In the wider world, even things like atheism are "extremely controversial," but I don't think we need to make dramatic shows of uncertainty and humility every time someone brings it up; most all of us here are atheists and we need to move on and discuss the more difficult questions. What I worry about is that a community norm of being vocal about our opinions but not discussing them rationally or even at all most of the time then we may wind up deciding what to think via memetic exposure and perhaps evaporative cooling instead of rationality. This sort of effect would also be a danger if we had a norm of being verbally abusive to anyone with an unpopular opinion, of course.
Note that I can't offer evidence that this is a real risk or a phenomenon that actually happens in online communities, but it worries me.
In the wider world, even things like atheism are "extremely controversial," but I don't think we need to make dramatic shows of uncertainty and humility every time someone brings it up; most all of us here are atheists and we need to move on and discuss the more difficult questions.
I don't think the primary reason to not discuss atheism and theism at LW is because most readers of LW are atheists. What that implies to me is "if we all believe X, X is not worth discussing; if we are conflicted about Y, then Y is worth discussing."
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Of course, for "every Monday", the last one should have been dated July 22-28. *cough*