"I do think they say things that they wouldn't say if they were face to face with you, and they can be belittling and argumentative."
Atheist here as well but I think LISAROSE makes an excellent point. The theist threads make me chuckle however I do remember a time when I was one as well. It hurt to start coming to grips with the fact that I had been wrong for a large part of my life. I was hoping that people here would understand. Instead the ridicule was pretty steep, not towards me but towards a lot of others.
There are also some here who have devoted a long time to evolutionary and biological studies and it becomes apparent that they try to use there knowledge not as tool to help someone come to a conclusion but more like a weapon. Not all but some. They usually start off nice then descend into brow-beatery (my word). I have done so as well.
The problem is the word choice that they use are words that they would NEVER say to a persons face. EVER because they know what the end result would be. However, that is the nature of the internet and truthfully, I don't really mind it so much because people need an outlet.