Laura says "While I?m not a believer myself and honestly don?t understand how any rational person could be..."
I consider my own case. I was a believer and came to be an atheist through reflection on the evidence. At least, I like to think so. Was I irrational and gradually became more rational as doubts arose, finally becoming fully rational when I ceased to believe? Current philosophical literature on the epistemology of testimony and social epistemology leads me to think believers in any stock of propositions should be given more thought.

Kevin, I'm all in favor of phenomenology, but I see that as part of philosophy, not theology. I don't see what adding God to the explanatory picture tells us about experience.
Bill, you're right to point out that belief in God is epistemically in the same position as many of our other beliefs that we acquire from the testimony of others. But I also think there are other epistemic problems with belief in God that go beyond the problem of testimony.
Laura, what a concept! A PT tailgate party. Feel free to call in and join the conversation...

Let's not forget that philosophers too are often conceptually or philosophically confused or so say many philosophers of other philosophers and even of the their own past thinking.

I would like to emphasize a question of my earlier post: "Was I irrational and gradually became more rational as doubts arose, finally becoming fully rational when I ceased to believe? "

Bill, it's true that philosophers can be conceptually confused, but usually in much more sophisticated ways! We'd expect even an undergraduate to be able to make such basic distinctions like that between an urge and a decision. A professional philosopher who tried to publish a paper that conflated those concepts would be laughed at, but in neuroscience Libet is frequently lauded as having proven we don't have free will. I find that somewhat outrageous.
As for whether you were rational before you became an atheist or are fully rational now, we're all rational in some ways and irrational in others. I would not want to generalize, nor do I mean to say that someone who believes in God is completely irrational. But if you go through a *process* of examining the possible evidence for the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe, knows everything, is all powerful etc. etc. and you also spend some time thinking about whether such a concept is internally coherent, the only rational conclusion to such a process is that there is no reason for believing in God. People who believe don't do so because they have any evidence.
Kevin, I don't know what you mean by "phenomenological-theological" then. What's wrong with just "phenomenology"?

GOD AND SCIENCE
God is not ?something outside the universe,? God is a consciousness outside one?s own. Why do you all need an explanation for consciousness? Because science is a ?religion? to you: because it ?explains? things in the material realm, you ?believe? or you ?pray? that it explains everything in the consciousness realm ? and religion and theology are part of the consciousness realm: not reachable by scientific methods. So what?s the big problem with that? Skip the science, think rationally about why people invent a consciousness outside their own. Now you are a philosopher.

I beleve it was Edwin Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science.

Come Together
"I am he as you are he as you are me / And we are all together"
Truth cannot be attained in the man made uncertain measures of division, but rather in the indivisible, self-evident unity or Oneness of absolute infinite All.
Be true, Be One, just be,
=

Hi Kevin- I have tried to show, above, that there is no conflict between science and God. And, you speak of "my theology": I take "my theology" to mean "my beliefs about God and spiritual matters." Kevin, you believe what you believe for your own reasons; "belief" is holding in your mind matters that are either independent from scientific evidence, or don't require scientific proof. If your "theology" requires that God created the earth on one specific week, go ahead and believe it; you need to believe it if the rest of your theology flows from or otherwise depends on that idea. Why worry about scientists who have a different belief from yours who say otherwise? It is their "belief," as I pointed out above, that 1. everything needs an explanation, and 2. science is the only explainer (both no more or less "beliefs" than yours, and no more "wrong" or "right" than yours). Let's take your example of Original Sin. What do you think the idea means? What do you think should be the objective in giving the idea credence and power? If these ends require a physical Genesis (and maybe they don't), then how is it constituted? When you have constructed your mental picture of the required physical Genesis, that is Genesis enough for you and your (good) theology (since I am confident the object of your theology is "good"). This is belief; if someone convinces you otherwise, then your belief might be changed -- no problem -- but I don't think once you have thought through the process I outlined and understood your own motivations clearly, you will worry about criticisms that posit beliefs that won't get you to your thought-through theology. It is time for you to stop worrying about your theology, and to just live it; time to stop "becoming" and start "being." The best way to deal with hard decisions, is just to go ahead and decide one way, and see how it works and how it feels, and if it doesn't work well or feel good, decide another way to go.

I may be a day late and a dollar short, but I consider myself to be a Christian. I believe that God set everything in motion. While I am a Christian, I am also a student studying physics. There are three points that can be derived from physics to explain why I am still a Christian. 1- Newtons laws of motion. If an object in motion stays in motion, and an object will continue on its current path, and a for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction, how can the earth be where it is after what is known as a big bang? What I mean is is that if something massive collided with the earth, how can the earth still be in the orbit of the sun? The earth is in a delicate balance. If it rotated slightly too fast, it will spin into the sun, destroying all life as we know it. If it rotated slightly too slow, it will spin out into space and everything we see will be covered with ice, destroying the world as we know it. Another thing that Physics can illuminate, is the law of probabilities. If evolution really did happen, the law of probabilities says that the chances of evolution really happening is 1 out of 5.4 trillion. You would have better luck rolling eight die and getting all 6's. And in the unlikely event where that one out of 5.4 trillion, everything would have to be in place and following very specific rolls. But Physics provides another law that ruins this too. Murphy's law states that everything that can go wrong will go wrong if not previously corrected. As seeing that there was now way for anyone to correct or make sure that evolution would succeed, I do not see how evolution could have actually happened. Unless God stood in and corrected it.