But there's a pattern here, or perhaps a strategy. Some apologists put up the false front of a merry warrior, while others affect a tone of abuse because their religion is at odds with modernity. If you're a social outsider, and you refuse to fit in to the mainstream culture, you've got a problem: How to style your antagonism and alienation, to save face? In my experience, Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox especially are known for being sanctimonious apologists. It's a coping mechanism when the substance isn't there to back you up. If you're plainly on the side of the truth, you can let the facts and the arguments speak for themselves. Rhetoric often comes into play when you're hiding something so you can't afford to be transparent.

Mind you, the New Atheists also adopted some harsh rhetoric to ridicule religious fundamentalists. That, too, was a strategy in a culture war. But again, the nastiness was countercultural: atheists resented the popularity and political power of such a ridiculous religion in the US.

Either way, contemptuous or scornful rhetoric often sublimates alienation, I suspect.

Another possibility is that it's partly a pose to win favour on social media. The internet is known to tribalize, to divide us into warring cliques. So the medium might be the message.