Science is not the search for an explanation of the universe

Science is, in reality, only the pursuit of "sufficient" truth - truth that will explain the entirety of the observable universe. Scientifically, the statements "God made the world through the big bang blah blah blah", "God made the world 6000 years ago to look like it was made through the big bang blah blah blah", and "the big bang happened" are all the same. They will all generate the exact same results in laboratory experiments.

Atheists aren't more scientific then theists. Atheists aren't even the source of scientific knowledge/revolutions - skeptics are. Descartes was able explore geometry, and he wasn't motivated by anything except the search for absolutely true axioms. However, in the universe, there are few absolute explanations. There are only truths of interaction.

Science only seeks to be able to predict - to make hypotheses that can be tested and reproduced. "God made the big bang happen" is not scientific - however, the statement "no god exists" is equally unscientific. Hell, even the statement "the real world exists" is no more scientific than the statement "the real world is a vast illusion played out to me by a tricky demon". Science has no interest in the unprovable. Except through logical contradictions, no conclusion on a god or the lack thereof can be reached (scientifically).

Finally, consider the dreaming skeptic argument. I've had ridiculously real dreams in the past - prove to me that the world I am in now is not a dream. If you find yourself unable, that is because these things cannot be proved. The belief that this world is real is just as much a belief as any other.

The rationalism of theist

For the point of clarification, I'm going to say rational means "reasonable" and that a rational/reasonable person uses logic.

The only real reason I think that atheists may be more rational than theists is because theists start with the answers to their questions and then try to work backward. I mean, as we all know and agree, logic is a practice based on manipulating premises - and unless the premises are contradictory, logic has no way of commenting on the premises veracity. Consider the skeptic, who argues that since his dreams seem real to himself the entire world might be one big dream. Is this man irrational? By modern convention people would say yes, but those nay-sayers would only say yes because they believe that to be rational is to be right. I believe that (if) this skeptic has sufficiently proved his case plausible, so rejecting his world view (without refuting his logic) would be wrong.

Similarly, theists start with the premise that god exist and find coherent truth - the things around the theist all combine to prove his original point. Yes, often we have to look at the world events through the lense "god wanted it to happen", but even that is just another premise.

And consider the atheist for comparison. It is true that the atheist may be the truely logical man, who questions all premises, and finds nihilism or whatever the hell it is atheists find after their process of disregarding every premise as invalid. Are these people, though, right in their dismissal of the theists? Isn't that the exact opposite of logic? If a theory could be true, that is, if a theory is conditionally truth, then disregarding it for no reason other than "well I don't believe it" is wrong (and certainly would equate atheists and theists). The unicorn example proves this - what if someone thought a magical invisible unicorn ran the show? If such a world view was plausible, then the person who believed it is being rational in believing in the teachings.

Seriously, though, the moral of this post is simple (this is more personal to the atheists in that thread): stop being so pretentious. You think you're enlightened because you somehow judge your world view to be more likely than a theist's? It isn't. I'm not suggesting you convert to theism, I'm suggesting you recognize the beauty in all logic, and recognize that your rejection of the theist as retarded marks the "crime" you accuse the theists of.

Tl;dr: seriously, theism makes sense, and basing logic off premises is not inherently illogical.