So I have been checking laws around the world regarding Apostasy. And I have found extremely troubling data on the approach Muslims take to dealing with apostates. In most cases, publicly stating that you do not, in fact, love Big Brother (specifically, that you do not believe in God, the Prophet, or Islam), after having professed the Profession of Faith being adult and sane (otherwise, you were never a Muslim in the first place), will get you killed.
Yes, killed. It's one of the only three things traditional Islamic tribunals hand out death penalties for, the others being murder and adultery.
However, interestingly enough, you are often given three days of detainment to "think it over" and "accept the faith".
Some other countries, though, are more forgiving: you are allowed to be a public apostate. But you are still not allowed to proselytize: that remains a crime (in Morocco it's 15 years of prison, and a flogging). Though proselytism is also a crime if you are not a Muslim. I leave to your imagination how precarious the situation of religious minorities is, in this context.
How little sense all of this makes, from a theological perspective. Forcing someone to "accept the faith" at knife point? Forbidding you from arguing against the Lord's (reputedly) absolutely self-evident and miraculously beautiful Word?
No. These are the patterns of sedition and treason laws. The crime of the Apostate is not one against the Lord (He can take care of Himself, and He certainly can take care of the Apostate) but against the State (existence of a human lord contingent on political regime).
And the lesswronger asks himself: "How is that my concern? Please, get to the point." The point is that the promotion of rationalism faces a terrible obstacle there. We're not talking "God Hates You" placards, or getting fired from your job. We're talking fire range and electric chair.
"Sure," you say, "but rationalism is not about atheism." And you'd be right. It isn't. It's just a very likely conclusion for the rationalist mind to reach, and, also, our cult leader (:P) is a raging, bitter, passionate atheist. That is enough. If word spreads and authorities find out, just peddling HPMOR might get people jailed. And that's not accounting for the hypothetical (cough) case of a young adult reading the Sequences and getting all hotheaded about it and doing something stupid. Like trying to promote our brand of rationality in such hostile terrain.
So, let's take this hypothetical (harrumph) youth. They see irrationality around them, obvious and immense, they see the waste and the pain it causes. They'd like to do something about it. How would you advise them to go about it? Would you advise them to, in fact, do nothing at all?
More importantly, concerning Less Wrong itself, should we try to distance ourselves from atheism and anti-religiousness as such? Is this baggage too inconvenient, or is it too much a part of what we stand for?
I think the analogy with treason is good but not in the way you mean, the fear of apostasy is not really that of a single unbeliever but that it might spread. Even if we ignore the group cohesion and self interest reasons for not wanting this, there are good altruistic reasons.
Imagine there is a drug that is pleasant in the short term but causes extreme suffering in later life, because individuals don't rationally calculate the effect of it at the time your society has banned it. If you know an individual is using it you might try and persuade them to stop personally, but if they start using it publicly, or worse telling others how awesome it is and that they've suffered no bad effects you would want to take stronger action for the good of others. (Imagine someone telling your kids to its cool to smoke.) All that seems perfectly rational. Now multiply the harm of "disease in later life" to that of "eternity in hell" and you can see why well intentioned people might support apostasy laws, especially if they allow people to publicly recant, at best sincerely and saving themselves, at worst insincerely but limiting the harm.
The problem is not that apostasy laws in themselves are irrational, if hell existed a lot of things would be justified in preventing it, its that they''re based on a flawed premise.
Thank you for helping me remember what it felt like to think that way. The Dark Side Will Make You Forget indeed... :P