The pleasure I get out of trolling atheists definitely has a meta-contrarian component to it. When I was a teenager I would troll Christians but I’ve long since stopped finding that even slightly challenging or fun.
Yes, I often find myself tempted to do that too. Although I understand on an intellectual level that creationism is stupid, it is hard for me to get worked up about it and I certainly don’t have the energy to argue with creationists ad nauseum. I do find myself angry whenever an atheist makes a superficial or stupid point in defense of atheism, or when they get too smug about how much smarter they are than creationists.
My guess is that I have a sufficiently inflated view of my intelligence to be high enough that I have no need to differentiate myself intellectually from creationists, but I do feel a need to differentiate myself intellectually from the less intelligent sort of atheist.
The pleasure I get out of trolling atheists definitely has a meta-contrarian component to it. When I was a teenager I would troll Christians but I’ve long since stopped finding that even slightly challenging or fun.
Yes, I often find myself tempted to do that too. Although I understand on an intellectual level that creationism is stupid, it is hard for me to get worked up about it and I certainly don’t have the energy to argue with creationists ad nauseum. I do find myself angry whenever an atheist makes a superficial or stupid point in defense of atheism, or when they get too smug about how much smarter they are than creationists.
My guess is that I have a sufficiently inflated view of my intelligence to be high enough that I have no need to differentiate myself intellectually from creationists, but I do feel a need to differentiate myself intellectually from the less intelligent sort of atheist.