great point -- I think I largely agree -- but there may, still, be some disanalogy between the two cases (the Irish legend v. 'God') -- namely once you begin describing God's various attributes (omnipotence, creator, goodness, etc.) then it may well be plausible to seek independent/direct evidence of his existence in the world around you, independent that is of the 'source' of the 'tale' itself -- and that might not be equally true, or true to the same degree, as in the Irish legend case -- after all, you may not need to know who thought of the idea of a 'Creator' God first in order to evaluate, perfectly rationally, whether the world around us exhibits any evidence of intelligent design or creation -- of course, when you do learn more about the 'source' of the idea of God that may increase your skepticism about the truth of the claim that God exists, but it does seem to me that claim may also be evaluable independently of its sources --

best,

Andrew

just to supplement Charles's very fine response: first, yes human beings are very irrational, but you can find irrational humans in every domain, theist and atheist ... if you're looking for 'rationality,' or at least approximations thereof, or at least 'reasonableness,' you probably don't want to be listening to local preachers (or even local 'atheists', whatever that means) -- you want to be talking to more philosophically inclined people (which is more or less what Charles is getting at) -- and there are plenty of deep, engaging, provocative things to think about, with respect to religion -- not merely the existence of God but many related topics -- even when you constrain yourself to trying to be 'rational' ... (I've tried to collect a number of these in my recent book 'The God Question,' which presents what a lot of famous philosophers have said on the subject of religion ...)

hope that's helpful -- best,

AP

A traditional version of this puzzle is referred to as 'Buridan's ass'. It postulates that a donkey put equidistant between two identical stacks of hay might starve out of inability to choose between them. If reason says that they are equally qualified for the position and either will do just fine, then any (morally acceptable) arbitrary criterion would do. So, I would simply flip a coin. I don't think the puzzle shows anything disturbing about the limits of reason. After all, you merely stipulated that the candidates were identically qualified.

The matter is more complicated than looking at Wikipedia. There are plenty of good reasons for being an atheist, but as I have sought to make evident in replying to other questions in the category of 'religion' there is a vast philosophical literature supporting religious beliefs without what might be called Wikipedia fallacies. You might check out the free online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries Philosophy of Religion and, as an example, the entry for the Cosmological Argument, which contains a pretty plausable (non-fallacious) version of the cosmological argument. Check out, too, the Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Religion. I might also suggest that no philosopher today (or almost none) thinks that they can prove God's existence or non-existence or prove utilitarianism is correct or physicalism or realism in philosophy of science. Today, most of us deal with arguments we take to be plausable or persuasive, but these fall short of proofs.

This raises a number of issues. Perhaps the categories you are identifying (most wanted, where you want to be, most useful, most needed, more rational) need to be subordinated to the concept what is good, irrespective of who wants what. So if you are choosing between two partners (to take your example) you might think first and foremost about whether the relatioship would be good (contribute to each other's flourishing, for example) for one or both of you and, once you have determined that, it will follow naturally (presumably) that you will want that which is mutually satisfying and fulfilling. Without identifying the context of a decision in terms of goods, just being needed by a person or thing would not itself be a good reasons for you to pursue or want that person or thing. I think the same is likely true in terms of wants. Merely wanting X (without any other information) may not be a sufficient reason to pursue X or to think it good for you to pursue X. If, however, you secure some concept of goodness (e.g. even some very general belief that human life is good), then wants may have a prima facie goodness, but this will always (presumably) be subject to reflection and challenge. Wanting sex may be a prima facie reason to pursue a sexual relationship, but it would not entitle one to think that pursuing sex under any condition whatever is good!

Good question(s). A range of philosophers have sought to argue that one should be moral out of self-interest. Some philosophers who argue that morality must lead to fulfillment (the virtuous should be happy) combine their ethics with a moral argument for God. Kant thought that for morality to make sense we need to have a kind of moral faith in God as an ideal judge who will insure that the good are rewarded, and the vicious are not. Still other philosophers will question the intelligibility of your question: asking why one should be moral may be likened to asking you should do what you should do. Questions like 'why is the sky blue' make sense, whereas 'why is blue, blue?' do not.

Procrastination sometimes occurs because our immediate, short-term desires prevail over our calculations concerning longer-term costs and benefits. This does not make us into what Frankfurt calls "wantons", since we are still capable of reflective reasoning and we are still capable of being guided by such reasons. It just means that we sometimes suffer from a 'weakness of will'. (Explaining weakness of the will would require a much longer discussion.)

Procrastination is sometimes quite reasonable, though. First, because the farther we project into the future, the lower the probability of the anticipated costs and benefits. Doing a chore now, while I am alert and happy might be less onerous than doing it later, when I am tired and crabby; but the farther I project into the future, the more doubts I should have about whether I will be tired and crabby when I do the chore, whether the chore will still be annoying, and whether it will even need doing. The current pleasure of doing something else instead is much more certain. Furthermore, we should realize that our priorities change over time, so what now looks like long-term cost or benefit now may not look so in the future. I may lose my job because of my procrastination but that may no longer seem so bad when it actually happens. Insofar as I am making choices for my future self, I should recognize that that future self may not share my current priorities.

Short as it is, this question is tricky because of two ambiguities.

1. "rational" could be understood in the sense of choosing what are foreseeably the most effective means to given ends, or it could be understood in a more ambitious sense that would allow the commitment to certain combinations of ends, or even single ends, to be irrational as well.

2. for each of the disambiguations for 1, the word "rational" could be understood to mean "rationally permitted" or "rationally required".

I will read your "to be immoral" as shorthand for "to act in a way that is morally wrong."

Suppose your overriding end in life is to make your sister happy. Her greatest wish is for a golden necklace that you cannot afford to buy. But you have a way of stealing it. This theft would be immoral. But it it rationally permitted and even required on the thin notion of rationality: stealing is the foreseeably most effective means for you to attain your end.

This answer remains adequate even if we allow that combinations of ends may be irrational (by excessively interfering with one another's attainment). We may simply suppose that you have no interfering ends -- or, even cleaner, no other ends at all.

Might your sole end -- making your sister happy -- be irrational? The only option I see for supporting this is to claim that it would be irrational for you not to have the end of being in compliance with morality and not to make this latter end overriding. But this claim would stretch the ordinary sense of "rational" beyond recognition. And there is a further problem: Through a somewhat strange upbringing, you might have come to believe that making your sister happy is the one and only end that you morally ought to be pursuing. So you may have the end of being in compliance with morality and you may be committed also to make this end overriding, but, because of what you sincerely believe about the content of morality, you think that the whole content of morality is that you ought to make your sister happy no matter what it takes. In this case, I think, you would be rationally (permitted and even) required to go ahead and steal the necklace even though this is, unbeknownst to you, a morally wrong action.

So, despite the ambiguities, the answer is Yes across the board.

Implicit in this answer is that it can be irrational to be moral: it would be irrational for you to refrain from the theft).

Two questions still open are whether it can ever be rational to do what one believes to be morally wrong and whether it can ever be irrational to do what one believes to be morally required.

You ask an important question about how non-experts should make reasonable judgments when there is expert disagreement. It is not enough to say that the reasonable choice lies with the majority opinion; the majority has been both unreasonable and/or wrong often enough. I think it is important to look at the case in some detail (although obviously not in as much detail as experts are able to do) and see what kind of evidence the minority is putting forth. That is, are they just nitpicking at the dominant theory, when all theories have areas of weakness, or are they themselves engaged in active empirical research? Scientific disagreement can be productive when both sides are engaged in experiment and observation, but less so when one side is working from an armchair.

I know several people who believe such things, or at least say they do.

One group thinks that there are true contradictions that involve very special cases. The usual example is the so-called liar sentence, "This very sentence is not true". There is a simple argument that the liar sentence is both true and not true, and some people believe just that.

Other people, though, think there are contradictions involving much less special cases. An example would be what are called "borderline cases" of vague predicates, like "bald". People often want to say that there are some people who aren't bald and aren't not bald either. But the so-called De Morgan equivalences entail that this is equivalent to saying that the person is both bald and not-bald (or, strictly, both not-bald and not-not-bald).

People who hold such views are known as "dialetheists". See this article for more.