On Being a Prick

Why do you think being an obnoxious prick is so often the defining symptom of both stridently fundamentalist religious belief and ardent atheism? Is it a product of their respective senses of certainty ... their ability to believe the actual consequences of their convictions (whereas most of us give ours the most token of acknowledgements). Or, rather, is there an inate prick in those who are drawn to either religious fundamentalism or atheism?

Such are the questions that keep me reading idealist philosophy. Since its 19th-century proponents were almost all pricks of various theistic and atheistic hues, I figure they have a certain insight that will help me, one whose religosity / irreligiosity is admittedly idiosyncratic and subject to fluid redefinition, function in gainful society.