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<\/a><\/div>\nA week or so ago, Luke Muehlhauser of Common Sense Atheism<\/a> surprised the atheist blogosphere when he announced he was done with atheism vs theism arguments<\/a>. He explained:<\/p>\n The reason I\u2019m an atheist isn\u2019t because of the argument from evil<\/a> or from unbelief<\/a> or from inconsistent revelations<\/a> or anything. No, the reason I\u2019m an atheist is because theism drastically fails Solomonoff induction<\/a>.<\/p>\n If I want to pull somebody away from magical thinking, I don\u2019t need to mention atheism. Instead, I teach them Kolmogorov complexity<\/a> and Bayesian updating<\/a>. I show them the many ways our minds trick us<\/a>. I show them the detailed neuroscience<\/a> of human decision-making. I show them that we can see (in the brain) a behavior being selected up to 10 seconds<\/a> before a person is consciously aware of \u2018making\u2019 that decision. I explain timelessness<\/a>.<\/p>\n And if they have time to consume enough math and science, then The God Question just fades away as not even a question worth talking about<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I agree with Luke to a point. \u00a0Ultimately, atheism and deconversion should be a side-effect, not the goal. \u00a0Anything else is like focusing solely on trying to get people to stop buying lottery tickets, instead of trying to give a practical\u00a0introduction\u00a0to probability (about which, particularly as it relates to rhetorical tone, more later). \u00a0And I\u2019m certainly excited for Luke\u2019s likely next steps<\/a>, but I don\u2019t think his approach is a particularly good model for most atheists interested in talking to theists.<\/p>\n For one thing, although I\u2019ve been reading his blog and keeping up with the read-through-all-of-Yudkowsky project<\/a>, I haven\u2019t the foggiest idea what Luke meant by \u201ctheism drastically fails Solomonoff induction<\/em>.\u201c<\/em>\u00a0 And by the looks of the comment thread attached to the post, neither did most of his readers. \u00a0When you\u2019re immersed in rationality readings, it\u2019s hard to speak in layperson-accessible ways.<\/p>\n Yudkowsky\u2019s \u201cIntuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning<\/a>\u201d is quite readable (and well worth reading) but, although he meant for it to be accessible to anyone with a grade school background, he admits it landed at the undergrad level<\/a>. \u00a0That\u2019s not to say these discussions are too highfalutin\u2019 to be accessible or relevant, but it does mean that, if we want religious people to put the time and effort in with these texts, we atheists\/rationalists\/statistics geeks need to come up with a darn good elevator pitch to get them to follow us into the weeds.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where I\u2019ve always had a bit of a problem with some of Luke\u2019s metaphysical writings. \u00a0Despite reading the transcripts of all his desirism podcasts and\u00a0accompanying\u00a0posts<\/a>, I still don\u2019t really understand how desirism works, but, more importantly, I don\u2019t know what I would need to give up and what I would gain if I were convinced these metaphysics were correct. \u00a0So when I read the umpteenth post on the simplified world \u00a0he used to explain his theory, the stakes were nonexistent.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n