Is Belief in God Irrational?

"I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further."

"Dawkins does not exactly categorically deny the existence of God, any more that he denies the existence of "Thor, fairies, leprechauns, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we cannot disprove, we can say that God is very, very improbable.""

"If there were a god, he asserts, there should be empirical evidence of divine existence, and because we lack any observable, measurable data to support such a hypothesis, atheists are eminently reasonable in denying it."

"Take love. We cannot store love in a safe or prominently display it on our mantel. It is not the sort of thing we can point to, like an object. And yet we believe as surely as we believe in anything in it and its power to shape events, relationships, and people."

Everyone is described as an atheist when gods other than the one being questioned are treated as nonexistent. The denial is framed as going one god further, specifically rejecting the Abrahamic deity. The position does not claim God cannot exist, but argues that God is very improbable because there is no observable, measurable evidence. The argument raises a challenge: if existence requires physical attributes, then abstract entities like numbers, colors, and justice would also be excluded. Many people instead accept immaterial things. Love is used as an example of something not stored or displayed like an object, yet believed to shape relationships and events. Without belief in love, major aspects of life become harder to explain.

Read at Psychology Today