Theistic beliefs can be rational.

Alright, enough with the courtesies. Let's get cracking! Since this is the final round, I will only use it for to rebut whatever my opponent put up in the previous round and to solidify my pre-established positions. Allow me to quote my first contention: "Theistic gods do not exist rationally, therefore those who believe in theistic gods (and subsequently theism) do so against the rational nonexistence of gods. "What my contention 1 sought to argue was that there is no rational reason to adhere to theistic beliefs because there is no rational reason to believe that theistic god(s) exist(s). I immediately caught on to the fact that my opponent's C1 functionally seeks to negate my C1. I will elicit another quote, this time from my more recent round: "I would like to being with the rebuttals starting with my opponent's C1, which claims suggestive evidence based on two arguments that claim to rationally lead to the conclusion of the existence of God and/or other theistic deities. "In other words, my rebuttal were made not with the ultimate goal of disproving the existence of God absolutely as my opponent seems to be suggesting, but to prove that there is no rational connection in the arguments' premises to God or that the argument itself is irrational. With a bit of hesitation, I will quote my 'note of curiosity': "I know that, based on the resolution, all you have to do is prove the rational existence of one theistic belief to fulfill the statement that theistic beliefs can be rational"With that said, I'm faily sure my position was clear. There was no strawmanning involved. The point of my opponent's establishing his C1 is both to show that there is a rational reason to believe God exists ergo there is a rational reason to adhere to a God-related theistic belief. This, going by what my opponent is shooting for, ultimately proves that theistic beliefs are rational. I will reiterate my rebuttal in declaring that the premises for the arguments made to rationalize God's existence that my opponent has introduced are faulty. Drawing from the fact that these premises are faulty, it follows that the conclusion is faulty and therefore irrational. Even if the premises weren't faulty (oh they are, good sir, they are :)), God as a solution is unnecessary and irrelevant. The connection between the premises and the conclusion is not rational. God therefore does not rationally exist (neither does any other assortments of theistic deities). It then follows that theistic beliefs are not rational, effectively negating the resolution (whew, this response became rather long-winded, hope you got it all! :)). Now that I've got that matter cleared up. I will not continue the round with, you've guessed it, more rebuttals to the spiritual experience contention! (Yay)I read a few of the accounts of spiritual experiences written on the non-wikipedia page that my opponent links to prove his point, and I've come up with two verdicts. One, the submissions are lies made with some intent or purpose unknown to the reader (maybe to solidify people's adherence to religion, spirituality, morality, etc. ?). Two, the accounts are real, at least on the personal level of those experiencing them, but accrediting these experiences to the supernatural is ignorant and irrational. Spiritual experiences have been proven many times by the scientific community to have originated from an array of brain conditions caused by schizophrenia, physical trauma, etc. The video I am linking depicts a woman going in detail over her spiritual experience which was caused by a massive stroke she had at the age of 37. To sum up her experience quickly, a blood vessel in the left part of her brain bursts, and her spatial cognizance disappears. In other words, the woman, Jill, is unable to recognize the position of her own self relative to the space around her. This results in an experience which I will quote directly from the written transcript of the video. I suggest the full video be considered before going into the specific passage I'm about to quote (because it's a cool, insightful video :)):". .my mind was now suspended between two very opposite planes of reality. Stimulation coming in through my sensory systems felt like pure pain. Light burned my brain like wildfire, and sounds were so loud and chaotic that I could not pick a voice out from the background noise, and I just wanted to escape. Because I could not identify the position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free, like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria. Nirvana. I found Nirvana. And I remember thinking, there's no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body. .. .I pictured a world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at any time. And that they could purposely choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres and find this peace. And then I realized what a tremendous gift this experience could be, what a stroke of insight this could be to how we live our lives. And it motivated me to recover. "[1]This second article I'm about to quote from outlines a striking parallel between Jill's experience and that of monks in states of meditation. Doctor Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania conducts conducts a study in which he captures the images of the monks' brainwaves as they meditated. Here is the excerpt from the article: "Newberg found increased activity in the frontal lobe, which deals with concentration; the monks obviously were concentrating on the activity [source: Vedantam]. But Newberg also found an immense decrease of activity in the parietal lobe. The parietal lobe, among other things, orients a person in a three-dimensional space. This lobe helps you look around to determine that you're 15 feet (4.6 meters) away from a bathroom, 6 feet (1.8 meters) away from a door and so on. Newberg hypothesizes that the decreased activity in the brains of the meditating monks indicates that they lose their ability to differentiate where they end and something else begins [source: Paulson]. In other words, they become at one with the universe, a state often described in a moment of transcendence. "One thing that cannot be denied is that Jill's experience and its causes correlates exactly with those of Tibetan monks entering their realm of spirituality. To me, this parallel is powerful. The conclusion I present will hopefully undermine my opponent's entire second contention: Since spiritual experiences can be mapped down to a science, down to simply a manipulation of the left side of the brain hemisphere, then spiritual experiences, since they can be manipulated and brought about at will by people, cannot be credited to a supernatural source. My opponent's C2, which is based on spiritual experience, is thus negated. Now, let me finally leave the world of rebuttals and return to my original contentions. With my opponent's C1 negated, and my opponent's C1 being the only objection to my C1, my C1 stands yet, affirming the negation. My C2 is based on logic:Q = It is rational to doubt theistic beliefs. <- I hold this as a base assumption! !Q (not not Q) = Q, ! !Q is therefore true. !! Q = It is not rational to not doubt theistic beliefs = It is irrational to believe theistic beliefs. In other words, the totality of theistic beliefs are not rational, which functions as a negation to the resolution (I think. . _. )CONCLUSIONI have shown through logic (C2) and argumentative reasoning (C1) that my contentions, which negate the resolution, stand. Therefore, I win. Vote me (Con)! ! :)[1]. http://www.ted.com...[2]http://science.howstuffworks.com...;