I would suggest rewriting this post. But in the revision make sure you’re clear about your terms, especially the terms that are integral to your thesis. What do you mean by “free will”? What do you mean by “rationalist”?
I would further argue that there is very little overlap between the average atheist and a LW-styled rationalist. Indeed, there’s a lot of tribalism in “mainstream” atheism and there don’t seem to be many mainstream atheist-related memes that try to counteract our natural human tendency for in-group bias, unlike here. I don’t really know the causes of most people becoming atheists, and I don’t want to psychoanalyze from my chair, but I doubt many of them came to atheism through LW-style rationalism (there are a lot of factors that are correlated with lack of religiosity, and they’re all social… not rational per se).
Furthermore, I was already an atheist before I started reading LW, and reading LW actually made me more tolerant towards religious beliefs. So that’s at least an anecdote that argues against what you’re worried about in your post (assuming that LW-style rationalism becomes integral to mainstream atheism).
I would suggest rewriting this post. But in the revision make sure you’re clear about your terms, especially the terms that are integral to your thesis. What do you mean by “free will”? What do you mean by “rationalist”?
I would further argue that there is very little overlap between the average atheist and a LW-styled rationalist. Indeed, there’s a lot of tribalism in “mainstream” atheism and there don’t seem to be many mainstream atheist-related memes that try to counteract our natural human tendency for in-group bias, unlike here. I don’t really know the causes of most people becoming atheists, and I don’t want to psychoanalyze from my chair, but I doubt many of them came to atheism through LW-style rationalism (there are a lot of factors that are correlated with lack of religiosity, and they’re all social… not rational per se).
Furthermore, I was already an atheist before I started reading LW, and reading LW actually made me more tolerant towards religious beliefs. So that’s at least an anecdote that argues against what you’re worried about in your post (assuming that LW-style rationalism becomes integral to mainstream atheism).