Why is it just as rational to believe in God as it is to not believe in God?

Answer 1

From a biased viewpoint, because God exists. Hopefully from a more non-biased argument, this world is so complex I think it would take more faith to believe this 'randomly' happened rather than just a simple answer that God created it. To prove a God doesn't exist, one has to search everywhere to prove that He doesn't. If he is in just one place, He could exist. (good luck with that) In addition, The Bible has never contradicted itself, was written by over 40 authors over a span of over 1,000 years. Try to top that for a book.

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Many philosophers and theologians have developed beautiful, even elegant rational models in support of the existence of the deity. People who are already disposed to believe will see these models as brilliant, clear and compelling. There are also beautiful, even elegant models that demonstrate rationally how it is possible that the world as we know it could have come about without the aid of creation or design.

But to people of faith the belief in a deity that brings about salvation in the standard Christian sense has to be muchmore than the result of a rational argument. Satan logically and rationally believes that the deity exists, and it will do him no good whatever. At some point in the life of those who claim to believe it becomes a matter of saving faith, and acquiring saving faith is the work of the deity and the deity alone. Probably many unsaved persons have been brought to an intellectual belief in the deity's existence through a progression of rational/logical deductions. They were still unsaved, and many have probably died unsaved, even after years of invoking the name of their lord, convinced that their minds brought them where they needed to go. Because of something they did or did not do? No. Because the deity (assuming that any of this is real) shows mercy to whom he will show mercy, and he will withhold it from whom he will.

Those who truly have this saving faith (assuming that any of this is real) will not be the least concerned whether belief in the deity is rational; they will not be swayed. Those who do not have saving faith can believe what they will; it will do them no good whatever. Even if they are swayed by your rational arguments and conclude that the deity is real, this does not instill faith or guarantee salvation.

Answer

If it were just as rational to believe in God as to not, it would follow either that there was equally compelling evidence either way, or that there was no evidence at all either way.

If, in fact, there were a god, and if there was evidence for this, it would be rather surprising if there were also (genuine) evidence that proved (objectively) equally that the god did not exist. "Surprising" as in inconsistent… incoherent… rationally untenable. I venture that we can rule out this alternative.

Thus, if there is a god, and there is evidence for this, then it would not be equally rational to believe that there was not.

It would be equally surprising (as in incoherent) for there to be (genuine) evidence that a god existed, when in fact none did. Again, I venture that we can rule this out.

In other words: it would be incoherent for there to be (genuine) evidence that a deity existed, and also (genuine) evidence against this.

Conversely, then, for the two to be equally rational, there must be absolutely no evidence either way.

So…

If there were no evidence for nor against, then not believing would be rational, and believing would be non-rational.

If there were evidence for or against, then believing according to the evidence would be rational, and holding the opposing belief (whichever it were) would be irrational.

And the point? It can not be "just as rational" to hold either belief. In other words, the existence and the non-existence of a deity do not form a symmetrical pair, rationally. (This boils down to the systematic, theoretical difference between proving that something does exist, and proving that something does not exist.)

The discussion can be taken to another level. There are those who maintain that believing that a deity exists is irrational. This implies that there is evidence against this, and that people believe it anyway. Since belief in a deity is so common, it tends to go with this, to maintain that people have a tendency to believe in a deity in the face of contrary evidence.

Now, it is one thing to maintain that people have a tendency towards irrational belief, within the religious realm. It is quite another to allow that they also believe that their belief is actually rational - that is, that they believe that their belief is supported by convincing evidence, when in reality it is not. Some of those who happen to not believe in a deity will probably think that this is precisely the affliction that believers have. That would in turn imply that their brains work differently.

Given the phenomenon of religious conversion, the logical conclusion is that religious belief is a disease. (This is premised by the notion that evidence against exists.)

Actually, there is an equally logical, opposing possibility - that not believing in a deity is a disease. (This is premised by the notion that evidence for exists.)

Given these two possibilities… and the well-known fact that human beings tend to be irrational about things about which they feel strongly… it would be rather more sensible to conclude that people tend to feel strongly about religion - not to mention the fact that that is pretty much self-evident.

Conversely… maintaining that the opposing group has a disease would tend to suggest that one was oneself (more strongly) irrational.