AFAIK it’s still pro-atheism. And Ron Paul was basically the only Republican not in bed with the Halliburtons of the world, which was considered progressive in 2008.
I think a more fair characterization of reddit at that time was firmly anti-theism. I'm not religious, but I definitely remember those days from when I was still the primary demographic of Reddit (early 20s male in college, hyper-jacked into to news, IT-worker and programmer, science-focused, etc.).
Somewhere along the way, Reddit (and HN?) drifted SO left-wing that it started non-ironically referring to “libertarian” and “far-right” as interchangeable.
“Far-right atheists”. Okay.
r/atheism was a default sub in those days. r/politics was mostly Ron Paul. Both things can be true at the same time without working together.