example), you'll hear enough people say they lost friends/family after deconverting or even that they still fear Hell even after they stopped believing.

> but the Jesus of the Bible was clearly opposed to people using religion for personal ends

How would you know? You realize that, assuming that Jesus did exist as a single person and all, we only have accounts compiled by a single authority that had interest in not having any negative portrayal of the guy?

It's like saying that Steve Jobs was not a bad person because his authorized biography didn't mention any terrible things (and even then, Jobs' probably mentions his daughter in passing at least).

> Regarding nonsensical axioms, axioms can be nonsense if they are inherently contradictory.

If you believe in truth-coherence, which seems to be a belief that religiosity-inclined people have.

Monists/materialists seem to tend more towards the truth-correspondence view. Under the latter, axioms don't need to be contradictory to be nonsense. They just need to be contradictory with reality.

> How would you know?

I said "Jesus of the Bible" to avoid getting into that here.

> [Nonsensical axioms] just need to be contradictory with reality.

Sure, but there's no objective observation that can prove God does or does not exist. If He is omniscient and omnipotent, He cannot be a dependent variable in any experiment.

> I am willing to bet that there is less people in this world who do this "search on their own and discover god" than there are atheists.

Any self-professed Christian who deviates from the teachings of the Bible either intentionally or out of disinterest is doing this to some degree. And everyone who considers themselves theist without affirming some more established canon is doing this.

I would wager there are more of those than atheist or orthodox (in the broad sense) Christians.

> Sure, but there's no objective observation that can prove God does or does not exist. If He is omniscient and omnipotent, He cannot be a dependent variable in any experiment.

If she's omniscient, then free will doesn't exist. If she's omnipotent, then she can create a rock so heavy she can't lift it… but probably can lift it.

I also notice that you didn't mention omnibenevolent.

> Any self-professed Christian who deviates from the teachings of the Bible either intentionally or out of disinterest is doing this to some degree.

Really? Any Christian who works on Sunday is "reasonably start[ing] from first principles [and] discover[ing] whether there is a Creator"?

I agree with you: we don't use the same definition of "rational".

> If she's omnipotent, then she can create a rock so heavy she can't lift it… but probably can lift it.

God can't create a rock too heavy for God to lift because that's nonsense, not because deist philosophy contradicts itself. The question of predestination vs. free will is interesting, and there is plenty of literature on the subject. If nothing else, the Lutheran position might be dissatisfying to some, but it's hard to refute.

I didn't mention omnibenevolence, no, though we have no way of proving whether individual people are 'good', so I don't know why we think we can judge God fairly.

> Any Christian who works on Sunday is "reasonably start[ing] from first principles [and] discover[ing] whether there is a Creator"?

Allowing for exceptions, Christians who work seven days a week or do not belong to a local church (broadly defined) are ignoring clear instructions in scripture. When this happens, it's typically for one of two reasons. One, people know they should be doing things and are simply bad at doing them. Christian theology actually makes amazing amounts of room for people who genuinely struggle with obedience.

The second category is who I was mainly referring to earlier. These people don't obey the scripture because they believe the scriptures are not really authoritative in all cases. That opens up a whole can of worms about which scriptures count, why, and who decides. Regarding the issues addressed by those scriptures, what is really true, why, and who decides? The whole thing becomes very open-ended very fast. I'm not necessarily opposed to that exercise on an intellectual level, but it seems like a lot of work to expect each individual person to take that faith journey alone. When groups of people do it together, well, you end up with a new belief systems like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, or even Christian Universalism.

Circling back to the particulars of observing the Sabbath, the Jesus of the Bible clearly said that the Sabbath was is for people, not God, and that the spirit of the law was much more important than the rule. In the epistles, it's specifically pointed out as an example of a rule that can be observed in different ways in good faith.

So Christians don't generally beat each other up about Sabbath issues, but it's widely (and casually) accepted that many Americans overwork, which causes personal and family issues, and that there's a lot of wisdom about being disciplined in observing a day of rest.

> God can't create a rock too heavy for God to lift because that's nonsense

Yes. Just like the omni concepts to begin with.

> These people don't obey the scripture because they believe the scriptures are not really authoritative in all cases.

If I tell you that I believe you don't really exist and yet I'm still talking to you, does that make me a fine rationalist? No. It makes me a total idiot.

People do stuff that makes no sense all the time. The fact that they do, does not suddenly make their actions exquisitely well intellectually justified or what not.

Actually, I think you are confusing 'rationalization' and 'rationalism' together.

> they just start from different axioms

I think they're also more likely to turn a blind eye to cases where the buildout of their model doesn't hold true. They could, for example, start out with the belief that the bible is the literal word of God, but hand wave away the fundamental contradictions you can find between different parts of it. (How many angels visited Jesus, exactly who did Cain think would kill him for being a vagabond, etc.) That's not just doing math from different first principles, it's changing the arithmetic rules as you go to fit the answer you want to produce.

Indeed.

I am an athiest, but if sievebrain tried to convince me "that God doesn't exist using logic"; then he would get nowhere. Logic alone is too impartial such debates.

My point was a little different. There is actually lots of reason and logic on both sides. But both in general and at specific times, people need to pick the underlying axioms (do only matter and energy exist?) they are going to assume. You probably agree, but I want it to be crystal clear that we don't have to throw out logic or reason (or accuse others of doing so) to discuss philosophy, theology, and their intersection with current events.

If you mean there's no proof for whether physicalism is true or false, then I completely agree.

I think you'll see formerly religious atheists make the most claims about the illogic of (their former) religion, because they are most familiar with it. They can provide logical arguments against their particular former belief, but none that would ever convince the true believers (e.g. those who say things like, "Even if the Pope said tomorrow it was all a sham I would still believe in Catholicism", or similarly for other hierarchical religions).

Your mention of axioms is very similar to how I used to reason about my own former belief. When empirical reality contradicted those axioms and I spent some time away from the continuous reindoctrination to examine what I believed was real, I found it far more reasonable to disbelieve than to replace one belief with another.

Ultimately empirical reality has to be the arbiter; no amount of soul searching alone, without evidence, can reveal facts about reality. So maybe there is no concrete logical "proof" that physicalism is real, but empiricism isn't about absolutes, and empirically, physicalism has a much, much better track record of supplying new, true knowledge about reality than any other supposed way of knowing.

> Ultimately empirical reality has to be the arbiter; no amount of soul searching alone, without evidence, can reveal facts about reality.

To reiterate, I believe strongly in empirical evidence. I'm mostly arguing against it being the sole source of knowledge.

And thanks for sharing the rest of your thoughts. I would call what you believe about physicalism a form of faith since you are aligning your expectations to a system that has a good track record in your experience. And I think that's understandable.

At any rate, if we can have a little humility in admitting the limitations to our own certainty, I believe we'll have more charity when dealing with people from other perspectives.