You might want to check out my response to another comment on this article (link below), where I distinguish between atheism and atheists, and point out that while atheism is indeed just the lack of theistic belief, atheists are also a group of people who require a positive worldview to function. Not all atheists have the same positive beliefs, of course, but they tend to be secular humanists and many are neoliberal or progressive, for example.

Moreover, as I say in the article, atheists usually support their rejection of theism by appealing to reason. Therefore atheists are also “committed at least to the paradigmatic institution of reason, which is technoscience.” And what is expected to lie at the end of technoscientific advances, even if just in our imagination or hope? The perfected, godlike transhuman, as is clear from science fiction. Hence the incoherence or hypocrisy.

By the way, I’m an atheist. My “Top Three Criticisms” series is a philosophical exercise in which I develop the best objections to some viewpoint that I can think of, even if I don’t agree with them or if I’m taking the devil’s advocate position.

https://medium.com/@tessaschlesinger/wow-you-dont-know-many-atheists-do-you-d8238d55595