Many issues of weight -- at least to me --are raised here, I could spend weeks writing in response, and would lose everyone. What's on-topic here? The rest can be addressed with new posts.

The original post is "Uncritical supercriticality." The emphasized text from Deuteronomy prescribes a violent response to unfamiliar, alien thought, proposals of "other gods." Yudkowsky is suggesting that this entire class of responses is inimical to rationality. He brings the problem down into social phenomena that stifle communication, such as reluctance to criticize evidence for the locally popular view.

I'm extending this a bit. I'm claiming that we cannot have a real dialog on an issue where there is an appearance of disagreement, at the outset, unless we first understand the other side. One of the first distinctions transmitted in the Landmark Forum is "Already Always Listening." That's the set of priors that come up based on immediate, often unconscious, associations. I see someone and immediately judge them as interesting, likely to be boring, beautiful, ugly, nice, unpleasant. I hear a few words and have an opinion, instantly, about right, wrong, smart, ignorant. The training is to recognize it, not to make it wrong. AAL is human, and necessary for survival. If I see a flash of tiger-stripes in the foliage, there is no time to run a conscious Bayesian process on it, let's hope that my habitual responses are sane. However, if we can't distinguish these learned or instinctual responses from reality, what is actually present, we have become locked into an established world-view.

If we start with an immediate assumption of wrongness, and if we have the normal human habit of inventing arguments to support assumptions -- we are really good at that -- all we can see is the wrongness of the other person.

It seems to be assumed that I'm proposing "belief" in what others tell us. No. I'm proposing conscious assumption. In order to have a true dialog, I must start with understanding, not with rejection. Once I understand, then, I may be able to apply the tools of rationality to what is now my own thinking, and that is precisely where the scientific method, for example, comes in. We now, having seen, say, the "beauty" of an idea, look for possible alternates, and for ways to test them.

The core, on-topic issue here is the meaning of "other gods." To my "natural" mind, the prescription of Deuteronomy seems horrific, alien, hostile, irrational, rigid, to be totally rejected. However, my training has become to seek to understand what is right about it. We could think of this as attempting to falsify my Already Always Listening immediate judgment. I'm suggesting that.

I'm suggesting that moving beyond the Deuteronomy position, instead of merely being contrary to it, we best first understand it. A sign of understanding it would be a recognition of "Yes, of course." I.e., that the prescription makes sense, it was at least functional, in some way, within ordinary survival or tribal survival, and maybe even necessary.

I would never suggest "belief" as a starting place, that is far too fixed. I suggest "acceptance," as one accepts a hypothesis and then considers the implications and likely consequences.

A Christian minister who was teaching a class on Islam at a local senior center once told me that his goal in teaching it was to convey it in such a way that Muslims would say, "Yes, that is what we believe." We had a great time. He did not therefore reject his Christianity.

I will now claim that between a theism and atheism is only a narrow space.

I'll claim that, for some, atheism is closer to truth than dogmatic religion. Much closer. A sane atheism rejects false gods. Does it reject Reality?

"I don't think I have any god" demonstrates well that the usable concept of "god" has not been understood. No, we have gods, many. All of us do, I'll claim. To explore this, we need to find usable meanings of the word.

Chaosmosis, above, has begun the inquiry, starting with an obvious possible god, his identity.

"Everywhere I go, there I am." Great!

Is this true or false? The statement implies something fixed. To be investigated, is whether or not this ubiquity is rational. I'll claim that it's not, generally, it's been inadequately specified.