Atheism is just as irrational as Theism.

[fr0d0]

I'm not insulting you here Scarlet, so don't pre-judge the discussion.

I cant remember a single occasion where you have refuted anything

Then we have a serious problem.

I don't at all believe that magic and mysticism can be rational.

Yet you believe that a man was also a god, that the man-god healed people suffering from possession, that water turns to wine, that a few thousand folks can be fed off a fish and a loaf, the prayers might be answered, that miracles occur, that people rise from the dead.

[rubbish cut]
What has that got to do with magic or mysticism? If you really don't understand it as much as this, with your other wild statements, then we're putting the cart before the horse here, and need to go back to your much more basic questions that you were asking when you first joined the forum.

Or maybe you don't really believe any of these things, but where does that leave your xtianity?

I do believe those things, yet I don't believe in magic or mysticism. Maybe for you that would be what it would take, and I can understand why. But in doing so you fail to address my belief.

And I know atheists can be many things. What I'm discussing here specifically is the materialist perspective, as that is the only opposition that I see presented.

You weren't actually I directly quoted what you specifically said. You raised materialism later. Your argument, such as I am able to comprehend it, is that there is 'function' in the universe, and that whilst we cannot detect a god (because materialism is the current paradigm) that doesn't mean there isn't a way to know god or know that god exists. The analogy you go on to give is a business.

I didn't raise materialism, others did. Rhythm chose to address the analogy of a business out of a few that I listed.
My argument is, that to propose that materialism is enough to base your world view upon is deeply flawed. The examples of non material but function based examples proves that. No matter what Rhythm thinks are material proofs, those are incidental.

There are several problems here. First is your definition of function, ie you have not defined it.

I didn't make the claim.

Secondly your analogy of a business really doesn't work. You do not seem to have a decent theory of concepts in your epistemology, such that you invoke the term 'business' as though the business really exists. A business is a conceptual integration of many things, including assets, paperwork, people (tangible things), alongside passion, drive, goodwill, loyalty (intangible things). But you cannot then go on to claim that the conceptual thing (in this case a business) 'exists', it only does so in our conscious mind.

Bolded: Precisely the point.

How can you say that a business doesn't exist? You are of course speaking in the language of materialism, which can only account for materially existant things. But this proves, unless you are making what to me is an unsupportable point (that a business cannot exist), that some things can be known to exist through their function.

It has no separate physical instantiation in the universe and it is a floating abstraction fallacy to assert otherwise.

A floating abstraction so it cannot exist? A business cannot exist > businesses do exist > the accusation of fallacy is disproven.