Debate: Is Religion a Rational Belief to Have?
Side: No Religion is Not

But you don't know for a fact that there is no life after death. I would think that would make you afraid. […] What convinces you that there is no life after death?Life after death demands a sense of self be perpetuated after death. Our sense of self is a byproduct of neural processes in the brain, and it is a fact that our sense of self ceases when the brain ceases to function. Even if this were incorrect, I would rather live a good life and trust that that would yield me a happy afterlife than arbitrarily subscribe to a religion. There is no basis upon which to make an informed conversion to one over another. Are you not afraid that you have chosen the wrong religion?Gee...that means no consequences so what reason would it be to be kind and do nice to people? […] no incentive to be good.[…]ARe you saying rape is good?Frankly, I find it terrifying that so many peoples' morality are informed only by the threat of hellfire. The only incentive I need to care about others is an innate compassion for life, and knowing that this is the only life places that much more impetus upon respecting it for myself and others. Besides, the absence of consequence in the afterlife hardly removes all consequence in this life. If you murder, rape, or commit other harmful acts of course there will be consequences - social and legal. Morality does not depend upon religion to exist, and secular law penalizes quite well without religion. In point of fact, religion more frequently counteracts popular moral justice than supports it – more violence has been enacted in the name of religion than any other cause or idea, and shall I even begin to count the number of times the Bible codifies assault on women and negates consent, or how about the number of sex scandals and cover-ups within the Catholic Church?What realities are bad to confront? If you don't think there is an after life...you shouldnt be afraid to confront anything in life, even the bad stuff...who cares. You end up in dust anyway, right? I am not afraid to confront any reality, and I would argue that no reality is bad to confront. It is avoiding reality that is harmful, and my contention is that the religious are afraid to confront their mortality and insignificance.it is rational to fight for the death in something you believe in..especially if you believe in an after life.As I said already, any action taken due to an irrational premise is itself irrational. You believe fighting to the death is rational because you believe the afterlife is rational; neither is because the latter is not (you still have not proven it is).There is more unexplainable than explainable. That does not mean there was not a first cause...I don’t have enough faith to believe it was by random chance. I don't understand the first thing about scientific theories..but I know they can't answer the big questions in life...The primary difference between religion and science is that religion pretends to have answers absent proof, whereas science acknowledges not having all the answers and does not pretend to absent proof. Most mathematicians, physicists, and other relevant professionals would make that same distinction. Tell me, which really requires more faith then - religious assumption absent and even against proof, or scientific knowledge accompanied by acknowledgment of what remains unknown? What you are really saying is not that you do not have the faith to believe in science, but that you find religious faith easier than acknowledging and confronting the unknown.