Is religious belief rational?

I've had a couple of appointments in town this week and with the balmy weather it's been pleasant to walk down (a distance of 1.7 miles). On the way I pass one of those trendy hair-stylists with arty portraits of extreme hairstyles. To amuse myself, I give them names so here's a little game for you - I'll give you my name for the style and you guess what it looks like!

'Blindside'

'Time up'

'Painting by numbers'

How did you get on? Have you got some vivid images in your head?

Last night I went to a public lecture organised by the Chaplaincy at Reading University titled 'Is religious belief rational?' by John Cottingham, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy. Influenced by the lively, creative Royal Institution Christmas lectures that are aired on TV, I'd anticipated something rather different to the somewhat dry, academic nature of the evening and a lot of it went over my head, particularly the questions afterwards. Do you ever get the feeling that the people who love to ask questions at events like that are really doing it to draw attention to themselves rather than because they have been paying close attention to the lecture and are curious about something that has been said? No? Just me, then. Anyway, back to the lecture. My understanding is that Mr Cottingham was saying whilst he couldn't offer cast-iron proof of God's existence, the alternative view ('there is no God') was downright uncomfortable and irrational.

It struck me as being oppositional thinking (with the Richard Dawkins' supporters on the opposing team) rather than being, shall we say, 'Zenlike' or thinking influenced by the Peace that transcends all understanding. Maybe I missed the point.

Thinking about it in the shower this morning, it seems to me that what we can say for sure is some people believe in God and some don't. I thought about switches - light on, light off (or even dimmer switches), and thought what an interesting area of exploration it would be to take two populations of people - those who do believe in a benevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent God and those who have a profound belief that there is no such Being - and without judgment explore what the differences are between the two populations to try and locate where that difference arises and how it affects outcomes between the two populations. Maybe that has been done - I'm not sure I'd know how to go about finding out whether the data already exists.

What do you think?

And how about those hairstyles?

'Blindside' - a dense curtain of hair completely obscuring one eye

'Time up' - it genuinely looked half-finished - raggedy short on one side, long and sleek the other

'Painting by Numbers' - different coloured highlights giving a kind of stripey effect