When I was in high school in the late 90s, it certainly wasn't a popular opinion to be an atheist, the few times I brought up that religious organizations were questionable, or seemed to do a lot of backtracking through history, it did not go over well. I kept my atheistic beliefs to myself. This wasn't bible belt territory either, we are talking about a suburb of NYC.
I read Nietzsche on my own in high school, and just felt so relieved that I wasn't alone with these thoughts and wasn't just some weirdo. The internet was nothing like it was today, chatrooms were the forum for discussion and there might have been some geocities pages devoted to atheistic belief, but it was still in the dark corners.
It amazed me when I saw that /r/atheism was a front and center thing when I first started going to reddit. It devolved over time into a version of /r/IamVerySmart, but that IMHO was an amazing outlet for those having doubts about all the crap being shoved down their throat their whole lives. It would have saved me a lot of anxiety growing up.
Al Gore got up and apologized for a funding policy theory he had. He thought if we brought the Internet to rural areas that the brain drain would stop. (I argue that with Seattle and the Valley getting so crowded we might be on the cusp of something like what he thought would happen, but with smaller regional cities).
What happened instead was that marginalized people all over the US found out they weren’t crazy or bad. There were people who thought just like them three hours away. So they picked up and moved to the city faster than ever.
That is an interesting thought. It might also help explain why we have become far more polarized as a nation over the last 20 years. I think net/net we are better off as a society though, I don't recall the source, but I do remember reading a research paper that concluded that colocating minds had a multiplicative effect on increasing scientific knowledge.
On a somewhat related note: A lot of people cite the "faces of atheism" meme/trend whatever you want to call it as being the tipping point when /r/atheism just went too far and it became cringey. I mean some of those posts were a bit cringey, but overall I think it sent a very needed message- that there are lots of people out there from all walks of life that think like you do, don't think you have to give in to the prevailing beliefs. I don't think my upbringing was that abnormal- questioning the existence of god, my parents/family would have smacked me, probably verbally but if I really pushed it they likely would have punished me. My friends all seemed to firmly believe as well but were generally tolerant, it certainly seems you could be a social pariah in more religious parts of the country. Being exposed to new ideas like this I am sure spawned some people to say to themselves I don't have to go along with all this crap, there are bigger and better things out there.
I read Nietzsche on my own in high school, and just felt so relieved that I wasn't alone with these thoughts and wasn't just some weirdo. The internet was nothing like it was today, chatrooms were the forum for discussion and there might have been some geocities pages devoted to atheistic belief, but it was still in the dark corners.
It amazed me when I saw that /r/atheism was a front and center thing when I first started going to reddit. It devolved over time into a version of /r/IamVerySmart, but that IMHO was an amazing outlet for those having doubts about all the crap being shoved down their throat their whole lives. It would have saved me a lot of anxiety growing up.