One thing you need to notice -
in effect, it’s ONLY Christianity that is the subject of the rabid hatred you’re seeing. That’s because it is the TRUTH, and everything else is the product of LIES.
Check out some of the Lee Stroebel “Case for” books/videos/audios. He was an atheist journalist that set out to prove Christianity false, and ended up convincing himself of the truth of Christianity with what he found.
My maternal grandfather was that way. He was also my only grandparent who, as the end of his life neared, was obviously very afraid to die.
When somebody is passionately for or against something, we should always ask “why.” It is because of the implications of the argument. I am passionately against Obama’s socialism because I see the bad implications of his ideas.
When people are passionately against Christianity, it shows that there is an emotional component and they don’t like the implications of Christianity. Usually they don’t like how Christianity says that some behaviors are immoral. It is rarely really about intellectual issues.
When I was in college,I was indifferent towards Christianity. I had rejected it because I thought that it had no basis for it. I was not vehemently against it. I just didn’t care one way or another. It was only later that I was challenged to consider the historical evidences for the resurrection and became convinced that it was true. But it took over 6 months of weekly conversations. You’re right to be skeptical of people who “protest too much.”
That is an extremely interesting point, and, yes, the phenomenon you describe has an eerie, un-ignorable, cumulative convincing power also on believers who frequently encounter these rabid types.