Religion as a rational problem

The word rational is used to denote the idea that reasoning was used to come to certain point of understanding. Someone who acts rationally is considered someone who appropriately uses reason to determine a course of action. Rationalists look at fundamentalist Christians and state that their beliefs are irrational. Larry Charles says it well- "Ok. An old God, a very buff old God that lives in space decides to create the first man from earth dust, then makes a woman from that man’s rib. They get to live forever if they don’t eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, but the woman is tricked into eating a piece by a talking snake and all future humanity is cursed" In this modern world the Genesis story of creation seems a bit more than a stretch. It seems irrational.

People like Ken Ham believe that the Genesis creation story, as well as all of Scripture, is entirely rational. Mr. Ham even believes that modern scientists have proven beyond doubt that every odd-looking story in the Bible has clear evidence to support it. Ken Ham has made significant contributions to increase the acceptance of the ideas of the modern movement known as Intelligent Design. Adherents to ID, as Intelligent Design is known, believe that science points to evidence that some nonhuman intelligent Designer created everything. These ID followers call the Designer they speak of as God in church, but generally speak of him only as The Designer in more secular situations to avoid mental roadblocks that secularists develop in association with the name of God.

Is Christianity and the idea of belief in any god at all rational or irrational? Does it matter? Many Christians attempt to convert the atheist by attesting to the rationality of Christianity based on morality (See the writings of Ravi Zacharias), or science (See Michael Behe on the Discovery Institute page). I am often pulled into such discussions at work or school and I support the arguments of the Christians in the discussion as best I can, but at the same time I remind myself of the comment Jesus made to Peter when he declared the truth of Christ's deity- "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." The heavens do declare the glory of God as loudly as Christ's miracles proclaimed Him to be the Messiah, but it takes the work of God in the heart of a man for him to see it as it truly is. I am concerned with how often Christians try to argue from anti-God philosophy to produce a rationale for a belief in God when the connection is not really there. I strongly believe that Christianity is only completely rational to those who have had their eyes opened by God. To argue that anyone who sees creation must trick themselves into not believing in God is setting up our next generation for more belief failure than we see in our current generation. More on that later.