Bert, spot on for me. And for the record I said that for some atheists it was a passive state of affairs. In that they don't need to do anything about it, they don't go round saying 'hey, I wonder if I believe in any gods today', it's not an active part of their lives.
It's sort of how I am about olives. I don't like them. This in no way affects my life on a day to day basis. It isn't something I think about pretty much ever, unless someone offers me one and I say 'no thanks, not for me'. Occasionally someone will try to press one on me and won't take no for an answer, or someone will tell me I can't have a meal I want without olives. I find that annoying.
There is no olive-shaped hole in my life. I feel no need to find an olive I like. Equally I feel no need to dissuade others from liking olives, or to campaign for olives to be banned. If eating olives became a condition of getting my child into local state schools, or there was a daily olive-eating ceremony in school, I would campaign against that, obviously.
The difference, of course, is that I'm reasonably sure olives exist.
I think the 'bitter' comment was aimed at me as well. What did you base it on? You couldn't be further off the mark.
You talk about 'declaring atheism' as opposed to agnosticism (which a lot of people don't see as discrete categories anyway). I can see why you'd do that if you see religion as the default human condition. I think for many atheists (not me) it's the opposite. Atheism is the default, and they have seen no reasons come along that would lead them to develop religious belief.
For me, atheism was an active choice. I stopped believing in the Christian god and couldn't see any reason to believe in any others. The removal of religious belief meant I was, by default, an atheist. That atheism plays as much a role in my life as not liking olives, only there are fewer MN threads about olives.