What an incredibly undervalued post. Excellent article my friend.
I am also an Atheist but was raised as a Christian.
Personally, I didn't know what I believed until I studied science at university. Before that, I simply viewed religion as absurd and the story of creation as quite frankly, insane.
It wasn't until I had the opportunity to study evolution that everything began to make sense and the whole concept of religion to really, really become a completely insane concept in my mind.
For a long time I was what would be considered an angry Atheist. I would rage against religion and have heated debates with those who truly believed in the creation story.
Now, I am a quiet Atheist. I no longer care strongly about what others believe. Unless of course, that their belief and behaviour is harming others. Then I'll enter the debate. It is a rare day that a religious person can really hold up against a rational debate about how the world came to be and the strange fact that all religious events in the bible only occurred in a very tiny area of the world.
I'm glad that I stumbled blindly across your post. It was a great read, and sad to see such excellent content receiving such a tiny amount of return.