Which Is More Rational?

A criticism often leveled against theistic belief is that it's irrational to believe in an entity (God) that can't be observed. French philosopher Michael Onfray, for example, has written that "Monotheism loathes intelligence." And, "God puts to death everything that stands up to him, beginning with reason, intelligence and the critical mind."

Onfray, of course, is an atheistic materialist who, like the biologist Richard Dawkins, the neuroscientist Sam Harris, the late journalist Christopher Hitchens, and others, argues that belief in God is an irrational delusion.

Well, is it? Which is the more rational belief system or worldview, atheism or theism? Is it more rational to believe, for instance, that ...

• the information needed to form the first living thing arose by chance, or to believe that wherever we find it information is always the product of a mind?
• the extraordinarily precise calibration of the parameters, forces constants and initial conditions of the universe necessary to permit life to exist is just an astronomically improbable accident or to believe that this cosmic fine-tuning is the result of intentional engineering?
• the space, time, material universe created itself, or to believe that space, time and matter were caused by something that is itself neither spatial, temporal nor material?
• moral values - belief in human equality, dignity, rights, the belief that it's wrong to harm others - are purely subjective and arbitrary or to believe that they're objectively grounded and independent of whether people agree with them or not?
• every choice, act and thought is the inevitable consequence of prior causes that determine everything we do or to believe that we are in some sense free to choose between alternative futures?
• our conscious experience is just electro-chemical processes in the brain or to believe that the phenomena of human consciousness are the products of an immaterial mind working in concert with our physical body?
• your life is a pointless "tale told by an idiot" or to believe that your life is meaningful because what you do in this life matters forever?

Materialism offers no plausible explanation for the origin of the universe, the exquisite fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of life, or the origin of consciousness. To be a consistent materialist one should be a determinist about human choices and a nihilist about life in general and morality in particular.

Perhaps a further question one might ask in addition to those listed above is, is it more rational to adopt a worldview (atheistic materialism) whose entailments are almost impossible to live with consistently or is it more rational to adopt a worldview (theism) whose entailments are consistent with our most basic beliefs about life?

After all, what's irrational is denying that there's a God while living as if there is.