This is a position of profound submission to the universe. When we say "rationalist" here, we primarily don't mean someone who has a commitment to a particular set of beliefs. We mean someone who wants their beliefs to be caused by the facts of the universe, whatever those might turn out to be.
Thank you for re-clarifying this (yes, I was aware that this was the LW position). But, do most LW'ers think that it should be everyone's position?
Medieval Catholics (and some contemporary ones) wanted to make the whole world Catholic. Stalinists wanted to make the whole world Stalinist. In either case, I think the world would have turned out a much worse place had either one succeeded. To you, rationalism, empiricism and positivism might seem to exist in a different category, but to me any ideology or thought system that gets universalized will probably turn into More's Utopia or Plato's Republic. And, while interesting for a while, such places hardly seem very habitable in the long term.
One might then ask, what sort of world is most likely to cultivate and promote the kind of diversity you're advocating here?
Heh, now there's a question! I personally don't believe in utopias, but I do believe in making the world better. The difficulty is that "better" means different things to different people, and this is something we can't ever forget. To answer your question, I think that a society based on moderation and mutual respect/ tolerance for different beliefs is the best one. Canada's multiculturalism policy comes to mind. There are many flaws with multiculturalism, as it certainly doesn't guarantee that all social groups are treated fairly by those in power. However, having lived in Canada for some years, I find that this attempt at creating a multicultural society (where people are encouraged to maintain their cultural heritage and language) leads to a more diverse and interesting society than does the assimilationist attitude of the US (my home country) where there is greater pressure to give up old identities/values in order to fit in.
But, do most LW'ers think that it should be everyone's position?
Good question. I haven't conducted a poll. But more problematically, what does that "should" mean?
It could mean:
I recently learned that a friend of mine, and a long-time atheist (and atheist blogger), is planning to convert to Catholicism. It seems the impetus for her conversion was increasing frustration that she had no good naturalistic account for objective morality in the form of virtue ethics; that upon reflection, she decided she felt like morality "loved" her; that this feeling implied God; and that she had sufficient "if God, then Catholicism" priors to point toward Catholicism, even though she's bisexual (!) and purports to still feel uncertain about the Church's views on sexuality. (Side note: all of this information is material she's blogged about herself, so it's not as if I'm sharing personal details she would prefer to be kept private.)
First, I want to state the rationality lesson I learned from this episode: atheists who spend a great deal of their time analyzing and even critiquing the views of a particular religion are at-risk atheists. Eliezer's spoken about this sort of issue before ("Someone who spends all day thinking about whether the Trinity does or does not exist, rather than Allah or Thor or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is more than halfway to Christianity."), but I guess it took a personal experience to really drive the point home. When I first read my friend's post, I had a major "I notice that I am confused" moment, because it just seemed so implausible that someone who understood actual atheist arguments (as opposed to dead little sister Hollywood Atheism) could convert to religion, and Catholicism of all things. I seriously considered (and investigated) the possibility that her post was some kind of prank or experiment or otherwise not sincere, or that her account had been hijacked by a very good impersonator (both of these seem quite unlikely at this point).
But then I remembered how I had been frustrated in the past by her tolerance for what seemed like rank religious bigotry and how often I thought she was taking seriously theological positions that seemed about as likely as the 9/11 attacks being genuinely inspired and ordained by Allah. I remembered how I thought she had a confused conception of meta-ethics and that she often seemed skeptical of reductionism, which in retrospect should have been a major red flag for purported atheists. So yeah, spending all your time arguing about Catholic doctrine really is a warning sign, no matter how strongly you seem to champion the "atheist" side of the debate. Seriously.
But second, and more immediately, I wonder if anybody has advice on how to handle this, or if they've had similar experiences with their friends. I do care about this person, and I was devastated to hear this news, so if there's something I can do to help her, I want to. Of course, I would prefer most that she stop worrying about religion entirely and just grok the math that makes religious hypotheses so unlikely as to not be worth your time. But in the short term I'd settle for her not becoming a Catholic, and not immersing herself further in Dark Side Epistemology or surrounding herself with people trying to convince her that she needs to "repent" of her sexuality.
I think I have a pretty good understanding of the theoretical concepts at stake here, but I'm not sure where to start or what style of argument is likely to have the best effect at this point. My tentative plan is to express my concern, try to get more information about what she's thinking, and get a dialogue going (I expect she'll be open to this), but I wanted to see if you all had more specific suggestions, especially if you've been through similar experiences yourself. Thanks!