Well, I don't strongly identify as a theist, so it's hard for me to have an opinion here.
That said, if I imagine myself reading a variant version of the sequences (and LW discourse more generally) which are anti-some-group-I-identify-with in the same ways.... for example, if I substitute every reference to the superiority of atheism to theism (or the inadequacy of theism more generally) with a similar reference to the superiority of, say, heterosexuality to homosexuality (or the inadequacy of homosexuality more generally), my emotional response is basically "yeah, fuck that shit."
Perhaps that's simply an indication of my inadequate rationality.
I can confirm that it is indeed annoying, and worse still can act to reduce the persuasiveness of a point (for example, talking about how large groups of people/experts/insert other heuristic here fails with regard to religion.) Interestingly, it's annoying even if I agree with the criticism in question, which would suggest it's probably largely irrational, and certain rationality techniques reduce it, like the habit of ironmanning people's points by, say, replacing "religion" with racism or the education system or some clinically demonstrated bias or whatever.
That's possible. Another possibility is that when tribe members talk about their tribe, they frequently do so charitably (for example, in nonridiculous language, emphasizing the nonridiculous aspects of their tribe), while when ex-members talk about their ex-tribe, the frequently do so non-charitably.
This is similar to what happens when you compare married people's descriptions of their spouses to divorced people's descriptions of their ex-spouses... the descriptions are vastly different, even if the same person is being described.
There's probably a bit of that too, but (in my experience) most atheists believed an oddly ... variant ... version of their faith, whether it's because they misunderstood as a child or simply belonged to a borderline splinter group. Mind you, plenty of theists are the same, just unexamined.
for example, if I substitute every reference to the superiority of atheism to theism (or the inadequacy of theism more generally) with a similar reference to the superiority of, say, heterosexuality to homosexuality (or the inadequacy of homosexuality more generally), my emotional response is basically "yeah, fuck that shit."
These examples are not at all analogous. Claims about the existence of divine agents - or the accuracy of old textbooks - are epistemological claims about the world and not up to personal preferences. What do I know and ho...
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A note for theists: you will find the Less Wrong community to be predominantly atheist, though not completely so, and most of us are genuinely respectful of religious people who keep the usual community norms. It's worth saying that we might think religion is off-topic in some places where you think it's on-topic, so be thoughtful about where and how you start explicitly talking about it; some of us are happy to talk about religion, some of us aren't interested. Bear in mind that many of us really, truly have given full consideration to theistic claims and found them to be false, so starting with the most common arguments is pretty likely just to annoy people. Anyhow, it's absolutely OK to mention that you're religious in your welcome post and to invite a discussion there.
A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
I recommend the major sequences to everybody, but I realize how daunting they look at first. So for purposes of immediate gratification, the following posts are particularly interesting/illuminating/provocative and don't require any previous reading:
More suggestions are welcome! Or just check out the top-rated posts from the history of Less Wrong. Most posts at +50 or more are well worth your time.
Welcome to Less Wrong, and we look forward to hearing from you throughout the site!
Note from orthonormal: MBlume and other contributors wrote the original version of this welcome post, and I've edited it a fair bit. If there's anything I should add or update on this post (especially broken links), please send me a private message—I may not notice a comment on the post. Finally, once this gets past 500 comments, anyone is welcome to copy and edit this intro to start the next welcome thread.