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Desrtopa comments on How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3 - Less Wrong
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My reason to abjure God was mainly due to ethical reasons. I didn't want to follow something anymore that had deliberately designed such an hellhole of a universe. Later I became an atheist mainly for noticing that nothing natural really appeared to be intelligently designed. Just look at the moon, the shape of the continents etc., or that we live on the surface of a sphere rather than inside a Dyson sphere. The next big step came via science fiction, when I noticed how easy it would have been to design a universe where nothing could suffer horribly. What Less Wrong added on top of all else I learnt is that Occam's razor has been formalized. I didn't know about that before LW.
I just don't see that anyone would need Less Wrong to stop beliving into one of the Abrahamic religions. It should be obvious to anyone who isn't morally bankrupt or a psychopath that God is not your friend, rather it is your worst enemy. If that doesn't convince you, why not just read the Bible:
And yet simple observation confirms that it is not obvious to many people who are clearly not sociopaths or more morally bankrupt than usual. It's completely ordinary for people to rationalize away inconsistencies or flaws in their beliefs with as little revision as possible. Making large alterations to account for large errors is a rare and difficult to learn skill.
Yes, obviously, as I am used to from my parents. Sadly none of them would read LW or not rationalize away what is being said here like so much else. I believe that those who abjured religion because of reading something like LW are rather an exception. I was really addressing religious people, with what I call my shock and awe approach to crack their stronghold of subjective moral superiority. To paraphrase what I said, you are dumb, ignorant and morally abhorrent if you do not abjure your God. Yep, that might not work, but it does reflect my weariness. So never mind my little tirade, I lost my sense of location awareness for a moment there ;-)