Fundie redefinition of: religion, atheism, science, to posit a false equivalence.
Straw man of atheism and of atheists. While knowledge may lead to atheism, just the lack of evidence for the existence of deities is enough for a lack of belief, with atheism actually being just that, the non-belief in deities. The only tenet could be defeated by actual evidence of a deity.
Atheists are people who may come from any tradition, or may adhere to other philosophy and knowledge, your generalization is still false. If atheism was "a religion", we could also describe its theology, eschatology and rituals...
Even science must be careful about teleology, meaning that there is also a straw man of science here: discoveries about our origins by studying the natural world are of another category than assuming purpose behind or in it. Acknowledgement of the unknown at the source, instead of imposing imaginary cause and purpose, is a significant distinction.
I'll add this since you're a also a dominionist: it's also important not to confuse secular state with state atheism...
Interesting comments about strong atheism, I agree that there's an assumption of lack of existence. Still, outside of philosophy and mind games, it's a sound reality-based assumption, in critical thinking there are premises and in the scientific method, while we can hypothesize about the unknown, practical science like technology or hard experiments rest on what works, giving credence to "existence" of something behind.
If it's outside of physics, we can imagine worlds and beings and there is plenty of evidence that humans do that. We also know how humans attempt to transmit their ideas to others (some type of physical medium is required for transmission) and how others are influenced by those communications, while only really having access to their own interpretation of the result. Until there is evidence of verifiable objective collective unified knowledge or evidence of those ideas having an effect on reality without relying on our bodies, it's valid to admit that it remains games of the human mind (an assessment compatible with agnosticism and atheism)...
With reality, while one can always argue about the "fabric", it is much easier to create specific instruments and devise tests that satisfy assumptions like the "existence" of a specific object that anybody can verify/confirm with the same instruments. We can also test the persistence of objects when minds are oblivious or blind to them, design tests that take in consideration the vulnerabilities and unreliability of our brains, the complexity and variation of our body processes, etc.
There's much idealist fantasy about minds producing reality, but no actual evidence of that, except for our own perception of reality and the culture we produce. Then there is much evidence of neurological correlates of minds, consciousness and perception. Apologetic argument traditions will continue to justify belief and entertain fantasy, like quantum mysticism, because we're just humans, then where there is vulnerability and appeal, it also means providers, art, entertainment and even some predatory businesses...
