Faith of the Atheist

There are hundreds of thousands of atheists in the world so all of us probably meet and talk with and write to many each day. The purpose of this work is to better understand them and what faith they have so as to get along better with one another.
Along the way we will establish some definitions to make the playing field level as we try to understand how various atheists differ from one another and other persons with their faiths and beliefs.
We will look at some famous atheists and look at what influenced them and what changed for some of them as they matured to adults from childhood. We will make some comparisons between atheists and those calling themselves Christians.

My wish is to better understand my fellow man and hence to try to picture the faiths that are different from mine.