Because it's against the very definitions of those words? Do you call a tooth fairy believer "rational"?
If like the bible says "God is love", then believing in God can be rational and reasonable. If you believe in a God like the tooth fairy then it wouldn't be rational and reasonable. It just depends on the perception of god.
You are correct in that local/state laws determine compliance with food safety, however through FDA grant funding, the federal government can promote standardization. If FDA standards are stripped down, then some local health agencies may also stop enforcing them as well. Either way, it's just a terrible idea. Might as well allow restaurants post a sign that their employees piss in your food. Shame on you if you don't do proper research to not eat there. Personal liberty shouldn't trump public health, not if you want to live in society. Otherwise, your essentially saying your against quarantines of biosafety level 4 agents. On the issue of vaccinations, I guess people have forgotten how ****ty those diseases were. They should go play Oregon Trail again.
Believing in god is rational since there is no logical explanation for existence. Given the absurdity of the universe, it makes total sense to believe in something so as not to become a total nihilist. People need god to provide purpose and except death. It's in our DNA to believe in god. So yeah, pretty rational.
Since I deal with food safety regulations as part of my work let me add to this. The FDA also issues guidelines that most states follow or just adopt. So if Congress were to pass a law that watered down FDA regulations those would likely have a very big effect on state laws.
If you consider that we are thinking beings who question the nature of our existence and existence itself it would be rational (in the Descartes sense of the mind) to believe in some sort of higher power. This is because mentally we are wired to continue to ask questions and if we can't get answers we would create those. That might not be empirical since we can't prove definitively a higher power but it is as rational as a mental construct. Anyway this is probably better dealt with in another thread.
I wonder if that's really still the case though. Certainly, when the false results were reported, it was a big driver. But, my suspicion is that the study itself isn't much of a factor anymore. Maybe there's a study someone can point to that cites people pointing to this study as their evidence for suspecting vaccines. But I'm betting its a more generalized suspicion of government and of side-effects. It's quite common the world over for people to think that medical personnel come to vaccinate them are actually plotting to kill them. We saw that recently in the ebola outbreak. The autism study gave people a firm handle to grab onto for this suspicion when it was around, but paranoia about medicines predate that study and we may have just returned to our normal amount of paranoia.
It starts with Wakefield and expanded from there. There is an interview out there with some "anonymous" former vaccine engineer and doctor that claims that there are all kinds of diseases that are in vaccines, that they don't work, have never worked and that doctors lie and misdiagnose patients to cover up that vaccines don't work. There are websites that put all this propaganda together and put it out there. The parents of children with autism are the easiest ones to fall victim to this because they are some desperate for reasoning. Their friends then spread it among non autism related parents who become afraid that their children will be like Susan's kids if they vaccinate. They tell each other stories of how so and so was perfectly normal until they got the MMR and then all of a sudden they had autism.
I wasn't laughing at whether or not it was rational to believe in a god, its the assertion that to believe in a god was the only way to escape a nihilistic viewpoint on life. Its just a different way of thinking, deists that believe in afterlives never view their mortal life as a beginning and an end, but rather as a stepping stone in a longer transdimensional timeline. They already view themselves as immortal in that sense, so that's why they assume nonbelievers are just condemning themselves to absolute nonexistence after their lifetime on Earth. As a "nihilist" in SweetLou's terms I've already accepted I will die and cease to exist after my lifetime on this Earth. That doesn't mean I've lost my sense of purpose at all. I don't know what everyone's fascination is with immortality. Its a burden and its a desperate attempt at escaping the reality of what death is.
I think you are confusing a rationale with my POV. I am only explaining why believing in god is rational for many people. I am not saying that one is a nihilistic if you don't. I am an atheist and I am not a nihilist. I will say that it is harder path to be an atheist than it is to believe in god. It's a different mindset. Most people don't question these things - it's too scary. When you do question it and realize there might not be any reason to existence, that can be a dark place. Ironically, that might explain why religion and science are often in conflict.
I agree with you that some may have these viewpoints and may struggle without an ulterior purpose, but I don't think its necessary harder to be an atheist than to put faith in an afterlife and an all-powerful deity in the general case. In regards to no reason for existence, I don't think a purpose is necessary. Regarding a biological purpose, we are inclined and are genetically predisposed to want to breed and reproduce. The consequence of self awareness and going away from primitive thinking lends itself to beginning to question aspects of life on a more abstract level; sure. Yeah, all in all its just a different viewpoint and that's why my empathy with religious people is just not there. You are right that there are is a difference between those afraid to confront life on a more abstract plane and those that accept their own mortality, but I don't really think there is a hurdle between the two. Its why its so rare to see people convert from one mindset to the other outside of a truly catastrophically good or bad life altering event. All in all the transition from atheism to theism and vice versa is really only hard depending on the environment you were raised in. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing you are inferring that humans have a preconceived tendency to generate what they do not know into a god or religion that will answer all their questions for them? I counter that with the thought that every human starts with a truly blank slate. I don't know, personally I have relabeled myself as an agnostic as its truly a great hypocrisy to assert that I know for a fact whether or not a god exists. Now, religion in the hands of human manipulators? That I have a massive problem with.
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I think that is the case. If you read Carl Jung's "Man and his symbols" he did an analysis of world cultures and found that cultures that had never been exposed to the rest of the world still had the same religious symbols as other religions. Things like the Snake or Dragon representing evil. He found many many similar symbols that could not have been explained by knowledge transfer. He developed the theory that just like we have evolved having two eyes and color vision, we have also evolved beliefs in god and devils as a means to cope with reality - that those who had this believe were better able to deal with adversity and the challenges of self-awareness (and death) with growing intelligence. Thus, god is literally in our DNA.
All the latest research has found no political correlation with anti-vaccine. There are certainly granola liberals that are anti-vaccine, but there are also anti-government cave dwellers and Christian extremist freaks that are against vaccinations. Hell, the Republicans (again marginalizing themselves) have started to take up the anti vaccine banner. Republicans are anti-science and do not for the most part care about the environment. Democrats make excuses for poor behavior and believe the world is all victims.
Speaking of conservatives and vaccines - found this little history gem: <iframe width="854" height="510" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tB5DLf1Qt78" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
