Friendly Atheism

[mcc1789]

Do you agree or disagree that theism is ever rational?

If we're allowed to think of this in relation to other times and other cultures, then I think theism is often rational. 

If you grow up in a society in which all accepted explanations of things are woven into the religious views, and all the sane successful adults hold these things to be true, it would be arbitrary and irrational to reject theism. 

For example, the medieval worldview was an intricately interwoven explanatory system, in which the Ptolemaic universe, and God's influence flowing through that universe, psychology, history, morality -- all these things were of a piece. 

There was also empirical evidence for some of it. Every time a sailor used a Ptolemaic star chart to navigate safely home, or a stargazer used one to predict an eclipse, it served to strengthen credence in the system. 

This is one of the reasons that people resisted new suggestions that the system was wrong -- switching to a heliocentric model was not only unproved speculation in the beginning (until it was proven of course), but was seen to work against far more than astronomy. 

I think that an educated person in Paris in the 13th century would be entirely reasonable to be religious, without question. In the 21st century, it depends more on the metaphysics he has, which are not as self-evidently in sync with everything else in the world.

Yes, those examples are similar to my own thoughts. I can't fault someone for believing in such scenarios. We're all ignorant and mistaken sometimes. It doesn't make us irrational, unless we are willfully ignorant and refuse to correct mistakes.