The Idea of Heaven, Hell, and God is Irrational

I apologize for the delayed response, but I had to go to school. I would like to point out that the example of Christianity was only an example, and I had not intended for it to become the center of the debate (not that it is now, just that Con tried to remind us). In the entirety of this round, though, I do cite specifically Christian texts. I do this only because I am most familiar with this view as a former Christian. I fail to see how your mentioning of deism relates to the topic of the irrationality of religion. Yes, deism makes more logical sense than many other religions from a logical standpoint, but it still proposes the existence of a divine and omnipotent being. That alone is the source of its irrational nature. The belief in a being whose presence cannot be seen, felt, touched, heard, smelt, or projected through some widely accepted model of the universe is not relevant to the current age, nor should it be treated as such. I call it irrational because the belief in something without any quantitative or qualitative observations is not conducive of a logical mindset, and so cannot be considered rational. The possibility of the genesis of life from non-living things (which I assume you mean by "evolution") is statistically small, yes, but certain laboratory experiments have managed to produce life from basic components that are believed to be a part of the primordial soup that Earth once was [1]. Though the chances of such an event may be small, it does not make it impossible, nor does it imply the existence of a divine being. I will also cite the evident mutualistic symbiosis between the mitochondria [2], and the rest of an animal cell. It is believed to originate from a symbiotic relationship between two organisms (the mitochondria, and the host cell), which evolved to become a single organism. If you take the mitochondria outside of the cell, it remains stable and can support itself indefinitely. While a divine being such as the Christian God may provide a moral compass, it does not make it an objectively "correct" compass. If you examine certain passages of the Bible, you will see that their God condones slavery [3], the abuse of women [4], and the genocide of an entire civilization [5]. Based on these passages, the omniscient and all loving God described by religion is not as happy as what was once thought. These passages prove that a universal truth of morality is only achievable through religion by cherry-picking the information, and there is no credible truth in a method such as that. If the universe had developed with flying spaghetti monsters running rampant, we would use that as an argument to justify the perfection of the universe. There is a theory for multiple dimensions referred to as "M-Theory", which states (at a very basic level) that there are multiple dimensions outside of our own (obviously, the third) that could potentially support external universes. Some scenarios derived from M-Theory postulate that our very own universe was created by the collision of two already existing universes. Though I"m sure you've heard it before, there is something called the mediocrity principle, and it "" simply states that you aren't special." [6]. Though its original application was for the seemingly rare and perfect conditions for life on Earth, I will use it here to state that this universe is really nothing special, and should not be treated as if a divine creature of infinite knowledge created it. What you are referring to sounds very similar to irreducible complexity, though I may be mistaken. This sounds very close to an argument from design, so I shall treat it as such. When you see the words "HELLO" written on a beach, it can be assumed that someone created because of past experiences. In the past, we have seen people write something similar, we have done it ourselves, and so the only logical assumption would be that someone else made it. We subconsciously developed a working model of what likely caused the event, and followed it. The difference with intelligent design is that there is no previously made working model of how we exist to back it. The closest we have are theories such as evolution and abiogenesis (biopoiesis). We have not previously seen a god create an organism, so what compels you to assume that our life was created by it (rhetorical)? In conclusion, believing in a god or gods is both irrational and illogical because the beliefs are not established from any observable, testable data, and it has not in the past managed to support itself in a scientific environment. It is not in agreement with observed data, and it does not improve the life of the believer from an objective health or psychological standpoint. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://evolution.berkeley.edu... [3] http://www.biblegateway.com... [4] http://www.biblegateway.com... [5] http://www.biblegateway.com... [6] http://www.edge.org...