There is, obviously, quite a difference between the claim that you let go of a steering wheel because of god and a seperate claim that she was in communication with the creator of the universe while doing so.

But seriously, if you want I am happy to assume for 5 minutes she was actually communicating with god, making this situation favor atheism even more than it already did. God took the wheel and then ran someone over for no reason, almost killing him, and then drove her to Checkers to get a burger and fries? As has been said a million times over, if such a god exists he's not worth worshipping morally anyway, the only correct course would be to defy his malevolent choices in this situation, as atheists already do...

You miss the point

C is stated incorrectly she did not say she let go of the wheel because of her belief in god, she said she let go of the wheel because god told her to. Stated instead as

C) When she said she let go of the wheel because god told her to, we can't actually believe her. Invent some other reason that she did it on her behalf.

That means you can either believe she let go of the wheel because god told her to or invent some other reason that she did it on her behalf. Which is it?

Also, whatever your feelings with regard to the display of malevolence if god did indeed tell her to let go of the wheel the one thing her account being true would not do is strengthen the claim there is no god.

You seem quite upset about this, but I'm hoping that you can still understand how the story you have posted can easily be explained by one person having schizophrenia, whereas the Holocaust cannot.

Anything can be easily explained when you completely make up an explanation with zero evidence.

Do you think that this defence is going to get her off the charges?

She's either an awful person grasping at a transparent defense or legitimately delusional. Neither of those things can be blamed on religion. It seems bizarre to the point of incredulity that you would pick an incident like this to make some kind of point about religion.

I think there's a decent chance that you are impersonating some kind of clichéd Reddit atheist warrior in order to get a rise out of people, I mean you even have the hipster V for Vendetta thing going on there.

[QUOTE=Fantaz;44045059]Woman "lets god take the wheel," runs over motorcyclist and drives off [QUOTE]

People flat out lie much more than they are generally given credit for.

When it involves trying to wriggle out of a criminal charge I would say lying is the norm.

The instinct to believe what people say is unrealistically strong, to help counter that I generally think that for someone you have just met it is best to assume by default that they are lying until independent confirmation is found.

This story is hilarious because of the levels upon levels of religious crazy in it.

1) woman claims jesus told her to let go of the wheel, was most likely listening to Carrie Underwood and got confused.

2) nurses say that motorcyclists road rash is in the shape of wings, obviously infers that this means he must have had a guardian angel (one that is now off duty for a bit because it took such a beating, hopefully no more harm is headed at the guy for a while)
3) guy struck by woman singing along to country music in her car thanks god that he Is still alive.

Throughout none of this does anybody give a valid reason for why this happened. Insane car driver doesn't say WHY jesus told her to let go of the wheel, nurse doesn't say WHY this particular guy gets a guardian angel that can be run over, motorcyclist doesn't say WHY he was spared by god, nor stop to consider why god decided to send his only begotten son who is also himself down to tell a lady to let go of the wheel in order to run him over and then subsequently throw one of his Kevlar angels at him to stop him from being killed by the instrument he sent to kill him.

Jfc

Being delusional is always at the heart of religion. There is no rational believer.

I'm not sure everyone will agree with this. For instance, reasoning is at the heart of the deist.

I think it's also incorrect to classify the person who holds a belief as irrational, where you should consider the formation of the belief itself. If I convince a theist that God was killed and therefore there is no God, and he therefore believes there is no God, is that a rational perspective? The rationale behind this belief, in this instance, would not be a rational one, even though he may correctly identify that God does not exist (assuming there is no God).

rationality is overrated anyway

There are also no rational non-believers.

That's the most stupid argument I have ever heard

that doesn't appear to be an argument

That's the most stupid statement I've ever heard

These responses suggest to me that you're not the exception that disproves the rule.

--- Alternatively ---

No, he seems to be quite correct.

What if I were to tell you that's not a complete sentence?

Please, elaborate.

He's observing that human beings are never entirely rational

Pretty much that. Human irrationality is a well-known phenomenon.

Human beings never being entirely rational sounds self-defeating, like a misanthropic sibling of "we can never know something with certainty".

I understand the sentiment, but it is a reflection on rationality more so than humans.

I'm not sure entirely if you mean "self-defeating" in a sense where perfect rationality is an ideal and to deny human rationality is to give up on the ideal entirely, or if you just mean "self-defeating" in the sense that it's not a good defense of religion by itself.

To the extent that master meant that "everyone is irrational" is not exactly a ringing endorsement of religiosity, that's certainly fair enough in my opinion.

But in the former case, I would disagree. Although neither is irrationality an ideal either. Rational evidence and reason are useful and important. Religion is quite often irrational (or even "delusional") in a detrimental way. But I do think the most interesting and deep bits of religious experience are unconcerned with rationality in such a way that the original criticism (religion is irrational) is somewhat irrelevant, not only because human rationality is somewhat mythical, but also because "rationality" isn't the goal, and the criticism assumes that it should be

A deist still jumps to a conclusion with no basis in fact. Not a rational position imo.

The case is simpler than that. If we are never completely rational, then we can't know rationality and we can't trust our own statement, thus it becomes self-defeating.

Or to use your terms; we could not know if our ideal of rationality is rational.