There are atheists who remain ideationally religious. These are the atheists in whose forms of thinking lurk hidden vestiges of their religious upbringing or enculturation. They are, like me, still driven to seek transcendental redemption of some kind or other.
On the other hand, what I call “non-vestigial atheists,” are atheists for whom no hidden vestiges of a religious way of thinking lurk in their forms of cognition. Their problem is, thus, pure and unadulterated. The thousands of years of Western culture’s attempt to provide redemption through religion is a strategy; it is not the problem. However, the problem looks different to one who does not possess that strategy of mitigation and defusal. For most people the solution (religion) comes before the problem (existential dread). Before they ever cognize their finitude on their own and realize the dreadfulness of their existential situation on their own, they are provided the religious solution, which keeps such questions from harming them. Ego-threatening questions can and do arise against the bulwarks their religion provides. But, as I said, when a solution is ready to hand, then it’s not really the same problem. Or it is not experienced as the same problem. How much of a problem is it for your weekend hike when you come to a deep abyss down to a raging river if you have a suspension bridge to carry you safely across? The bridge sways and you worry about its stability, but this is nothing like the experience of the person who approaches the same cliffs with no bridge available at all.
Here we have the problem faced by non-vestigial atheists. An abyss with no bridge.
We want to ascend to the heights of a transcendental realm where we will be redeemed, yet we no longer believe in anything transcendental and certainly nothing transcendentally redeeming.