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Notes -
Rationalists are almost all atheists, because the evidence for God is so incredibly weak, especially compared to the magnitude of the hypothesis (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, etc.). And it lacks explanatory or predictve power (video if you prefer that format).
I'm going to suggest that you don't understand atheists (or at least, atheist rationalists) very well. You have already skewed the discussion by asking "what if there is no god", which presumes we have any prior reason to think there is a god. "God" does not actually answer any questions we might have about the universe--it is the believer who can use it as an answer for any question, without investigating further. Hence, for example, Lord Kelvin's assertion that many mysteries of life, which we have since explained with science, are completely unexplainable by science.
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