In another thread the subject came up {again}m of whether religious beliefs are rational. I’d like to address this in a more general way about the human condition.
Personally I conclude that all people have a belief system that is made up of their intellect and their emotions, and all consist of some degree of faith.
Fairly often in the human condition , the emotions and the intellect don’t agree and the individual , probably unconsciously, makes a choice on what they believe , what they justify, what they’re willing to accept.
I’m equating faith with trust. Generally, people trust what their pastor is telling them and what their parents tell them, and trust that what most people seem to believe is true, is true. We trust certain sources , not always because of verification, or a record of accuracy.
Ad to this that emotion and our personal bias has an influence on who and why we trust.
We don’t have the time to personally verify each bit of information that comes our way so we rely on trust and accept certain information as accurate without verification.
In another thread Kimstu made this point.
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“However, arbitrary and unsupported hypotheses generally don’t qualify as “rational” just because they’re unfalsifiable.”
which I agree with, but is it acceptable and rational to hold a presently unfalsifiable hypothesis until the evidence makes it clear one way or another? IMO , it’s irrational to hold hypothesis as hard fact when it hasn’t been or can’t be proven , but not necessarily irrational if you can acknowledge that it’s a theory in progress.
IOW, “this is what I believe right now” , allowing for growth and changing beliefs, is not irrational.
OTOH “My belief that has no evidence is hard fact” is irrational.
That would mean, religious beliefs are not accurately referred to as irrational , because the deciding factor is whether the believer recognizes them as a work in progress, which IMO , a lot of believers do.
I’d also note that the same principle holds people who have extreme positions on a variety of subjects as irrational, including what we might call fundamentalist atheists.