My view on the matter is that there are those individual atheists, or atheistic movements, that do have a lot in common with various religions; and because they are loud, and vocal, and make a good try at being missionaries in their own way, they are also the groups of atheists that a lot of people will run into first, despite quite possibly being in the minority; and thus, despite being quite possibly a minority, there exist quite a lot of people who have only, ever met that sort of atheist; that is to say, in their minds, that is the pattern which the word “atheist” matches to.
My view on the matter is that there are those individual atheists, or atheistic movements, that do have a lot in common with various religions; and because they are loud, and vocal, and make a good try at being missionaries in their own way, they are also the groups of atheists that a lot of people will run into first, despite quite possibly being in the minority; and thus, despite being quite possibly a minority, there exist quite a lot of people who have only, ever met that sort of atheist; that is to say, in their minds, that is the pattern which the word “atheist” matches to.
It’s not only a matter of meet.
It’s a matter of those people strongly self identifying as atheist will other people don’t care that much about the question.