if you can believe in God, you can believe in anything.

The trouble with that is that I believe in some pretty weird things. I believe in a universe with a hundred billion galaxies, each of a hundred billion stars, of the Earth being a globe rushing round the sun when it appears to be still, with the sun going round it. I believe these things not because I have worked them out for myself, but because I understand that Academe believes them, more or less, and people with whom I associate believe them.

If Wednesday sees the argument for cryonics and dismisses it out of hand because her religion guarantees her an infinite life, and if a positive singularity occurs >100 years from now, Wednesday will lose nearly everything in that one moment of dismissal, because of her religion.

i did not say it established she was better off as a theist than as an atheist. i was merely pointing out that being a theist does not make anyone more or less likely (as far as i know) to believe things which are false about their local environment (beyond those things which necessarily follow from their beliefs, e.g., this priest sure is wise in the ways of the Lord! he must be wise about other things, too!).

do we have any data suggesting atheists hold more accurate beliefs than theists about phenomena that they experience firsthand?

This is a great post because it shows just how hard one has to stretch the meaning of "win" to find a way in which atheism always "wins." In the example, it seems that Wedesday "wins" by remaining a Mormon, unless she just happens to place some kind of high personal value on metaphysical truth that can only be satisfied by holding the epistemically correct belief. There's no reason why that should be for everyone, though -- there's a pretty strong case both for not caring at all about these questions, as well accepting one's "default" view if it's too costly to shed. Say Wednesday never becomes a philosopher, but instead, goes into business, or becomes a journalist, or a doctor. It's difficult to imagine how the "less wrong" position of atheism would help her "win" in any of these endeavors, and, in all likelihood, the practical costs incurred by deconverting would swamp any marginal gains she'd get from changing her metaphysical stance on God.

I think people on LW are very hesitant to admit that their strong attachment to "true" metaphysical beliefs may have nothing to do with "winning," but rather, could just be an idiosyncratic personal preference (which is perfectly OK).

Because I consider it unfair to him to talk about a putative debate before he's replied to a request; also somewhat uncourteous to talk about how I plan to handicap myself (especially if it's not a sign of contempt but just a desire to test myself). If people can work it out through effort, that's fine, I suppose, but directly naming him seems a bit discourteous to me. I have no idea whether he's courteous to his opponents outside debate, but I have no particular info that he isn't.

That part can be deproblematized (if you will forgive the nonce word) by the anthropic principle: if the universe were unsuited for life, there would be no life to notice that and remark upon it.

Can someone explain why we can't name the theist in question, other than sheer silliness?

1). There is a lot of, for want of a better term, "mental masturbation" around here: arguing for the sake of arguing, debating insignificant points, flashy but ultimately useless displays of intellect etc. Men tend to enjoy this sort of thing much more than women. Perhaps the female equivalent would be "social masturbation" -- endless gossiping about other people's trivia.

2). There's a major bias toward discussing math and science topics on here, and objective rather than subjective experience. Rationality, as a meta-construct, arguably isn't necessarily limited to these domains. I don't see why it can't be applied to equally good effect to literature and the humanities, art, interpersonal relationships, etc. Broaden your conversations to include some more of these topics (but, of course, with the same characteristic rational approach) and you may win over more female participants.

"Declare your hidden agendas" is somewhat of an oxymoron -- obviously anyone with a true hidden agenda isn't going to declare it. Seems like this idea of disclaimers in front of LW posts is a non-starter.

I want to define the terms in the standard way; as it is commonly viewed in this group. I'm new on LW and those definitions were just my best guesses.