[dawg-]

People tend to participate in online communities that affirm their sense of identity. Maybe people who get really involved are those who see atheism as a more important aspect of their identity?

I was definitely turned on to atheism on the internet, but I never really stuck around those forums. I grew up in a fairly liberal Catholic church, so I didn't really relate to all the vehemence against fundamentalism. Even though I grew up in a church, I didn't even know about "young earth creationism" until I learned about it from atheists on the internet. In my science class in Catholic school, we learned all about evolution. We used the same textbooks as the public schools. I don't remember hearing anything bad about LGBT, though I'm sure people talked about it since it was the early 2000's and gay marriage was still a real widespread controversy, as incredibly dumb as that seems now.

Overall I guess my experience was very different from someone who grew up conservative protestant and found atheism. As a result I never hated religion, just didn't believe in it for a while.