Hmm, I respect your point of view but suspect that it is shaped by your experience. Here’s my stereotypical thought: I wonder if you’re in the USA. Because to many of us in other parts of the world, y’all are insanely focused on religion. It is not like that everywhere.
I consider myself an agnostic (don’t believe in a higher power), but when confronted with insistent christians I readily pivot into atheism (that a higher power does not and cannot exist).
It seems to me that many of those who are seen as atheist are “merely” agnostic, and this misinterpretation stems from a fundamental(ist) “if you’re not with us you’re against us” belief system.