Anti-epistemology lives in particular topics, makes it hard/socially costly/illegal to discuss them without committing the errors it instills. Its presence is instrumentally convergent in topics relevant to power (over people), such as religion, politics, and anything else politically charged.

Ideas are transported by analogies, and anti-epistemology grows on new topics via analogies with topics already infected by it, if it's not fought back from the other side with sufficient clarity. The act of establishing an analogy with such a topic is, all else equal, sabotage.

No, it's just that we've rejected the concept of "God" as wrong, i.e. not in accordance with reality. Some ancient questions really are solved, and this is one of them. Calling reality "God" doesn't make it God, any more than calling a dog's tail a leg makes it a leg. The dog won't start walking on it.

The claimed evolution of ideas of God towards "reality" is the evolution of those ideas towards "actually, there's no such thing."

Besides, you made a brand new account for that posting, acted plaintively injured when it got a poor reception, and then suggested we're not as open-minded as we might like to think. I've seen the pattern before on LessWrong. It was trolling then. Why should I not think that it is trolling now?

See also. [LW · GW]

Closer to the object level, I like the post [LW · GW] aesthetically, it's somewhat beautiful and well-crafted. I didn't find anything useful/interesting/specific in it, it only makes sense to me as a piece of art. At the same time, it fuels a certain process [LW(p) · GW(p)] inimical to the purpose of LW.

Compare this with Scott Alexander's Moloch post or even Sarah Constantin's Ra post. There's specific content that the mythical analogies help organize and present.

The positive role of the mythical analogies is the same as in your post, but my impression was that in your post the payload is missing, and the mythical texture is closer to functional anti-epistemology, where it's not yet ground down to the residue of artistic expression by distance from the origin and distortion in loose retelling.

discussion of religion in a positive light

Discussion in a negative light has its own problems, where instead of developing clarity of thought one is busy digging moats that keep an opposing ideology at bay, a different kind of activity that involves only a very pro forma version of what it takes not to drown in the more difficult questions that are relevant in their own right.

1. It's unclear what my point is, why I'm framing things the way I do, and what my ultimate motivation is. 

Writing is not about the writer and his motivations but about whether the writing provides value for the reader.

Generally, the more charged a topic happens to be, the less free you are in the form of addressing it. If you want to have a good discussion about religion on LessWrong don't spend your weirdness points [LW · GW]on being creative and using unusual style to make them.

In Politics Is The Mind-Killer [LW · GW], Yudkowsky describes how authors of artificial intelligence textbooks just don't seem able to resist posing problems that take a swipe at Republicans. Similarly, Yudkowsky hasn't been able to resist taking swipes at belief in God and religion throughout the Sequences.

The point of politics is the mindkiller is that if you talk about X and use a political example Y to illustrate X, your readers are more likely to focus on Y and not on X in general. 

To the extend that you claim you have written an article titled 'God is Great' that's about an X that's not about religion and you expect, readers to instead have focused on the religious arguments you made, it seems like you did poorly at writing the post. 

I found the post long and difficult to read, and the bit I did read appeared to be not interesting. I'm also strongly dislike religion (yes, I know it has good parts but it also has a shit ton of bad). In particular, I have no desire to see more content glorifying it here, and your post appeared to be doing that from the cursory inspection I gave it. Thus, the downvote.

I didn't strong downvote because I hadn't read the entire post or given it a proper chance. A weak downvote is minor dislike, a desire to see less of that sort of thing. A strong downvote for me is an expression of utter contempt, or a belief that the writing is irredeemably bad in some way. I didn't think you fell into the latter category.

In other words, it was mostly #1 but #3 was the nail in the coffin.

The other post is long and meandering, which only works if you are a good writer who expresses their point in koans or something. I couldn't even tell what your point was, or what your personal view on theism and religion is. Or why you are motivated to discuss belief in supernatural in a generally atheist crowd. Like, what are the windmills you are fighting?

I think most people on LW fall into one of two groups:

• People who were raised in the urban liberal milleu.  Religion simply isn't part of their worldview; their attitude toward it is not even unbelief.  For them going to church is like raising alpacas; they are aware that some people do it but they don't see much value in it, it doesn't fit into their lifestyles, and it would take a rather long intellectual journey to convince them to do it themselves.
• People who, like me, were raised around religion.  As LWers are generally thoughtful people, we have generally considered religion to our satisfaction many years ago.  Each of us had a particular journey but I suspect my conclusions are, if not typical, then not highly atypical either:
  • My understanding of neuroscience has convinced me that consciousness is fundamentally dependent on the brain.  I don't believe in an afterlife (cryogenics and mind-uploading ideas notwithstanding).
  • Since I do not expect to face divine judgement, I am not greatly concerned about the existence or nonexistence of God.  I think of theology as much like an ant trying to understand presidential politics.  Understanding is highly unlikely and the ant has better things to do.
  • The Durkheimian "society worshiping itself" phenomenon is real, common, and by no means limited to religion as traditionally defined.  It is often wildly irrational and is pretty much the opposite of what LW aspires to.

If you're trying to reach the first group, I would recommend trying to bring them into contact with organized religion via some sort of common interest (probably effective altruism).  The second group is generally going to be much harder to reach.

Inquiries on the line of "what they even mean when they say god"? have found some purchace even thought that is more of a deconstruction of religion.

To me it was not totally without payload but it is more tainted than useful. Others when discussion adjacent things have been very careful that the concepts are groundable and clear with very small wiggleroom for natural confusion. Here no such distinguishment is attempted. And I additionally believe that its not just a case of having apperance of shaky thoughts but actually containing shaky thoughts.

Even at the very beginning, how am I supposed to replicate divine revelevation? Pray and check how I feel? This is just reference and reliance on methods which not have been proved to be epistemical tools and have been proven to be epistemically misleading.

There seems to be a tone that is focused on details of impression of the idea, a kind of "appeal to aesthetics" which is kind of diffcult to engage with. It also has smells of writing the bottom line first and coming up with the argument. If I follow the arguments from top to bottom it justifies/grounds like only half or a slight shadow rather than a "religious attitudes are resonable" what it seems to actually be cornerned with.

The topic is not an issue but if you are playing with fire and don't even have a bucket of water nearby I am going to discourage you, not because fire is a forbidden tool but because you are being reckless in the way you are going about it.

It would be fine if X-ray radiation discoverer gets burned by it, they couldn't reasonably know. But since we know about the dangers, we don't let you get burned by your private knowledge just as we take tinder out of the hands of children (or superwise the play to not burn down houses).