[kosta50]

Rational human beings do not believe fantastic tales. Do you?

Yes it is rational to demand proof because otherwise we agree to believe hearsay, fantastic stories, superstitions, fantasies and hallucinations. Is that rational?

If someone were to appear before you saying "I am God" what would your reaction be? Would ask for a proof? Or would you fall flat on your face?

if, in fact, that “rational” person believes that no such “proof” can possibly exist?

I never said no proof can possibly exist (where did you pull this from—not form anything I wrote!). I am open to proofs—rational proofs. What else can a rational being expect? Irrational "proofs?"

[D-fendr]

There was a time when man thought every question in the universe could be known once and for all using reason. Problem was this statement could not be proven using reason, so it falls on its own weight.

I think there is a lot of wisdom in G.K. Chesterton's famous quote:

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. He is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

Einstein said something similar, perhaps more a corollary.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

[count-your-change]

“Rational human beings do not believe fantastic tales. Do you?

No, nothing I believe is a fantastic tale. Or any of that other stuff.

But if somehow I can have what you believe declared a fantastic tale then it would follow you couldn't be rational, because? Because “Rational human beings do not believe fantastic tales”.

You see how that works? Just like heresy. If I get to define the terms I get to decide who is or is not rational.

“Yes it is rational to demand proof because otherwise we agree to believe hearsay, fantastic stories, superstitions, fantasies and hallucinations. Is that rational?”

Last night I heard a man say that billions and billions of galaxies came from a indefinable, dimensionless point and just might someday return there. He believed it or at least he seemed to accept it as fact.
Did he have proof that convinces me? No. Nor would any proof he could offer be convincing.
I think he could be right but he can't prove it and neither can anyone else.

Is he rational? Am I? Yeah. And if I thought him wrong it wouldn't mean either of us is not rational.

I have a friend that believes, at least he says he does, that gray skinned men with small mouths steal baby food from grocery stores. Do I ask for proof? No. No, because I don't think it can be possible no matter his pictures and reams of “secret reports” and clicking sounds on his phone.

I dismiss his “proof” out of hand but I don't accept what he says.

“If someone were to appear before you saying “I am God” what would your reaction be? Would ask for a proof? Or would you fall flat on your face?”

I don't know what my reaction would be but since I already have a strong bias against believing that this would occur I might ask for time to become familiar with the, the someone. No, I wouldn't fall on my face without being convinced first in some way and that would take time.
I think...Probably.

“I never said no proof can possibly exist (where did you pull this from—not form anything I wrote!).”

Can you prove it?.....With proofs that I'll accept as rational?

“I am open to proofs—rational proofs. What else can a rational being expect? Irrational “proofs?”

How could one offer a rational proof for a hullucination?
Any so-called proof would by definition have to be irrational.