This isn’t someone using religion to compel the Blazers to a 5th year, it’s about the power of role models and the importance of having good people in the community for our children to look up to. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to take kids to Jailblazers games, think of the questions they would have had to answer? Papa, what’s a gentleman’s club?

In my world, there’s room for mindless but attractive females.

""He is not being rational in the least, as the notion that God gave him his ability rests upon the assumption of the existence of God, an assumption which cannot be rationally defended as true. ""

This statement is contradictory. This person is claiming that a statement is irrational do to the inability to rationally defend the existence of God. By making this statement, this person would have to explain our exist on the ‘big bang’ theory. A theory, that even the top scientists are unable to explain. They note it as something “magical” happening. This persons ‘rational’ thought is that he exists because, from NOTHING, particles were formed. Do some research for me and let me know if a scientist has even been able to create something out of completely NOTHING. You believe that something can come from nothing, I’ll continue to believe in a benevolent God

Rational thought against something, would imply a rational thought for something else.

Cambridge Dictionary Online

Rational:

showing clear thought or reason

Rationally:

in a way based on reason rather than emotions

You are misusing this word. Logic does not dictate presuppositions. Logic/rationality is applied to presuppositions to draw conclusions therefrom.

The person who has a presupposition that God exists applies logic to that presupposition and comes to the conclusion that God gave him his abilities. This is a reasonable conclusion given that presupposition. He is therefore being rational when He thanks God for those abilities.

The person who says, “God helped us win” is not being rational even under his own presupposition. It logically fails, even if God exists.

No presuppositions can be fully defended rationally. Yours can’t either. Logically, yours fails because it operates on some dubious assumptions: 1) Lack of complete evidence means there can be no rational conclusions drawn. 2) You personally have enough knowledge of the evidence which other people have to know that they are being non-rational in their conclusions.

Now, you may be right in your statement that “admitting we do not know is the only rational stance”. But it is (by your definition) not rational to make that statement, because you may not have all the evidence that others have, and also because it operates on the faulty assumption that no one can make rational conclusions based on partial evidence. Nevertheless, based on your presuppositions, this is a logical statement to make. You are not being non-rational, you are just operating on unprovable assumptions, just like everyone else.

Both the atheist and the believer have evidence which appears to support their views of the origins of the universe and of life. As a believer, I do not charge the atheist with being non-rational. His conclusions are wrong not because of faulty logic, but because of a wrong presumption. If his logic is perfect, he will still come to wrong conclusions.

Just one comment about the FSM. If you believe in the FSM, you would be right to say it is solely because I “just do”. This is not really relevant to the discussion, however. There are more reasons to believe in God than “I just do.” You may not find those reasons compelling, of course. Finer minds than you or I have accepted those reasons. Finer minds than you or I have rejected them. Ultimately, it does come down to a decision as to whether those reasons are compelling, but that is not the same as saying, “I just do believe.” Many people have made a rational assessment of the evidence on both sides, and found one side or the other more compelling — compelling enough to conclude that one side is in fact true.

These competing presuppositions cannot be proven rationally, but they can be partially assessed on the level of rationality. The FSM cannot.

For my purposes here, non-rational =/= irrational

A few posts above, you said:

Therefore, he is in fact being irrational.

I’m trying to figure out if you were being irrational or non-rational when you contradicted yourself there. :)

And you are also guilty of species-ism — you’ve insulted the dodos.