I’m thinking of making a Discussion post about this, but I’m not sure if it has already been mentioned.
We’re not atheists—we’re rationalists.
I think it’s worth distinguishing ourselves from the “atheist” label. On the internet, and in society (what I’ve seen of it, which is limited), the label includes a certain kind of “militant atheist” who love to pick fights with the religious and crusade against religion whenever possible. The arguments are, obviously, the sames ones being used over and over again, and even people who would identify as atheists don’t want to associate themselves to this vocal minority that systematically makes everyone uncomfortable.
I think most LessWrongers aren’t like that, and don’t want to attach a label to themselves that will sneak in those connotations. Personally, I identify as a rationalist, not an atheist. The two things that distinguish me from them:
Social consequentialism. I know conversations about religion are often not productive, so I’m quick to tap out of such discussions.
Unlike a lot of atheists, I could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise (given sufficient evidence). If judgement day comes and I see the world burning around me, I will probably first think that I’ve gone insane; but the probability I assign to theism will increase, as per Bayes’ Theorem.
Note that this feeling is dependent on who you know, so I might be a minority in the label I see attached to atheism.
What do people think? I wrote this pretty quickly, and could take the time to a more coherent text to post in discussion.
Beware of identifying in general. “We” are all quite different. Few if any of “us” can be considered reasonably rational by the standards of this site.
I think it’s worth distinguishing ourselves from the “atheist” label.
With a sizable minority of theists here, why is this even an issue, except maybe for some heavily religious newcomers?
Beware of identifying in general. “We” are all quite different. Few if any of “us” can be considered reasonably rational by the standards of this site.
That’s a good point, which I’ll watch out for in the future.
With a sizable minority of theists here, why is this even an issue, except maybe for some heavily religious newcomers?
One thing I didn’t specify is that this applies to discussions with non-LessWrongers about religion (or about LessWrong). On the site, there’s no point in bothering with this identification process, because we’re more likely to notice that we’re generalizing and ask for an elaboration.
Living in rural America, where Atheism is still technically illegal in some places even though no one would dare enforce it, I think distinguishing the labels “rational thinkers” from “atheists” is a very good idea. I don’t think someone who considers themselves rational and theist would be particularly proud to associate with the label that best fits their particular brand of theism (Roman Catholicism and Mormonism seem to spawn subverters of this expectation, but reducing to the common category of “christian” seems to invoke way more cultural baggage).
Or rather, I wouldn’t dare call myself a christian or an atheist anywhere anyone could possibly find out about. Smart people would dismiss me as inferior for the former, 90% of people within a 200mi radius would start hurling crosses at me for the latter. Probably will need allies in both groups, so I’m kinda concerned about this whole labels thing.
It’s not illegal in terms of private life, but certain jobs, particularly public office are forbidden outright to atheists on the state level. I’m more worried about the social consequences, though, since it obviously wouldn’t hold up in court.
I don’t remember exactly where I read about these laws, so it’s entirely possible I’m completely mistaken. It was in the past year, though, which makes me a little more confident that I had reason to trust the source.
Remember, “Y is technically X” means “Y is not X, but I’m being disagreeable.”
In the U.S., when laws are stricken down as unconstitutional, they are not automatically repealed or removed from the statute books. They are just ignored and not enforced.
For instance, after the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, all state sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional. However, the states don’t have to formally repeal them (which would require effort from their legislatures) — rather, those laws are simply considered null and void, unenforceable. Some states went and repealed them anyway, but Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas have not.
So yes, there may be some states or towns that have laws on the books discriminating against atheists, or imposing punishments for blasphemy, or even requiring everyone to go to church. But because these laws are null and void under all sorts of court rulings, it is incorrect to say that atheism is illegal; just as it is incorrect to say that sodomy is illegal.
(There are certainly plenty of people — including many government officials, government school teachers, etc. — who discriminate against atheists, of course. And against Jehovah’s Witnesses, Wiccans, and other religious minorities.)
Now that I’ve tried explaining it, I’m worried my wording was dark artsy enough to warrant a retraction.
I’m pretty sure it’s survived mainly because no one ever bothered challenging it. To do so would require revealing one’s self as sympathetic to atheists, if not atheist one’s self, which would be a death sentence to one’s career if they lived in-state afterward (maybe they could work out of one of the more liberal colleges; the one I’m thinking of is religiously affiliated, but is way more tolerant than the general population, to the best that I can discern).
I’m comfortable calling myself an atheist (though I rarely need to), but only because I believe in zero gods and that qualifies me for the label in the eyes of almost everyone. In other words, I treat “atheist” as a feature of my worldview, not as an identity. Sure, these evangelical atheists people are so concerned over might share that feature with me, but we also share opposable thumbs and a well-developed prefrontal cortex, and I’m not too worried about that.
This seems like a common enough take on the word that I don’t risk misunderstandings unless I’m dealing with people from highly religious subcultures who’ve never met an atheist in the wild. Inadvertent identity pollution might be an issue if the set of atheists was more narrowly defined, but there’s no agenda attached to atheism and precious little in the way of unifying features besides the obvious.
On the other hand, I’m distinctly uncomfortable calling myself a rationalist. Partly because the term has a philosophical meaning which is quite unlike that common here, but mostly because it implies adopting a subcultural identity, and that’s playing with fire: ingroup biases are so pervasive, and so easy to accidentally fall into, that you should generally only do that when you have a positive reason to. Even if that weren’t the case, LW is such a small group, and in many ways such a strong outlier, that dressing up a in LW-specific identity is going to carry far more baggage in the outside world than a term as broad as “atheist” would.
I prefer calling myself an agnostic in public. The social connotations for this seem to be equivalent with a non-militant atheism, and functionally atheism and agnosticism seem to be no different. It also fits in with a more bayesian view of knowledge, where something can be improbable from an epistemic standpoint but you still allow for the possibility that it can be ontologically true. Agnosticism also implies that you’re open to updating your beliefs if you acquire new knowledge, whereas atheism isn’t seen that way to the general public.
At least on LW and at the meetups I’ve been to, I haven’t seen people claiming atheist identity. I agree with your prescription, but think most people obey it already.
If judgement day comes and I see the world burning around me, I will probably first think that I’ve gone insane; but the probability I assign to theism will increase, as per Bayes’ Theorem.
Where the probability at the moment? How high would it rise for experiencing 1 hour of judgment day, the world burning around you?
Technically, only the fact that the world started burning is significant. That a big fire continues to burn for 1 hour, that is not so surprising; unless the fire is violating the known laws of physics in some other ways.
If your explanation for the fire is that you got insane and see hallucinations, than the amount of time you keep perceiving those hallucinations might matter.
The continuation of the burning makes the hallucination hypothesis less probable, for as long as it continues. Also, if it continues past the laws of physics, as you point out.
I don’t have enough experience to even give an order of magnitude, but maybe I can give an order of magnitude of the order of magnitude:
Right now, the probability of Christianity specifically might be somewhere around 0.0000001% (that’s probably too high even). One hour post judgement-day, it might rise to somewhere around 0.001% (several orders of magnitude).
Now let’s say the world continues to burn, I see angels in the sky, get to talk to some of them, see dead relatives (who have information that allows me to verify that they’re not my own hallucinations), and so on...the probability could bring the hypothesis to one of the top spots in the ranking of plausible explanations.
...assuming that I’m still free to experiment with reality and not chained and burning. Also assuming that I actually take the time to do this as opposed to run and hide.
I’m thinking of making a Discussion post about this, but I’m not sure if it has already been mentioned.
We’re not atheists—we’re rationalists.
I think it’s worth distinguishing ourselves from the “atheist” label. On the internet, and in society (what I’ve seen of it, which is limited), the label includes a certain kind of “militant atheist” who love to pick fights with the religious and crusade against religion whenever possible. The arguments are, obviously, the sames ones being used over and over again, and even people who would identify as atheists don’t want to associate themselves to this vocal minority that systematically makes everyone uncomfortable.
I think most LessWrongers aren’t like that, and don’t want to attach a label to themselves that will sneak in those connotations. Personally, I identify as a rationalist, not an atheist. The two things that distinguish me from them:
Social consequentialism. I know conversations about religion are often not productive, so I’m quick to tap out of such discussions. Unlike a lot of atheists, I could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise (given sufficient evidence). If judgement day comes and I see the world burning around me, I will probably first think that I’ve gone insane; but the probability I assign to theism will increase, as per Bayes’ Theorem.
Note that this feeling is dependent on who you know, so I might be a minority in the label I see attached to atheism.
What do people think? I wrote this pretty quickly, and could take the time to a more coherent text to post in discussion.
Beware of identifying in general. “We” are all quite different. Few if any of “us” can be considered reasonably rational by the standards of this site.
With a sizable minority of theists here, why is this even an issue, except maybe for some heavily religious newcomers?
That’s a good point, which I’ll watch out for in the future.
One thing I didn’t specify is that this applies to discussions with non-LessWrongers about religion (or about LessWrong). On the site, there’s no point in bothering with this identification process, because we’re more likely to notice that we’re generalizing and ask for an elaboration.
Living in rural America, where Atheism is still technically illegal in some places even though no one would dare enforce it, I think distinguishing the labels “rational thinkers” from “atheists” is a very good idea. I don’t think someone who considers themselves rational and theist would be particularly proud to associate with the label that best fits their particular brand of theism (Roman Catholicism and Mormonism seem to spawn subverters of this expectation, but reducing to the common category of “christian” seems to invoke way more cultural baggage).
Or rather, I wouldn’t dare call myself a christian or an atheist anywhere anyone could possibly find out about. Smart people would dismiss me as inferior for the former, 90% of people within a 200mi radius would start hurling crosses at me for the latter. Probably will need allies in both groups, so I’m kinda concerned about this whole labels thing.
I would be interested to hear which places in rural america, and specifically what law makes atheism unlawful.
It’s not illegal in terms of private life, but certain jobs, particularly public office are forbidden outright to atheists on the state level. I’m more worried about the social consequences, though, since it obviously wouldn’t hold up in court.
I don’t remember exactly where I read about these laws, so it’s entirely possible I’m completely mistaken. It was in the past year, though, which makes me a little more confident that I had reason to trust the source.
Please take a moment to think of how you would choose a term to google to check whether these laws actually exist.
Yes, it is true that 7 state consitutions ban atheists from holding office. This requirement has been struck down by the supreme court. But that doesn’t stop people from agitating about enforcing them.
Woah, woah. Back up. Seriously? This is a thing? How on earth has this survived despite, y’know, being illegal?
Remember, “Y is technically X” means “Y is not X, but I’m being disagreeable.”
In the U.S., when laws are stricken down as unconstitutional, they are not automatically repealed or removed from the statute books. They are just ignored and not enforced.
For instance, after the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, all state sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional. However, the states don’t have to formally repeal them (which would require effort from their legislatures) — rather, those laws are simply considered null and void, unenforceable. Some states went and repealed them anyway, but Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas have not.
So yes, there may be some states or towns that have laws on the books discriminating against atheists, or imposing punishments for blasphemy, or even requiring everyone to go to church. But because these laws are null and void under all sorts of court rulings, it is incorrect to say that atheism is illegal; just as it is incorrect to say that sodomy is illegal.
(There are certainly plenty of people — including many government officials, government school teachers, etc. — who discriminate against atheists, of course. And against Jehovah’s Witnesses, Wiccans, and other religious minorities.)
The particular law I’m thinking of hasn’t come up in court, but a rather similar one in another state has and was overturned by the supreme court.
Now that I’ve tried explaining it, I’m worried my wording was dark artsy enough to warrant a retraction.
I’m pretty sure it’s survived mainly because no one ever bothered challenging it. To do so would require revealing one’s self as sympathetic to atheists, if not atheist one’s self, which would be a death sentence to one’s career if they lived in-state afterward (maybe they could work out of one of the more liberal colleges; the one I’m thinking of is religiously affiliated, but is way more tolerant than the general population, to the best that I can discern).
What specific law are you thinking of?
Me neither, but unfortunately I’ve seen at least one form (on an online dating site, IIRC) that doesn’t allow you to leave the “Religion” field blank.
I’m comfortable calling myself an atheist (though I rarely need to), but only because I believe in zero gods and that qualifies me for the label in the eyes of almost everyone. In other words, I treat “atheist” as a feature of my worldview, not as an identity. Sure, these evangelical atheists people are so concerned over might share that feature with me, but we also share opposable thumbs and a well-developed prefrontal cortex, and I’m not too worried about that.
This seems like a common enough take on the word that I don’t risk misunderstandings unless I’m dealing with people from highly religious subcultures who’ve never met an atheist in the wild. Inadvertent identity pollution might be an issue if the set of atheists was more narrowly defined, but there’s no agenda attached to atheism and precious little in the way of unifying features besides the obvious.
On the other hand, I’m distinctly uncomfortable calling myself a rationalist. Partly because the term has a philosophical meaning which is quite unlike that common here, but mostly because it implies adopting a subcultural identity, and that’s playing with fire: ingroup biases are so pervasive, and so easy to accidentally fall into, that you should generally only do that when you have a positive reason to. Even if that weren’t the case, LW is such a small group, and in many ways such a strong outlier, that dressing up a in LW-specific identity is going to carry far more baggage in the outside world than a term as broad as “atheist” would.
I prefer calling myself an agnostic in public. The social connotations for this seem to be equivalent with a non-militant atheism, and functionally atheism and agnosticism seem to be no different. It also fits in with a more bayesian view of knowledge, where something can be improbable from an epistemic standpoint but you still allow for the possibility that it can be ontologically true. Agnosticism also implies that you’re open to updating your beliefs if you acquire new knowledge, whereas atheism isn’t seen that way to the general public.
At least on LW and at the meetups I’ve been to, I haven’t seen people claiming atheist identity. I agree with your prescription, but think most people obey it already.
Where the probability at the moment? How high would it rise for experiencing 1 hour of judgment day, the world burning around you?
Technically, only the fact that the world started burning is significant. That a big fire continues to burn for 1 hour, that is not so surprising; unless the fire is violating the known laws of physics in some other ways.
If your explanation for the fire is that you got insane and see hallucinations, than the amount of time you keep perceiving those hallucinations might matter.
The continuation of the burning makes the hallucination hypothesis less probable, for as long as it continues. Also, if it continues past the laws of physics, as you point out.
I don’t have enough experience to even give an order of magnitude, but maybe I can give an order of magnitude of the order of magnitude:
Right now, the probability of Christianity specifically might be somewhere around 0.0000001% (that’s probably too high even). One hour post judgement-day, it might rise to somewhere around 0.001% (several orders of magnitude).
Now let’s say the world continues to burn, I see angels in the sky, get to talk to some of them, see dead relatives (who have information that allows me to verify that they’re not my own hallucinations), and so on...the probability could bring the hypothesis to one of the top spots in the ranking of plausible explanations.
...assuming that I’m still free to experiment with reality and not chained and burning. Also assuming that I actually take the time to do this as opposed to run and hide.