...But he cannot, at least not at the time that he acts. Which is precisely the point I just made. We have access to information he doesn't have- which is why your characterization of his actions as unreasonable seems implausible. Given the information he has, his actions were arguably rationally warranted (although why one wouldn't try to run away if they honestly thought their life was in danger from pink elephants is beyond me)- he can hardly be faulted for not acting upon information he didn't have.
But whether he has that information or not, he's still acting on hallucinations, bad brain chemistry. Whether the individual himself considers those actions unreasonable is really irrelevant, I'm sure he thinks them perfectly reasonable in his alcohol or drug induced state. I'm sure the guy who gets wasted on LSD and leaps off the top of a building thinks that action is perfectly reasonable too. The idea that just because a person has a particular set of beliefs, drug-induced or not, suddenly everything they do in their compromised state becomes a reasonable action, seems a bit absurd. It only works if you only view things from the perspective of the believer, not from the perspective of the outside world
I never said anything that implied this in the slightest.
You are arguing that being impaired makes the things one sees when impaired real to the viewer and their actions, therefore, reasonable, right?
No, you mistake me- if your pink elephant analogy is a good one, this would mean that YOU have some privileged access to the truth of the matter- which, in this context, would amount to some sort of quasi-omniscience or something. But since you don't, the analogy is a bad one (unless perhaps you're claiming that you're clairvoyant) .
How does that have anything whatsoever to do with what I said? I said very few theists *REPORT* having direct personal experiences with God. I don't have to be clairvoyant to listen to what they say.
Again, that's not the question. You've claimed that religious belief is held for only emotional reasons, rather than rational ones, not that religious claims cannot be sufficiently demonstrated. The latter claim is surely true, whereas your initial claim is not. Regardless of whether they can be satisfactorily proved, the arguments of natural theology are examples of rational, non-emotional justifications for religious belief.
If there are two choices, an emotional reason and an intellectual reason, which one more closely matches what we see in the religious? Certainly it's the emotional, you don't see anyone performing scientific tests to find God, you don't find people trying to scientifically demonstrate miracles, the entire Bible is nothing but an emotional appeal, not a rational one.
That's not to say that otherwise rational people can't believe in gods, just that they give up their rationality when they do so. Take the head of the CDC, Dr. Francis Collins, is a genius in every sense of the word, but when he went out into the woods and saw a waterfall frozen into three parts, he somehow took that as a sign that God is real and converted to Christianity. That was not a rational decision by any means.
That may be in certain cases, but this is speculation about someone's private, psychological motivations which you aren't in a position to evaluate. Many theists at least claim that they accept belief in the existence of God because they find, e.g. the design argument, to be compelling, and they are in a more credible position to corroborate their own motivations and states of mind than you are.
But those are really awful arguments, they are, at best, an argument from ignorance, they cannot come up with an explanation they like better, therefore they demand "Goddidit". All of those apologetic arguments are utterly empty because they just assert God, they don't actually demonstrate God. You could take the same design argument and, without changing anything else, say "Mickey Mouse did it!" and it would make just as much sense. They take God as a foregone conclusion when nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, this just demonstrates that these arguments themselves are not rational, they're emotional in nature.
I'm fully aware of the arguments of natural theology and their many flaws, but I'm afraid whether or not they are sound isn't relevant to your claim. All that matters is whether they are instances of rational rather than emotional justifications for belief in God, and once again, they prima facie are and you've simply offered your bare assertion to the contrary.
But again, they are not rational. They are asserting the conclusion, not demonstrating it. We could have "Natural MickeyMouseology" with the same claims and not have it be any different. When you can fill in any idea at the conclusion and not significantly change the claim, it proves the claim is irrational on it's face.
You seem to be confusing rationality with infallibility. Being humans and not gods, we don't have direct access to the truth, but have to do the best we can with incomplete information. Not only can someone not be faulted for being fallible, this is simply not what "rational justification" refers to- a rational justification is a reason FOR believing that something is true, not the state of actually being in possession of the truth. These are separate items.
Not at all. You can be rational and still be wrong. Science is full of ideas that were arrived at wholly rationally, yet turned out to be false when new data came to light. What matters isn't so much the conclusion that you come to, but how you arrive there. Do you take the evidence that actually exists and follow it wherever it leads or do you come up with a conclusion that you like and then cherry pick the evidence to make that conclusion seem more likely? The former is what science does, the latter is what religion does. It also requires that you be willing to change your conclusion should evidence that contradicts it become available. Religion does not do that.
A strawman. I didn't say that simply thinking something is true counts as a rational justification- the point is that when we talk about the basis someone has for holding a belief, and whether or not it is rational, we are not so much asking whether their belief is actually true but whether they believe it on the basis of reasons, arguments- i.e. intellectual considerations- rather than how they feel (i.e. whether it makes them happy, secure, etc.).
But that's exactly where your arguments lead. If someone feels, for whatever reason, that their beliefs are justified, then as far as you're concerned, they are. If Muslims want to believe Mohammed rode away on the back of a winged horse, it's fine! They want to believe it so it's justified! If Christians want to believe that Jesus came back from the dead, it's great! They want to believe it so it's justified! But if you take that exact same means of thinking and apply it outside of the religious mindset, most people will think it's ridiculous. We give religion far too much leeway. If you claim to hear voices, they'll fit you for one of those nice white coats with the arms that tie in the back... unless you claim it's GOD talking to you, then you're okay.
Indeed, least of all me- as I remarked, the man who reacts to what he thinks are a dangerous pack of brightly colored elephants may well be acting rationally, given the information he has, even though there are no pink elephants. Rational=/= true, but recall that your claim was that religious beliefs are always based on emotional rather than rational reasons, not that religious beliefs are generally not true (the latter claim is fairly accurate, the former claim not).
I agree, I've said so several times. However, rationality is a methodology, not a desire. The drunk guy, upon coming out of his inebriated state, would have to consider why he saw pink elephants. If he still holds that he saw them, he's not being rational. If he rejects them as a manifestation of his intoxication, based on what we know about alcohol's effects on brain chemistry, he is. Yet we get theists and theist accomodationists who refuse to ever ask themselves if these beliefs are rational, they refuse to ever test the beliefs, critically evaluate their beliefs or dare to look at the facts. They just want to feel good. They are always for emotional reasons, they have never applied rationality to their beliefs to see if they stand up to critical evaluation. The same is true of the drunk, he looks at the pink elephant and reacts emotionally, he doesn't stop to think "is what I think I'm seeing real?"
