I wish that I could honestly say that when I was a young child , before I came to find atheism so compelling , I had invented my own alternative spirituality to that of evangelical Christianity , but I can not . When you don't know any different , and the dichotomous choice is between Jesus and Satan , you are going to tend to want to choose to accept Jesus . Although in retrospect , I think that worshiping care bears would have been preferable even .

Buddhism and atheism aren’t mutually exclusive. Sure there are dogmatic, superstitious versions of Buddhism if you’re raised in it but there’s no belief in god or the supernatural required to be philosophically Buddhist.