The pro-religion / anti-religious criticism crowd here seems much more vocal than the opposition as well. Both sides seem to have lost out to the Guns vs Pools debate in any case.
I'm not saying programmers are always right or rational. I'm saying they care more about truth and logical consistency. Or at least they care more about being the kind of person that cares about truth and logical consistency.
Let's say there was a box containing a piece of paper that has the answer to the question, "Does God exist?" or "Is my view on nutrition or pharmaceuticals correct?". The atheist and the programmer would almost certainly look inside that box even at considerable cost. Many religious people would not. Some people could save a lot of time if they realized that.
"Or at least they care more about being the kind of person that cares about truth and logical consistency."
I think this is the more true statement :)
I don't disagree with your premise, by the way, and maybe weird irrational opinions are rarer in engineering/sciency/computery people, but they're definitely there.
You only have to read any HN thread about nutrition to see that idiotic woo is entrenched in a sizeable portion of HN commenters.