I have a gut feeling that lukeprog was still fairly fond of his really stupid beliefs when he arrived in college, but his newfound peers (1) didn't criticize anything until some mutual levels of respect and liking had built up, and (2) criticized the most peripheral manifestations of those beliefs, like gender/sexual politics, not the existence of a deity.

Regardless of that gut feeling, I didn't get "boo nonconformity" at all from his anecdote; I got "be aware of peer pressure, which is in some circumstances a pressure so deep as to affect your very belief system."