I have a somewhat similar experience. As a teen, I prefered to spend holidays with christian groups, although the religion never made sense to me. The reasons ? No or moderate alcohol drinking, extremely rare smoking with no peer pressure to try it, possibility to sing and not embarass myself, possibility to discuss what is right and wrong and not embarass myself. Mild and more merciful manifestations of the pecking order compared to the world outside of the community. (Christian groups do have their alpha individuals, no mistake in that, but they are nicer about it). More volunteering inside this group than outside. This is obviously a comparison based on people I knew personaly, no statistical survey with standard deviatons etc. I certainly could find atheists and agnostics which would have such qualities, but that was sort of hand-picking of isolated individuals. The Christians were a ready-to-go group I could just join, if I wanted to have some fun with more people around me.