I have a quick question for you. A personal perspective question. Would you consider yourself as a follower of Confucious? Some people consider Confucism as a religion, but since there is no diety or talk of afterlife others do not. Yet like other relgions, has an ethics system. There's something that just "athesiem" doesn't teach (other than beliefs in Scientology and belief in no diety), morals and ethics. If we truly are just animals, why not act like them? This is why I believe humans must be superior for a reason. There are tons of animals that have been deemed to be very intelligent and think faster than humans yet they aren't capable of what we've done throughout time.
When the term Athiesm is used, the first thing one wouldn't think about is ethics.