What makes people irrational thinkers?

[Simon Moon]

I always doubted my own beliefs and it led me to atheism and rationality on its own.

At this point, do you still doubt your own beliefs? Have you continued to question what you hold to be true? Or do you feel that now you've arrived at atheism and rationalism you've arrived at the destination?

I can't speak for the OP, but for me, my athreism is a provisional position, it is not a destination. My atheism is simply the positioin that theists have not met their burden of proof, to convince me that a god or gods exist.

I am completely open to being convinced a god or gods exist, but without rational, evidence based, reasoned argument, and valed and sound logic to support the case that a god exists, how would we go about figuring out if it is true, or likely to be true? As long as theists continue to fail to provide good standards of evidence to support their claims, my atheism will continue.

And let me add, that I don't think theists have a rational reason to believe in gods. It is not that my bar is set too high, it's that theirs is set too low. The same low standards of evidence that theists use to justifiy their god beliefs, would also allow many other beliefs pass over their bar.

Until there is some other way of approaching existential claims other than rationalism (skeptitism), how else could we go about figuring out if they are true or not?

What other method do you think should be used to tell fact from fiction?