It seems like you've really loaded up the term "atheist" here with a lot of negative connotation. It's unfortunate, but a lot of people seem to think this way. Truth is, everyone in the world is an atheist if you just take the word at its basic definition of "a lack of belief in a god or god(s)". That is, there are surely gods you've never even heard of and so you lack belief in them. The way you feel about those unknown gods is the same way I feel about all gods
But the label of atheist has been imbued with all sorts of negativity. So much so that some people hear it and think being an atheist actually makes someone evil, without any care for the well-being of other humans. Or they think the atheist must be miserable and unfeeling.
It's why I don't even use the term any more. I don't know if other people I'm talking to will have the same definition of the term that I do. If someone asks me about my religious beliefs, I simply say that I have none.
I mean, did you live through the new Atheism and then the Atheism+ movement of the 2000s and 2010s? I watched peoples lives get ruined, mentally unwell people commit suicide, people get arrested for embezzling donations, the works.
The “atheist community” (and it was oddly enough a real thing for awhile, with atheist church and everything! Look up Oasis on YouTube). It attracted people who were hedonistic and amoral and, in retrospect, went down in flames about how you’d have expected.
I’m not just some isolated Christian who has never met an atheist deriding them as some sort of bogeyman, I was friends with people in Poly Quads and met spouses who were bullied by their SO into being swingers, then watched 50 year olds behave like teenagers with all the consummate drama as well.
Once we had kids we totally removed ourselves from that situation and it fell apart a few years later, after the leader (who was originally a Christian pastor, I might add) got #metoo’ed for (surprise surprise) having sex with half the women in the organization.
But the label of atheist has been imbued with all sorts of negativity. So much so that some people hear it and think being an atheist actually makes someone evil, without any care for the well-being of other humans. Or they think the atheist must be miserable and unfeeling.
It's why I don't even use the term any more. I don't know if other people I'm talking to will have the same definition of the term that I do. If someone asks me about my religious beliefs, I simply say that I have none.