Generally, it is better to write an article about one topic, instead of starting half dozen topics in the same article. I am not even sure where to start. Seems to me that your motivation for writing all this is to prevent some future military conflict between atheists and religious people. So perhaps we should instead discuss how likely is such a scenario. What is your evidence that something like this is likely to happen?
Perhaps look at what powerful atheists are doing now. Is Bill Gates spending his money trying to cure children in Africa, regardless of their religion, or trying to assassinate the Pope? Has government of Sweden declared an anti-religious war against some of their neighbors, or against a part of their own population? I don’t see anything like this happening. -- If you have better examples, please post them here.
A historical example of an officially atheist country attacking their neighbors would be Soviet Union. If you look at Russia today, the Communists seem happy to cooperate with Christians; together they oppress the sexual minorities and generally anyone who gets in the oligarchs’ way. And I don’t see LW supporting this behavior. It seems unlikely that Russia would attack someone in the name of atheism or rationality; they may use other excuses, though.
A big atheist country these days is China; they don’t seem likely to expand soon; and I guess they wouldn’t care about what LessWrong or anyone in the West says, anyway.
Here are the horrible things that militant atheists are likely to do to religious people; not necessarily all of them agree about all of the following: Teach their children evolutionary biology. Prevent “honor” killings and genital mutilation. Tax the religious organizations. Separate the church from the state. Make abortions legal (but voluntary, unless we speak about China). -- Feel free to add more examples.
Does this address your concerns?
If you are concerned about atheists outside of LW taking some parts of the LW attitude and ignoring the others… well, if someone is going to only take a half of it, and ignore the other half, they would probably ignore the “commitment to freedom” part, too. There are specific parts in Sequences about tribal politics, mindkilling, and affective spirals. I think it’s obvious. And if someone is going to ignore that, they will probably ignore any additional text on the same topic.
Generally, it is better to write an article about one topic, instead of starting half dozen topics in the same article. I am not even sure where to start. Seems to me that your motivation for writing all this is to prevent some future military conflict between atheists and religious people. So perhaps we should instead discuss how likely is such a scenario. What is your evidence that something like this is likely to happen?
Perhaps look at what powerful atheists are doing now. Is Bill Gates spending his money trying to cure children in Africa, regardless of their religion, or trying to assassinate the Pope? Has government of Sweden declared an anti-religious war against some of their neighbors, or against a part of their own population? I don’t see anything like this happening. -- If you have better examples, please post them here.
A historical example of an officially atheist country attacking their neighbors would be Soviet Union. If you look at Russia today, the Communists seem happy to cooperate with Christians; together they oppress the sexual minorities and generally anyone who gets in the oligarchs’ way. And I don’t see LW supporting this behavior. It seems unlikely that Russia would attack someone in the name of atheism or rationality; they may use other excuses, though.
A big atheist country these days is China; they don’t seem likely to expand soon; and I guess they wouldn’t care about what LessWrong or anyone in the West says, anyway.
Here are the horrible things that militant atheists are likely to do to religious people; not necessarily all of them agree about all of the following: Teach their children evolutionary biology. Prevent “honor” killings and genital mutilation. Tax the religious organizations. Separate the church from the state. Make abortions legal (but voluntary, unless we speak about China). -- Feel free to add more examples.
Does this address your concerns?
If you are concerned about atheists outside of LW taking some parts of the LW attitude and ignoring the others… well, if someone is going to only take a half of it, and ignore the other half, they would probably ignore the “commitment to freedom” part, too. There are specific parts in Sequences about tribal politics, mindkilling, and affective spirals. I think it’s obvious. And if someone is going to ignore that, they will probably ignore any additional text on the same topic.