Your definition of atheism doesn’t seem to reflect the way the word is used.
A good portion of self-identified atheists would in fact be agnostics under your definition. In fact, every flavour of atheism I would consider compatible with general LW beliefs would be agnosticism since we can only claim that P(god) is very small.
True, but I would consider the most common chain of reasoning for atheism (Occam’s razor, therefore no God) equivalent to thinking in terms of probabilities even if probabilities aren’t explicitly mentioned.
Your definition of atheism doesn’t seem to reflect the way the word is used. A good portion of self-identified atheists would in fact be agnostics under your definition. In fact, every flavour of atheism I would consider compatible with general LW beliefs would be agnosticism since we can only claim that P(god) is very small.
Very few people reason in a way that uses probabilities.
True, but I would consider the most common chain of reasoning for atheism (Occam’s razor, therefore no God) equivalent to thinking in terms of probabilities even if probabilities aren’t explicitly mentioned.
Occam’s razor has little to do with probabilities.
Then why accept the simplest solution instead of say, the most beautiful solution, or the most intuitive solution?
Because you decide to accept the simplest solution. At least that’s true for most people. Very few people reason with probabilities.
Good question. I’d argue that actually accepting the most elegant solution is a better heuristic than accepting the simplest.