Yeah well the golden rule and unconditional love, forgiveness and reflection in a spirit of contrition and gratitude are irrational as all hell and likely to make the world a miserable place.
Lets see about some of the rational ideas then, the mass extermination of individuals with birth defects? The mass extermination of "mental defectives" or sterilisation? That criminals or "degenerates" can be spotted by their features or physique?
Its possible to cherry pick from either the bible or modernism if that's what you want to do to protray either as irrational, ie a bad thing or using the word irrational in a prejorative sense.
Unconditional love and forgiveness ?
I don't like the idea that a religion must tell me to show unconditional love, and also telling me that if I do not show unconditional love, I will be a sinner. Therefor be punished and get my ass kicked.
What..people can't be good unless they're told to be good? Unless they're afraid of punishment? God fears people are actually bad, and he must tell them to be good?! As if they can't make the difference between good and bad?
I hate the idea of a reward/punishment system to condition behavior.
1.Saying prayers is irrational. God doesn't hear you. In my culture you are encouraged to say as many prayers as you can, repeat them the whole day if you can. There are holly books who specify how many times you must say the prayer to take effect. I am not catholic, I am orthodox.
2.Not eating specific types of food, because they will make you impure is irrational.
3.God also forbids sex. I can't have sex because God will punish me, and I will end up burning in hell. Does that make sense? Sex only for procreation?
4.God forbids other religions.
5.God forbids lying, even though people lie a lot.
6.God forbids envy, so if you get envious you'll score some hell points.
7.God forbids the usage of obscene words, because they are bad, and you will score some more hell points if you say them.
And so on.
What does God do?
1. He offers rewards, if you do what he says, he will give you cookies in the afterlife.
2. He offers punishments.
3. He brings justice but only in the afterlife, therefor not stopping nuclear weapons, wars, evil.
God creates things. Everything. But you aren't really supposed to explore this everything. You must trust God and he will take care of you. If somehow somebody gets some brilliant idea and he is unlucky enough to live in the 15th century he will be considered a heretic by the church and be incinerated. Many so called 'heretics' weren't actually heretics, but it took some time for people to realize that.
Water can't be holy, that doesn't make any sense. There is no difference between normal water, and holly water.
In my country the church owns a lot of lands and forests, as if the direct servants of god need extra space to perform their rituals.
Again, I have nothing against the general concept of God. I just don't like the Christian God-