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Cthulhoo comments on The problem with too many rational memes - Less Wrong
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Excellent post! Glad to see someone talking about this.
About 6 months ago I started reading r/atheism, and a few weeks later I noticed a kind of subverbal irritation whenever I saw someone wearing religious imagery or talking about their religious beliefs. At the time, I attributed this to r/atheism conditioning me to feel anger when prompted with anything that reminded me of religion. I was very scared that my mind was doing this, so I stopped reading r/atheism and reddit altogether. Since then, the effect has greatly decreased in frequency and intensity. I still notice the irritation every once and a while, possibly because I still read LessWrong, but (if my memories are accurate) it used to be much worse. Looking back, the emotions I felt seem almost identical to the ones you described.
In addition to this, I'm worried that this kind of instinctive irritation could inhibit updating. If you react negatively to a particular belief, you will probably be less inclined to update in its favor regardless of what the evidence shows.
Even though excessive amounts of irritation are definitely unpleasant and counterproductive, irritation in itself can be a useful alarm bell. I've noticed that, through some kind of fast heuristic, my brains turns irritation on very fast when I'm hearing or reading something that contradicts my beliefs. This often happens before I've consciously fully evaluated the statement, and triggers further analysis. It's actually a very precious instrument, and I'm more worried when it doesn't trigger at all.
That's the key phrase. It works that way for you...but I suspect that for a lot of people, and maybe for me, it would act to turn off further analysis, because the idea is so irritating to even think about.