Poppagator, I humblybeg to differ about atheism. It isn't the firm conviction of the impossibility of deity, it is the understanding that deity has no influence on the natural world. You say Atheism, on the other hand, is something else altogether. In order to maintain the dogmatic belief that an eternal spiritual/metphysical Being COULD NOT POSSIBLY EXIST, it seems to be psychologically necessary for the adherent to steadfastly maintain a petulant and scornful attitude toward all who disagree. Too bad all that energy couldn't be focused in a more positive direction.
I say rather that we allow that natural principles, such as those discovered by physics, chemistry, biochemistry and studies of electromagnetism or other means, explain the origins of life, the diversity of life, consciousness and the human experience of it all, without requiring supernatural explanations of anything. Our take is to look, for instance, at the beauty of a cathedral and the plain brick schoolhouses to think that it is the religious, instead, whose energy is regrettably misdirected.

But back to the thread: I live in the buckle on the US Bible Belt, and had to make efforts to counteract the common cultural acceptance of the reality of God (the Christian, oh, ok judeochristian one god to rule them all). Luckily, I grew up exposed to animism, islam, and christianity in fairly equal doses with judaism thrown in in occasional but large doses, so I encouraged my twins to learn all the mythologies, including the bible stories, and whenever they asked a question about the natural world I answered it based on reason and knowledge. They are fine upstanding young atheists who do the right thing because it is the right thing to do in this life, without worrying about invisible intangible beings who may influence some other life we aren't actually living.