Bristoe - good questions and analysis well stated. I don't have any definitive answers, but the answer for #1 could be that those atheists have some overwhelming guilt complex played out as fake intellectual curiosity.
For #2, even the most sound arguments, comments and Scriptural postings made by Christians only seem like stimulus for further bashing by some atheists, so I don't understand the "need".
For those reasons, I try to avoid arguing with atheists who attack - but feel it worthwhile to expose their unsupported assumptions, illogical and inconsistent comments and vivid hypocrisy. Some here seem convinced that those types are laborers for Satan.
