The “control” argument predicts more specific things than the “rebellion” argument, and so is a more useful hypothesis. But then again, it’s not the whole story at all (desire for community, actual belief, glaring cognitive biases), and once you start inserting caveats the testability goes way down. So I’d say neither argument is worth making.
Because the competing hypothesis (“atheists are willing to state a true thing even when most of society disagrees”) also predicts some degree of general rebelliousness, I think the prediction is more about pointless and self-destructive behaviors.
And if atheists are just allowed to be tricked by the devil, then I don’t know how that pans out into other behaviors.
The “control” argument predicts more specific things than the “rebellion” argument, and so is a more useful hypothesis. But then again, it’s not the whole story at all (desire for community, actual belief, glaring cognitive biases), and once you start inserting caveats the testability goes way down. So I’d say neither argument is worth making.
Actually a rebellion argument also predicts something. It would predict that atheists also rebel against other social norms.
Because the competing hypothesis (“atheists are willing to state a true thing even when most of society disagrees”) also predicts some degree of general rebelliousness, I think the prediction is more about pointless and self-destructive behaviors.
And if atheists are just allowed to be tricked by the devil, then I don’t know how that pans out into other behaviors.