[kjeetgill]

I think I went down a somewhat similar route. It's easy to find oneself trying to embody some archetypal champion of "logical" and "rational" thinking when you're a highschool nerd.

In the end I think my issue that led me off it was that it just ended up being a) judgmental and b) like you, finding that I was just not right enough to justify it!

When I ran into more of those types (our types?) Who are a dime a dozen in a college engineering department my goto quip was:

The scientific method is the admission that rationality and logic are limited; they're just the first step — forming a hypothesis. The rest of it is about how your rationality and logic failed you.

I think this is partially why you find many rationalist and skeptic types not actually doing any science. They haven't had the humility beat into them by science yet, haha.