Hello, everyone. I'm not entirely sure where to start, or exactly how to say it, but here goes.
I only stumbled across Less Wrong this year, after reading HPMOR (I'm sure you get this all the time). Since then, I have gone from an evangelical Christian to a passionate rationalist with an insatiable hunger for challenging what I think I know. It helps that I already had a rationalist foundation, having originally started my adulthood as an atheist.
My training is in IT, but nowhere near enough to help with AI research. I am also quite intelligent, but not enough to open my own rationality dojo. Instead, I am channeling my extroverted nature to help spread the influence of rationality as far and passionately as I can. I am currently spearheading the Kansas City LW/SSC group, and plan to also begin practicing Street Epistemology.
At the risk of sounding like I am trying to garner empathy, I feel rather intimidated by the conversations that are had here; so my posting and commenting will be limited if not entirely non-existent. Please don't ever be discouraged by my silence. You may count yourselves among my friends.
Hi, Motasaurus. I certainly hope you stick around! Don't let our disagreements drive you off.
However, on that note, I'm afraid I would have to disagree. While I think you can have "better than average" epistemology and still be a Christian, perhaps even be in the top 25% percentile, I don't believe you can aspire to be a perfect Bayesian and still be a Christian.
I would respectfully point out that the Apostle John is hardly a neutral spectator in determining whether one can be both Christian and Rational. Additionally, he certainly didn't have access to anywhere near the same level of understanding of human cognition, science, and probability theory as we do; to use an Eliezer illustration, the greatest physicists of his age couldn't have calculated the path of a falling apple.