Bri,
We are quickly approaching that time of a discussion when it is best to simply agree to disagree. Due to other commitments I simply can't spend much more of my time here.
So let's come to an understanding of our positions. If I understand you correctly you take a neutral view. To you, a belief in the occult, supernatural or paranormal is not necassarily any more rational or irrational than any scientific view of the world. Correct?
Look around at our world. Look at all that science has given us. Using logic and reason humans have unlocked the mysteries of the Atom. We have been able to travel to the moon and send probes to the far reaches of the solar system. We have computers, cars, planes, cell phones, etc. There is an incomprehensible amount of human knowledge from a complete map of the Human Genome to a detailed taxonomy of 287,655 plants; 10,000 lichens; 1,190,200 invertebrates (including 950,000 insects); and 57,739 vertebrates, including 28,500 fishes, 5,743 amphibians, 8,163 reptiles, 9,917 birds, and 5,416 mammals species.
Please consider this, neither prayer nor belief has confirmed or directly,
demonstrably, led to a single objective truth. There is not one single scrap of empirical evidence that prayer has changed the outcome of any event. None. Every attempt to demonstrate that it works fails. There is no plausible mechanism to explain how prayer would do anything. It's true that science doesn't speak to the supernatural. There is a reason for that. A reliance on the supernatural to find truth does not lead to any consensus. Reliance on the supernatural does not verify anything. In fact it doesn't really tell us anything. It simply states that something supernatural happened.
Why are supernatural causes irrational? Simple, because there is no rational explanation for supernatural causes. It really is that simple.
You must admit that you have not provided a single objective explanation for how the supernatural can influence events. You simply insert God as a cause. No explanation how God does it. Just that God does it.
Your argument, as I understand it, if God did exist and he did influence events then it would be rational and since it is possible (all things are possible) then a belief in God is rational.
By this logic there is no such thing as superstition because I could use your logic to justify any belief or mental state so long as the belief was not held as fact and was consistent.
Cool, you've reasoned away superstition.
I see no reason to suppose that there are no superstitions or that all beliefs are rational so long as they are self consistent and are not held as fact.
I choose to agree with Todd Caroll that believing that the occult, supernatual or paranormal can influence events are defacto irrational.
Introduction
Also, it seems to be true that belief in the irrational is as appealing to the true believer as belief in the rational is to the hardened skeptic. According to many soft skeptics, whether one chooses a life devoted to rationality or irrationality is a matter of faith. For a good period of my adult life, I was a soft skeptic who believed that my commitment to rationality was as much an act of faith as my earlier commitment to Catholicism had been. For years I remained open to the possibility of all sorts of occult phenomena.
My studies and reflections in recent years have led me to the conclusion that there is a preponderance of evidence against the reasonableness of belief in any occult phenomena. I have also concluded that choosing rationality over irrationality is not an act of faith at all. To even pose the question as one requiring thought to answer demonstrates the futility of claiming everything can be reduced to faith. One must use reason to argue for faith. While I do not deny that the consequences of believing in the occult are often beneficial, I do deny that such consequences have anything to do with establishing the reality of occult phenomena.
(emphasis mine)
