Note: This is the first in a series of articles written by various contributors on the influence of the internet on the free-thought movement.
13 years ago, when the internet revolution was still in it’s infancy, a young man from South India stumbled onto an online community where people discussed complex and blasphemous subjects. He found the intensity of the debates and the intelligence of the conversations a refreshing change from the usual stuff he was used to. The boy had long decided that the tales he was told as a kid were untrue, but he had never considered that his 
beliefs were consequential to his social relationships and life choices, until the religion of the woman he loved had come between them. He had realized then for the first time that leaving the religious community that had been an integral part of his life was not a simple matter of dusting his hands and carrying on with life. With the help of the internet he took his first steps on a long journey of self-discovery and social acceptance.
The intenet has become integral to the free-thought movement today. Many young atheists, skeptics, rationalists, naturalists and secularists cannot imagine how people like themselves managed to be informed and organize before the invention of the world wide web.
Hemant Mehta recently posted a question on his popular blog, Friendly Atheist, asking readers if they would be atheists now if it wasn’t for the internet. The comments that followed were informative. Here is a quick breakdown; remember that this is not representative of the entire atheist population. More than half said that they already were self-identified atheists before the internet revolution or that they would have become atheists regardless of the internet. A much smaller group, about 2 in 10 commenters, said that they would probably not have become atheists if it wasn’t for the internet. The rest believed they may have become passive atheists even without the internet but that they would probably not have given it much thought and may never have identified themselves openly as atheists. A large portion of readers thought that without the internet they would have remained lonely in their beliefs, not become as passionate about them and would probably have remained uninformed about some things that were now core beliefs.
