I must confess that, as an outsider to (but occasional reader of) Less Wrong, I find certain statements and arguments on this site to be just as totalizing and dogmatic as the most dangerous religious fundamentalism. There's also a fair amount that I find personally offensive to my value system. However, whenever I find myself going into a nasty tirade against LW, my atheist rationalist friend (who introduced me to this site in the first place) urges me to remember that not all Less Wrongers are the same. Opinions about things like the Singularity vary greatly, as do values. And, there are even some theists on this site.

I often see this in discussions or debates on religion. The only use for it is to bring disagreements onto a plane of relativism and thereby removing any possibility of conclusion. "I believe this, and you believe that, but aren't we so similar in many ways? Let's be tolerant of each other and allow for whatever beliefs we like."

So, yes, you can draw parallels, some of them accurate, however you can't soundly claim to have the preponderance of impersonal evidence on your side. We haven't reason to treat your beliefs with respect. You should have reason to respect our beliefs if you respect impersonal evidence.

Now, given the assumption that our beliefs are reasonably accurate, are we really totalizing and dogmatic? Is it totalizing and dogmatic to say "young earth creationists are wrong," even when they have more than enough personal evidence for such beliefs? Even when we sound like them? I think it only appears totalizing and dogmatic if you ignore context--if you draw the argument onto relativistic ground.

* I'm giving away more than I should by allowing for coherency in personal evidence for the proposition of a God as described by X religion. The fact is is that even accounting for personal evidence, such as personal revelation, their beliefs are wrong in the Bayesian sense when accounting for non-personal evidence.